Bandon Public Library

""As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power--which groups have it and which do not. In this book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories...

For thirty-five girls, the Selection is the chance of a lifetime. The opportunity to escape the life laid out for them since birth. To be swept up in a world of glittering gowns and priceless jewels. To live in a palace and compete for the heart of gorgeous Prince Maxon. But for America Singer, being Selected is a nightmare. It means turning her back on her secret love with Aspen, who is a caste below her. Leaving her home to enter a fierce competition...

The eldest of seven children born low-caste in rural India, Mamta is abused and rejected by a father who can see no reason to "water someone else's garden" until a husband is found for her. Seeking escape in matrimony, Mamta is soon forced to flee her village and the horrors of her arranged marriage to the bustle of a small city, where she struggles to find a precarious state of acceptance and make peace with her past.

After his father disowns him over a forbidden love with a lower caste girl, Shankar, consumed by anger, marries her anyway and emigrates to the US to start a new life--completely cutting himself off from his family in India and vowing never to speak of them again. Now in retirement, as he tells stories from his childhood to his grandchildren, they generate the double-edged effect of charming his grandchildren and at the same time taking up suppressed,...