THINK ABOUT IT

SOCIAL REVOLUTION...ONE BOOK AT A TIME!

Image credit: JONATHAN BORBA on Unsplash.

From NEWS CANADA

If you love reading and discussing a gripping story, then you might consider starting a book club with family, friends or neighbours.

Book clubs offer opportunities to delve deeper into a good read, while also thinking about inequality and injustice around the world.

This is especially true of books about social justice issues, which might provide insight into the lives of refugees or highlight stories about those fighting for the rights and freedoms that others take for granted. You can also join an existing book club and use their resources to help form your group. Amnesty International, the world’s largest human rights organization, provides free book club resources across Canada and is open to those ages 14 and older.

Since 2014, Amnesty International Book Club has read more than 40 books about human rights, including the rights of Indigenous peoples, women, refugees, LGBTI communities, and more. It is a unique book club in the sense that it offers a way to act on a pertinent human rights issue relevant to every chosen book.

For example, if you’re reading a book about refugees, you’ll also learn how you can help refugees. This could be through signing an online petition, writing a letter or joining a rally to defend refugee rights.

Throughout August, Amnesty International Book Club will read Prisoner of Tehran by Marina Nemat. This memoir retells the author’s life starting at age 16, when she was arrested on false charges by Iranian Revolutionary Guards, tortured in Tehran’s Evin Prison and sentenced to death. It’s an incredible story about Nemat’s forced conversion to Islam, her forced marriage to a prison guard, and her eventual and unlikely release. 

Learn more or join at amnestybookclub.ca