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  The Schedule for July through Dec. 2025
  
By Lynn · 1 post · 47 views
By Lynn · 1 post · 47 views
    last updated Jun 20, 2025 08:37AM
  
  
  Call for Nominations - Reading List, January-June 2026
  
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    By Lynn · 7 posts · 19 views
    last updated 22 hours, 7 min ago
  
  
            
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  Welcome to Constant Reader
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  A Book From Every Country
  
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      By Sherry , Doyenne · 35 posts · 87 views
    last updated Feb 09, 2014 11:28PM
  
  
What Members Thought
  
              
            
Amazing piece of non-fiction that reads like a novel. The narrator of the audio version did a magnificent job with the accents and making the people come to life. Katherine Boo has illuminated the often complex lives of slum dwellers in Mumbai and how even in the worst of circumstances human beings create a community to survive. The events in the book are harrowing and the cultural differences in the justice system, with corruption rampant, starkly deviates from what Americans take for granted. 
  
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I'm going to go against the grain here and say that this book was just OK for me.
May be it's because I grew up in a country where slums exist, and I knew of the hardship slum dwellers had going for them. I've always felt lucky to be where I am and to have what I have. So the story of Annawadi, a small slum near Mumbai's International Airport, and its inhabitants don't surprise me much. But I do find the hope that exists in Annawadi a bit refreshing. People are hoping to breakout of the life they ...more
      
  May be it's because I grew up in a country where slums exist, and I knew of the hardship slum dwellers had going for them. I've always felt lucky to be where I am and to have what I have. So the story of Annawadi, a small slum near Mumbai's International Airport, and its inhabitants don't surprise me much. But I do find the hope that exists in Annawadi a bit refreshing. People are hoping to breakout of the life they ...more
  
              
            
A heartbreaking yet oddly uplifting portrait of family and friends in a Mumbai slum. To be, this was like a modern answer to A Fine Balance. having spent time in India, there was a lot I could recognize.
  
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We need to be reminded how different our experience on this planet is from that of others who live here. How can we ever find common ground when our worlds are so very different? How does a child of this world grow up and assimilate into a world like mine? Even if they could do it. But I know people do -- with experiences just as bad or worse. It seems we shouldn't look so thoughtlessly at immigrants to claw their way illegally into our world. We have no idea what they went through to get here. 
  
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Beautiful writing that almost makes it hard to believe it's non-fiction. Almost like reading Slumdog Millionaire. One of the best books I have read in a while. 
  
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        Dec 30, 2012
      
        Tricia
      
          marked it as to-read
    
      
  
  
        Feb 11, 2013
      
        Erika
      
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        Jun 14, 2013
      
        Jason Fagone
      
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        Mar 30, 2015
      
        Megan
      
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        Jan 03, 2016
      
        ellen kozyra
      
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        May 13, 2016
      
        Kristina
      
          marked it as to-read
    
      
  






















