One Book Selection Announced

A Mountain of Crumbs, a memoir by Elena Gorokhova, has been announced as the 2012 One Book One Community selection just in time to add to summer reading lists or consider for fall semester course syllabi. The county-wide program is designed to share the joy of reading and the free exchange of ideas through a common book. It also supports NMU's Road Map emphasis on community engagement.

Gorokhova's novel has been called the "Russian equivalent of Angela's Ashes." According to publisher Simon and Schuster, it tells the story of a Soviet girl who discovers the truths adults are hiding from her and the lies her homeland lives by. The majestic Russia of literature and the tsars has been displaced by a nation struggling to retain its power and pride.

"Born with a desire to explore the world beyond her borders, Elena finds her passion in the complexity of the English language—but in the Soviet Union of the 1960s such a passion verges on the subversive. Elena is controlled by the state the same way she is controlled by her mother, a mirror image of her motherland: overbearing, protective, difficult to leave. In the battle between a strong-willed daughter and her authoritarian mother, the daughter, in the end, must break free and leave in order to survive."

A series of related activities and discussions will be held this fall. For updates, visit One Book. For more information on the book and author, visit Elena Gorokhova.