Robert Conley
The January meeting of the PebbleCreek Democratic Book Club occurred on Thursday, January 28, 2016, at the home of Flora and Robert Conley. The book this month was The Muslim Next Door; The Qur’an, the Media and that Veil Thing by Sumbul Ali-Karamali. The American born and raised author is a Muslim and she holds a B.A. from Stanford University, a J.D. from the University of California-Davis and a graduate degree in Islamic law from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. The club members enjoyed the book and found it very enlightening and helpful in understanding Islam and the day-to-day practices of Muslims. The back cover says it best: “The Muslim Next Door clears away the misconceptions about Islam and why they flourish – media distortion, confusion about what is cultural rather than religious, the language barrier and the old tall tales that still persist after thirteen centuries.”
The next meeting of the PC Democratic Book Club will be Thursday, March 24, 2016, at 1:30 p.m. The meeting will be held at the home of Flora and Robert Conley, 16451 W Wilshire Drive. This month’s book is Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) getting By in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich. The author, a successful writer, goes undercover and works and tries to get by on typical minimum wage jobs in three different cities in America. The resulting story is an interesting and informative narrative about the minimum wage industry and those who work in it. Although the book was published in 2001, the author’s experiences are highly relevant to current discussions about raising the minimum wage.