Citrus Libraries Offers Award-Winning Author’s Debut Novel “Twilight Territory” during Worldwide Digital Book Club
Discover the love, war, and resistance in post-World War II Vietnam. Residents of Citrus County can dive into the first novel by award-winning author Andrew X. Pham during Big Library Read, the world’s largest digital book club. From July 11-25, Twilight Territory is available for free as an ebook and audiobook on the Libby app or by visiting libbyapp.com/library/citrus. Library card holders can join thousands of others around the globe in reading the digital book without waitlists or holds, then discuss online. This lushly panoramic, gritty, and profoundly moving novel is both a war story and a love story that offers a fascinating perspective on Vietnam’s struggles to break free of its French colonial past.
This Big Library Read novel is available in more than 22,000 libraries around the world including Citrus Libraries and approximately 90 percent of public libraries in North America. During the program, readers have the opportunity to participate in engaging online discussions about the title. The program is facilitated by OverDrive, the leading digital reading platform for popular ebooks, audiobooks and magazines and creator of the Libby app.
“The Citrus County Library System signed on with OverDrive in 2012 through their original app. In the last decade we have continued to watch digital materials grow in popularity,” said Digital Services Librarian Vicky Leon. “Currently we are on-track to reach one million total digital checkouts since 2012 – a huge milestone for our library system – by the end of our fiscal year.”
Twilight Territory takes place in the peak of the hot season in 1942. The wars in Europe and Asia and the Japanese occupation have upset the uneasy balance of French Indochina. In the Vietnamese fishing village of Phan Thiet, Tuyet struggles to keep afloat working at a small storefront with her aunt, cousin, and her two-year-old daughter. The day Tuyet meets Japanese major Yamazaki Takeshi is inauspicious and stifling. But to her surprise, she feels a strange kinship to the wounded veteran with a good heart. As the Viet Minh begin to battle the French, Tuyet and her family are drawn into the conflict, with devastating consequences.
Andrew X. Pham is the author of two previous non-fiction books, Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam and The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars. “When most of us think about the Vietnam War, we think about the American involvement in the war which ended with the fall of Saigon in May 1975,” says Pham. “Lesser known are the stories of the Japanese occupation of Vietnam during World War II, and the struggles afterwards, waged by the Viet Minh resistance to break free of French colonial rule. In Twilight Territory, those battles shape the lives of Tuyet and her lover. I’m thrilled that so many of you will now have the chance to read Twilight Territory through your local library.”
Big Library Read is an international reading program that connects readers around the world with an ebook through public libraries. Twilight Territory is the 34th selection of this program which began in 2013 and takes place three times per year. Readers can join an online discussion about the book at https://biglibraryread.com/join-the-discussion/.
Twilight Territory was published as an ebook by W. W. Norton & Company and audiobook by HighBridge. The title can be read without waitlists or holds on all major computers and devices through Libby or libbyapp.com, including iPhone®, iPad® and Android™ phones and tablets. Through Libby, readers can also “send to Kindle®” [U.S. libraries only]. The title will automatically expire at the end of the lending period, and there are no late fees.
To join the discussion, learn about past Big Library Read titles and download Libby, visit biglibraryread.com. You can also stay up-to-date on all of the happenings at Citrus Libraries by following us @citruslibraries on Facebook and Instagram.
