The Villages - May 2020 - 40

AROUND THE VILLAGES
POPULAR IN FICTION

BOOK LOVERS' CORNER
VILLAGES AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT:

A Good Neighborhood
by Therese Anne Fowler

A heartbreaking and provocative
read, Fowler's story involves
racism and young love that
may never get a chance to
blossom. Oak Knoll is a
tight-knit North Carolina
neighborhood where
Valerie Alston-Holt is
raising her bright and
talented biracial son,
Xavier - who is headed to college
in the fall. When the Whitmans move in next door with
their secretly troubled teenaged daughter, everything
changes. "A Good Neighborhood" asks the hard
questions about life in our society today - what does
it mean to be a good neighbor, and how do we live
alongside each other when we don't see eye to eye?

POPULAR IN NONFICTION
Unknown Valor: A Story
of Family, Courage, and
Sacrifice from Pearl Harbor
to Iwo Jima
by Martha MacCallum

It's been called one of the
bloodiest and most brutal
battles of World War II - Iwo
Jima. In 36 grueling days,
nearly 7,000 Marines were
killed and 22,000 were
wounded. In honor of
the 75th anniversary of
the critical battle, Martha
MacCallum pays tribute to the
heroic men who sacrificed everything. "Unknown
Valor" is a family memoir, a personal history story of
small-town America at war and a chronicle of Marine
amphibious landings from 1942 to 1945. It is a
beautifully written and rousing reminder that much
of what we now take for granted was given to us by
the sacrifices of those whom we must never forget.
40

MAY 2020

FA M I LY T A L E S
FROM TEHRAN
by Manijeh Badiozamani,
Village of Pine Ridge

Genre: non-fiction, memoir
In this book of 46 vignettes, Manijeh takes us to her childhood
home - her grandfather's house
- near the Big Bazaar in Tehran,
the teeming capital of Iran. Growing up between the traditional
and the modern, she recreates the Tehran of the 1940s and
1950s, before she emigrated to America. We meet her quirky
family and friends and discover the impact they had on her
life. The stories are laced with humor and occasional sadness.
After 40 years, when she returns to Tehran to care for her aging mother, the spotlight is on the cultural differences and
the universal problems of aging.
Q: WHAT PROMPTED YOU TO WRITE YOUR BOOK?
I am a first-generation emigrant to America. I have lived here
for more than 50 years. I wanted to leave a cultural legacy for
my grandkids and family to understand my childhood growing up in Iran.
Q: WHAT DO YOU HOPE READERS TAKE AWAY
FROM YOUR BOOK?
I hope they get a glimpse of what family life was like in
another country 50 years ago; to understand the similarities
between cultures and that we all deal with many of the
same problems and difficulties.
Q: WHAT CLUBS, AC TIVITIES AND
HOBBIES DO YOU ENJOY?
Yoga, bone-builders, swimming and
volunteering at the Pinellas Library.
Q: ANY THING ELSE?
I'm a retired college professor and I
moved here from Colorado about three years ago.

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The Villages - May 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Villages - May 2020