Dear Great Book Guru, I am a great fan of John Grisham and his legal thrillers, but apparently, last year,  he wrote an amazing book about a basketball player from Africa.  I love basketball so this seems like a perfect choice for me. Are you familiar with the book?  Lover of Hoops and Books

Dear Lover of Hoops and Books, I too was unaware of this outstanding book: SOOLEY by John Grisham, until recently.  The story line is as exciting as any of Grisham’s more typical legal mysteries, but, as always, his characters are vividly described, especially the lead, Sooley – a nickname given Samuel Sooleyman, a seventeen year-old boy from South Sudan. The story starts optimistically with Sooley leaving his small rural village to tryout for a traveling international basketball team.  His family and fellow villagers are ecstatic when he wins a coveted spot, but immediately joy turns to horror as the village is attacked by rebels and destroyed.  For the remainder of the novel, the chapters alternate between Sooley’s life in the United States and his family’s perilous existence in horrific refugee camps. The banal intricacies of the professional world of basketball contrast bizarrely with the horrors of daily life in war-torn Sudan. Throughout, Sooley tries to reconcile his good fortune with the tribulations of his family.  American immigration policies and a multitude of societal missteps make Sooley’s story much larger than that of one young man.  A long (489 pages) but worthwhile read and highly recommended!