Daniel Boone Regional Library

About the Book

“The Ruins of Us” is a fast-paced work of contemporary fiction that explores the terrain of family relationships complicated by cultural conflict.

After more than 20 years of marriage to wealthy Saudi Abdullah al-Baylani, Rosalie, an American expatriate, discovers that her husband has taken a Palestinian second wife, which makes her contemplate escaping both the marriage and the country she has grown to love. Leaving will not be easy, however, given the country’s restrictions on women and the needs of her teenage children – a headstrong daughter becoming increasingly westernized and a son succumbing to radicalism.

The book’s publisher describes “The Ruins of Us” as  “a timely story about intolerance, family and the injustices we endure for love.”

About the Author

Keija Parssinen was born in Saudi Arabia and lived there for 12 years as a third-generation expatriate. She earned a degree in English literature from Princeton University and received her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she held a Truman Capote Fellowship and a Teaching-Writing Fellowship. “The Ruins of Us” is her first novel. Parssinen lives in Columbia, Missouri, where she is the Director of the Quarry Heights Writers’ Workshop, a community for Columbia’s creative writers.

Biographical information from www.keijaparssinen.com and www.harpercollins.com

More information:

• Author’s Website
• Publisher’s Page
• Publisher’s Reading Group Guide
• The Guardian Review
• Publisher’s Weekly Review
• Author Interview With The Missouri Review

• Books & Authors Database
• Google Books
• Goodreads
• LibraryThing
• Shelfari

Each winter, the public submits suggestions for next year’s One Read book. In January, a panel of community members reviews the suggestions, narrowing that list down to 10 titles, and then chooses two or three books to present for a public vote.

 

Final 10 Selections

• Arcadia
  Lauren Groff
• The Call (Runner-up)
  Yannick Murphy
• The Cat’s Table
  Michael Ondaatje
• Gone Girl
  Gillian Flynn
• Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking
  Susan Cain

• The Ruins of Us (Winner)
  Keija Parssinen
• State of Wonder
  Ann Patchett
• Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
  Cheryl Strayed
• The World Without Us
  Alan Weisman
• The Yellow Birds
  Kevin Powers

Other Suggested Titles

• Abe
  Richard Slotkin
• The Alchemist
  Coelho, Paulo
• The Barbarian Nurseries
  Hector Tober
• Battle Royale
  Koushun Takami
• Battleborn
  Claire Baye Watkins
• Before I Forget
  Leonard Pitts
• Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in A Mumbai Undercity
  Katherine Boo
• Being Dead Is No Excuse
  Gayden Metcalf
• The Black Count
  Tom Reiss
• Black Water Rising
  Attica Locke
• The Book of Jonas
  Stephen Dau
• The Book Thief
  Markus Zusak,
• The Boys of My Youth
  Jo Ann Beard
• Bridge of Scarlet Leaves
  Kristina McMorris
• Caleb’s Crossing
  Geraldine Brooks
• Calligraphy of the Witch
  Alicia Gaspar de Alba
• Cat of the Century
  Rita Mae Brown
• The Chaperone
  Laura Moriarity
• City of Thieves
  David Benioff
• Civil War in the Ozarks
  Phillip Steele
• Cleaning House: A Mom’s 12-month Experiment to Rid Her Home of Youth Entitlement
  Kay Wills Wyma
• Cloud Atlas
  David Mitchell
• Cold Mountain
  Charles Frazier
• Complete Persepolis
  Marjane Satrapi
• Confessions of a Murder Suspect
  James Patterson
• Conquistadora
  Esmeralda Santiago
• Day After Night
  Anita Diamant
• Deadline Artists
  John P Avlon
• Deep and Dark and Dangerous
  Mary Dawning Haun
• Defending Jacob
  William Landay
• Destiny of the Republic
  Candice Millard
• Discovery of Witches
  Deborah Harkness
• A Dog’s Purpose
  W. Bruce Cameron
• The Doomsday Book
  Connie Willis
• The Dovekeepers
  Alice Hoffman
• Eat the Document
  Dana Spiotta
• Emergency : This Book Will save your Life
  Neil Strauss
• Enemy Women
  Paulette Jiles
• Evidence of Things Unseen
  Marianne Wiggins
• Fahrenheit 451
  Ray Bradbury
• The Fault In Our Stars
  John Green
• Fifty Shades of Grey
  E.L. James
• Freeman
  Leonard Pitts
• The Fresco
  Sheri Tepper
• Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café
  Fannie Flagg
• The Gardener
  S.A. Bodeen
• Girl in Translation
  Jean Kwok
• The Glass Castle
  Jeanette Walls
• God’s Hotel
  Victoria Sweet
• A Good American
  Alex George
• Gotcha Gas–Debacle Near Roswell
  M.A. Banak & Wm. Weimer
• The Grace of Silence
  Michele Norris
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
  Mary Ann Shaffer
• Half the Sky
  Nicholas Kristof
• The Handmaid’s Tale
  Margaret Atwood
• The Heart and the Fist
  Eric Greitens
• Heart in the Right Place
  Carolyn Jourdan
• The Help
  Kathryn Stocket
• The History of Love
  Nicole Krauss
• Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
  Jamie Ford
• How to Read the Air
  Dinaw Mengestu
• I Am the Messenger
  Markus Zusak
• I, Fatty
  Jerry Stahl
• In the Service of the King
  Naomi Novik
• In the Shadow of the Banyan
  Vaddey Ratner
• The Invisibles
  Hugh Sheehey

• Jesse James and the Civil War in Missouri
  Robert Dyer
• Juno’s Daughters
  Lise Saffran
• The Kite Runner
  Khaled Hossenini
• The Koran
• The Language of Flowers
  Vanessa Diffenbaugh
• The Last Kind Words
  Tom Piccirilli
• Light Between Oceans
  M.L. Stedman
• The Marriage Plot
  Jeffrey Eugenides
• May the Road Rise Up to Meet You
  Peter Troy
• Memoirs
  Pablo Neruda
• Mercury 13
  Martha Ackmann
• Middlesex
  Jeffrey Eugenides
• Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War
  Tony Horwitz
• Mrs. Robinson’s Disgrace
  Kate Summerscale
• Neicy
  Akasha Hull
• Never Say Die
  Susan Jacoby
• Neverwhere
  Neil Gaiman
• New Moon
  Stephenie Meyer
• Night Circus
  Erin Morgenstern
• Not so Dolce Vita: Reflections in a Read Convertible
  Julia Falkner-Tompkins
• The Omnivore’s Dilemma
  Michael Pollan
• The Other Wes Moore
  Wes Moore
• Paper Angels: A Novel
  Jimmy Wayne
• Paper Towns
  John Green
• The People of the Book
  Geraldine Brooks
• Perfect Chemistry
  Simone Elkes
• A Place in Time
  Wendell Berry
• The Poisonwood Bible
  Barbara Kingsolver
• Polio: an American Story
  David Oshinsky
• The Postmistress
  Sarah Blake
• A Prayer for Owen Meany
  John Irving
• The Presidents Club
  Nancy Gibbs & Michael Duffy
• Pulphead
  John Jeremiah Sullivan
• The Reading Promise
  Alice Ozma
• Ready Player One
  Ernest Cline
• The Road
  Cormac McCarthy
• Saints at the River
  Ron Rash
• Say You’re One of Them
  Uwem Akpan
• The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain
  Barbara Strauch
• Shame the Devil
  Debra Brenegan
• Silent Spring
  Rachel Carson
• Slant of Light
  Steve Wiegenstein
• The Snake Eaters
  Owen West
• The Snow Child
  Eowyn Ivey
• Start Something That Matters
  Blake Mycoskie
• Still Alice
  Lisa Genova
• Story of Charlotte’s Web: E. B. White’s Eccentric Life in Nature and the Birth of an American Classic
  Michael Sims
• The Stranger (L’Etranger)
  Albert Camus
• The Street of a Thousand Blossoms
  Gail Tsukiyama
• Teen Titans
  Scott Lobdell
• Tell the Wolves I’m Home
  Carol Brunt
• Thorn
  Intisar Khanani
• The Tiger’s Wife
  Obreht, Téa
• Torch
  Cheryl Strayed
• Tropic of Cancer
  Henry Miller
• The Turtle Catcher
  Nicole Lea Helget
• Twilight
  Stephenie Meyer
• Unbroken
  Laura Hillenbrand
• Watchman’s Rattle
  Rebecca Costa
• What is the What?
  Dave Eggers
• When Women Were Birds
  Terry Tempest-Williams
• Why We Make Mistakes
  Joseph T. Hallinan
• Winter’s Tale
  Mark Helprin
• Year of Wonders
  Geraldine Brooks
• Zeitoun
  Dave Eggers

Voting for the 2013 One Read book is now closed. We appreciate all of you who cast your vote for either “The Call” by Yannick Murphy or “The Ruins of Us” by Keija Parssinen.

On May 20 we will announce the winning book here at oneread.org.

In the meantime, read more about our finalists!

Photo credit: Avard Woolaver via photopin cc

Vote for the Next One Read Book April 8-26

The Call by Yannick Murphy

The Ruins of Us
by Keija Parssinen Vote for “The Call” Vote for “The Ruins of Us” Thank you for your vote

 

 

The One Read reading panel narrowed the list of more than 140 book suggestions for the 2013 program to two top contenders. Between now and April 26, cast your vote for either “The Call” by Yannick Murphy or “The Ruins of Us” by Keija Parssinen.

“The Call” by Yannick Murphy

A large animal veterinarian in rural New England chronicles a year of his life and his practice in a series of log-like entries. As the days fly by, he saves some animals and doesn’t save others, he ponders nature and time, listens to what his house tells him, worries about the economy, waits for his son to wake from a coma and discovers what it means to be a family. In this highly original book, Murphy paints a quirky, reflective and warm portrait of small-town life that is both funny and deeply moving.

Preview the first few pages of “The Call.”

More information:

• Author’s Website
• Publisher’s Page
• Publisher’s Reading Group Guide
• Boston Globe Review
• Washington Post Review
• Author Interview With The Daily News

• Books & Authors Database
• Google Books
• Goodreads
• LibraryThing
• Shelfari

“The Ruins of Us” by Keija Parssinen

After more than 20 years of marriage to wealthy Saudi Abdullah al-Baylani, Rosalie, an American expatriate, discovers that her husband has taken a Palestinian second wife, which makes her contemplate escaping both the marriage and the country she has grown to love. Leaving will not be easy, however, given the country’s restrictions on women and the needs of her teenage children – a headstrong daughter becoming increasingly westernized and a son succumbing to radicalism. This is an intimate and suspenseful family drama.

Preview the first few pages of “The Ruins of Us.”

More information:

• Author’s Website
• Publisher’s Page
• Publisher’s Reading Group Guide
• The Guardian Review
• Publisher’s Weekly Review
• Author Interview With The Missouri Review

• Books & Authors Database
• Google Books
• Goodreads
• LibraryThing
• Shelfari