Behind Closed Doors

These last two weeks I've been part of a seminar for high school English teachers (and one bold Math teacher) called Common Ground, reading a list of books organized around an expansive idea of of secrets and repression. Exploring how keeping secrets from ourselves is a key part of the way we make sense of the world (by blocking out material it's not convenient to know about ourselves and others), at the same time that we are deeply informed by the awarenesses that we work so hard to repress, on personal, familial, national and global levels.

Here's the book list:

Marcel Proust, Combray
Meredith Hall, Without a Map
Dalia Sofer, Septembers of Shiraz
Toni Morrison, A Mercy           
Deborah Rodriguez, Kabul Beauty School
Fran Ross, Oreo                
Harryette Mullen, Sleeping with the Dictionary
Zoe Heller, The Believers
Yiyun Li, The Vagrants
Junot Diaz, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

It was a great two weeks!