On stage, it was apparent that cartoonist Thi Bui felt at home. Bui, whose book The Best We Could Do was chosen as this year’s UCSB Reads pick, held a free lecture and book signing at UCSB Thursday evening. A memoir told through graphic art, her book depicts the overlapping origin stories of her family’s journey from Vietnam to America, during and after the Vietnam War.
UCSB Reads is an annual, campus-wide program that chooses one recently published book to distribute to students for free. The story and themes of the book are then incorporated it into student curricula and a series of public events. In the 13 years of the program, The Best We Could Do marks the first time a graphic novel has been chosen.
With the goal of selecting “intellectually stimulating, interdisciplinary" books, previous picks have included Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison by Piper Kerman and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Bui’s book weaves together personal narrative, American and Vietnamese history, explorations of intergenerational trauma, and of course graphic art.