Zeitoun - Dave Eggers

Longtime residents of New Orleans, Kathy and Abdulrahman Zeitoun are Muslims who run a successful paint and repair business. As warnings of Hurricane Katrina mount, Kathy decides to evacuate, but her husband, known as Zeitoun (Random House, $15.95), refuses to leave.  Instead, feeling called to stay and watch over the couple’s many rental properties, he readies his second-hand canoe. His wife and their four children depart, and the family is split in the hurricane’s aftermath. Dave Eggers deftly recounts this uniquely American story, too amazing to be fiction, of Katrina and of a Muslim man attempting to make his way in military-controlled New Orleans.