Friends is excited to welcome award-winning author Diana Abu-Jaber, who will entertain our Brown Bag Lunch guests with 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 prestigious 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.” Please join Friends for what promises to be a lively and humorous presentation. Friends sponsors the Wednesday Brown Bag Lunch Program once a month as a community event. Patrons are welcome to bring their lunch and light refreshments will be provided.  For additional information, please call the Main Library at the number listed or contact Friends of the Main Library St. Augustine at folmainlibrary@gmail.com.