book clubbing in December

Because the Libraries' holiday party was scheduled for today, our book club meeting was rescheduled for Thursday of last week. Voting for our 2008 and 2009 selections is going on right now - so exciting - so expect that list to be posted sometime in the middle of next month (the results of our last round of voting are listed in this post).

In any case, our selection for this month was Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi.

Persepolis is Satrapi's wise, funny, and heartbreaking memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran's last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country.

I was excited to read the book because I've had Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return (rescued from the bargain bin at a local independent bookstore) on my shelves for a while without a good excuse to pick up the first book.

Persepolis was a relatively quick read, but one that bears re-reading. I really appreciated how Satrapi's drawing style complimented the subject matter (expressive, but spare so as to not overwhelm the actual story she was telling). Probably my favorite part of the book was Marji's relationship with God and how it is depicted.

For some of the people in our book club, this was their first experience with graphic novels. A librarian who specializes in graphic novels was in attendance so he ended up leading the discussion. And, while there is much to discuss in the book itself, we ended up talking mostly about graphic novels in general.