This year’s Community Read Pick is Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar. Pick up your free copy and join the discussion on Wednesday February 25, 6-7pm at Swissvale Library. To sign up for this event, click here.
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar – Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss after his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of the Persian Gulf in a senseless accident. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.
Kaveh Akbar is a New York Times bestselling author and National Book Award finalist. Martyr! was named one of the best books of 2024 by various publications. Kaveh Akbar will interact with us remotely for this project on March 4, 2026 – time/date TBA.
For more information, visit One Book, One District.
“I think it’s the book I was born to write.” – Kaveh Akbar