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Thanks to the many, many people who nominated their favorite book for inclusion in One Book, One Bloomington and Beyond 2008. 

The nominees for the 2007-2008 One Book, One Bloomington and Beyond are:

Suite Française, by Irène Némirovsky; translated by Sandra Smith (2006)
A story of life in France under the Nazi occupation includes two parts--"Storm in June," set amid the chaotic 1940 exodus from Paris, and "Dolce," set in a German-occupied village rife with resentment, resistance, and collaboration.

What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, by Dave Eggers (2006)
This fictional book traces the story of two child Sudanese civil war refugees and their witness to the devastation that has torn their homeland, a time during which one struggles to understand what is happening and the other joins the rebel army.

The Girl with the Tngerine Scarf, by Mohja Kahf (2006)
Growing up devoutly Muslim in her 1970s Indiana community, Syrian immigrant Najla Shamy and her siblings struggle to balance the cultures of America and their family, a coming-of-age challenge that the adult Najla remembers years later when she reconnects with friends from other mixed heritages.

On Beauty, by Zadie Smith (2005)
Struggling with a stale marriage and the misguided passions of his three adult children, art professor Howard Belsey finds his family life thrown into turmoil by his son's engagement to the socially prominent daughter of a right-wing icon.

Terrorist, by John Updike (2006)
Eighteen-year-old Ahmad, the son of an Irish-American mother and long-gone Egyptian father, is contemptuous of the self-indulgent society surrounding him, and devoted to the teachings of Islam, becomes drawn into an insidious terrorist plot.

Black Swan Green, by David Mitchell (2006)
A meditative novel of a young boy on the cusp of adulthood follows a single year in the life of thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor as he grows up in what is for him the sleepiest village in Worcestershire, England, in 1982.

The book with the most votes will be selected as this year's One Book, One Bloomington and Beyond title.  You can cast your vote in person at the Wells Library, Information Commons Reference Desk or by e-mail to either:  onebook@mcpl.info or ed@artlives.org.

Voting ends Friday, December 7, 2007.

One Book One Bloomington is a project of the Bloomington Area Arts Council.