Literary Lions Book Club: Author Diana Abu-Jaber "Life Without a Recipe"

Join Friends and the book lovers of Literary Lions Book Club as we welcome award-winning author Diana Abu-Jaber, who will tell tales of family, food, and motherhood from her latest memoir, Life Without a Recipe.

Ms. Abu-Jaber was born in Syracuse, New York to an American mother (Friends member and volunteer Pat Abu-Jaber) and a Jordanian father. Her first award-winning memoir about her experiences in America and Jordan, The Language of Baklava, included family recipes and cross-cultural experiences, and her presentation about it to the Main Library’s Literary Lions Book Club was enthusiastically received and warmly remembered. Now a Professor at Portland State University, Diana has received numerous awards for her subsequent novels, including Arabian Jazz, Origin, Crescent, and Birds of Paradise, named one of the top books of the year by National Public Radio as well as The Washington Post.

Life Without a Recipe, called “a delectably warm and wise memoir” by Kirkus Reviews, follows Ms. Abu-Jaber’s journey growing up with vibrant and outspoken family members in a multicultural household. Their often conflicting advice or “recipes” for life helped shape her choices both personal and professional and led her to forge her own path. “Writing with force, vividness, and absolute hilarity” and “with her trademark joyousness and larger-than-life characters, Abu-Jaber’s memoir speaks…to the new norm of multicultural families and midlife new-motherhood.”

The Literary Lions Book Club author visit will take place in the large meeting room of the Main Library at the address listed. For additional information, contact book club facilitator Toni Siriani at toni825@hotmail.com for more information or call the Main Library at the number listed.