One Maryland One Book 2024

2024's One Maryland One Book selection is What Storm, What Thunder by Myriam J.A. Chancy. Pick up your free copy from any Ruth Enlow Library branch today!

At the end of a long, sweltering day, as markets and businesses begin to close for the evening, an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude shakes the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. Award-winning author Myriam J. A. Chancy masterfully charts the inner lives of the characters affected by the disaster—Richard, an expat and wealthy water-bottling executive with a secret daughter; the daughter, Anne, an architect who drafts affordable housing structures for a global NGO; a small-time drug trafficker, Leopold, who pines for a beautiful call girl; Sonia and her business partner, Dieudonné, who are followed by a man they believe is the vodou spirit of death; Didier, an emigrant musician who drives a taxi in Boston; Sara, a mother haunted by the ghosts of her children in an IDP camp; her husband, Olivier, an accountant forced to abandon the wife he loves; their son, Jonas, who haunts them both; and Ma Lou, the old woman selling produce in the market who remembers them all. Artfully weaving together these lives, witness is given to the desolation wreaked by nature and by man.

Brilliantly crafted, fiercely imagined, and deeply haunting, What Storm, What Thunder is a singular, stunning record, a reckoning of the heartbreaking trauma of disaster, and—at the same time—an unforgettable testimony to the tenacity of the human spirit.

Maryland Humanities created One Maryland One Book (OMOB) to bring diverse groups of Marylanders together through the shared experience of reading the same book. The Ruth Enlow Library of Garrett County invites you to participate in book discussions happening at all library locations from mid-October through early November. Please refer to the schedule below and pick up a handy One Maryland One Book bookmark the next time you stop by the library!

Book Discussion Schedule

Accident - October 10th (11:30 AM - 12:30 PM)

Kitzmiller - October 21st (6:00 PM - 7:00 PM)

Friendsville - October 24th (3:00 PM - 4:00 PM)

Grantsville - November 1st (11:00 AM - 12:00 PM)

Oakland - November 4th (6:00 PM - 7:00 PM)