CALL FOR IDEAS — Updated 27 April

Electra Street invites you to suggest titles for the first annual “Abu Dhabi Reads” project. Based on the popular “One Book” programs that are sponsored by libraries across the United States, “Abu Dhabi Reads” is designed to bring people together around a shared reading experience for no other than reason to promote discussion and to exchange ideas. “Abu Dhabi Reads” is for everyone — not only NYUAD faculty, staff, and students, but also the larger Abu Dhabi community.

We invite your suggestions for a “good read.” From those suggestions, we will choose three finalists and the conduct an online poll that will enable interested readers to determine our first selection. Next fall, Electra Street will sponsor a series of discussions and talks about the book you’ve chosen.

We’re particularly interested in texts that are available both in English and in Arabic. To make a suggestion, please leave a comment on this post. If you prefer, you may send your suggestion via e-mail to electra.nyuad@gmail.com with the subject line “Abu Dhabi Reads.”

To make a suggestion, please leave a comment on this post. If you prefer, you may send your suggestion via e-mail to electra.nyuad@gmail.com with the subject line “Abu Dhabi Reads.”

Here’s a list of titles suggested so far:

Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven [Info]
Turki al-Hamad, Adama trilogy [Info]
Ray Bradbury, Farenheit 451 [Info]
Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities [Info]
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks [Info]
George Orwell, 1984 [Info]
Keija Parssinen, The Ruins of Us [Review]
Daniel Quinn, Ishmael [Info]
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind [Original title: La Sombra del Viento] [Review]

Keep those suggestions coming!