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DC Reads - Loot by Tania James

A virtual, citywide book club

A special DC Reads book discussion of Tania James's Loot.

DC Reads is back, and this year, we are doing things a little different. In partnership with the PEN/Faulkner Foundation's Voices of DC event, we are inviting the community to read and discuss three different titles written by members of DC's literary community. We will host three different online book discussions culminating in a live conversation with all three authors in February.

Our first January discussion will focus on Tania James's Loot, a spellbinding historical novel. Check out the book with your library card or look for giveaway copies of the book at your neighborhood library courtesy of the DC Public Library Foundation. Register below, and we will send information about the online conversation as well as the following events in January and February.

About the book: A spellbinding historical novel set in the eighteenth century: a hero’s quest, a love story, the story of a young artist coming of age, and an exuberant heist adventure that traces the bloody legacy of colonialism across two continents and fifty years.

Abbas is just seventeen years old when his gifts as a woodcarver come to the attention of Tipu Sultan, and he is drawn into service at the palace in order to build a giant tiger automaton for Tipu’s sons, a gift to commemorate their return from British captivity. His fate—and the fate of the wooden tiger he helps create—will mirror the vicissitudes of nations and dynasties ravaged by war across India and Europe.

Working alongside the legendary French clockmaker Lucien du Leze, Abbas hones his craft, learns French, and meets Jehanne, the daughter of a French expatriate.  When Du Leze is finally permitted to return home to Rouen, he invites Abbas to come along as his apprentice. But by the time Abbas travels to Europe, Tipu’s palace has been looted by British forces, and the tiger automaton has disappeared. To prove himself, Abbas must retrieve the tiger from an estate in the English countryside, where it is displayed in a collection of plundered art.

About the author: TANIA JAMES is the author of the novels The Tusk That Did the Damage and Atlas of Unknowns and the short story collection Aerogrammes. Her fiction has appeared in Boston Review, Granta, Guernica, One Story, A Public Space, and The Kenyon Review. She lives in Washington, D.C.

About DC Reads: DC Reads is a DC Public Library program that promotes citywide conversations focused on a single book. Past titles have included How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith, Good Talk by Mira Jacob, and Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires. We are delighted to expand the program to three titles this year and focus on writers from right here in the DC community.

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