Dr. Roger Durham will give a talk titled "On the Brink: Afghanistan and Pakistan" as part of the Community Reading Project, which has selected "Three Cups of Tea" by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin as this year's selection.
The lecture is Monday, February 1 at 6 p.m. in the Room 2204 Kirkhof Center.
Durham will contextualize the main topics of the book. He is a
professor of political science and coordinator of international
studies at Aquinas College.
For more information, visit www.gvsu.edu/read.
This is the fifth annual Community Reading Project at Grand
Valley State University.
"Three Cups of Tea," published in 2006, is the story
of how Mortenson, an American nurse, kept his promise to villagers in
Pakistan to build them a school. The project eventually became the
Central Asia Institute, which has contructed more than 50 schools in
Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The title comes from a proverb a villager told Mortenson: “The
first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger. The second
time, you are an honored guest. The third time you become family.”
The book was a New York Times bestseller and has received a host
of awards, including Kiriyama Prize Nonfiction Award, Pacific
Northwest Booksellers Association Nonfiction Award and Time Magazine’s
Asia Book of the Year.
Mortenson will give a lecture about the book on campus on April 6.
The Community Reading Project is sponsored by the College of Interdisciplinary Studies, University Libraries and University Bookstore.
