Library Loot ~ picking and choosing

The Sorrow of War ~ by Bao Ninh, 1993, fiction (North Vietnam)

Bao Ninh, a former North Vietnamese soldier, provides a strikingly honest look at how the Vietnam War forever changed his life, his country, and the people who live there. Originally published against government wishes in Vietnam because of its nonheroic, non-ideological tone, The Sorrow of War has won worldwide acclaim and become an international bestseller.

The photo below shows the library at the Crown Center, where I live and where I'm one of the library volunteers.  Residents, friends, and neighbors donate books, and we sometimes get five or six LARGE boxes of books at a time.  The shelves are full, so we have to limit books in some way.

• Novels more than a decade old are usually donated to other organizations, unless they — or the author — are still popular and talked about.
• This is an old book, though still in good shape (another criterion for whether to keep it).
• It's rated 4/5 on Goodreads, so lots of people like it.  That's a good sign.
• The sub-title is "A Novel of North Vietnam."  I'll read it and decide whether it's good enough for my list of books set in the countries of the world.  I don't yet have one for this country, so that's one point in its favor.
• Then I'll decide whether to shelve it here, donate it to my church (I also volunteer there and know it has a "multi-cultural" section), or donate it to the annual book sale we support.

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire @ The Captive Reader and Linda @ Silly Little Mischief that encourages us to share the names of books we checked out of the library.  See what others got this week.