Wed, Oct 08
|Book Society
Water, Land, and Legacy
Acclaimed author Shobha Rao presents Indian Country, a sweeping novel of love, displacement, and the elemental force of water. She’ll be joined by renowned dam expert Del Shannon for a powerful conversation on rivers, resilience, and why water—so vital in California—shapes us all.
Time & Location
Oct 08, 2025, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Book Society, 2945 College Ave, Berkeley, CA 94705, USA
About the event
This book is one of Laura’s best reads of the year!
If you loved The Covenant of Water or There Are Rivers in the Sky, you’ll want to put Indian Country at the very top of your TBR list. Bold, lyrical, and unforgettable, Shobha Rao’s new novel is a sweeping story about love, displacement, and the elemental force that shapes us all: water.
Janavi and Sagar—an unlikely couple bound by an arranged marriage—leave India for Montana, where Sagar will dismantle a dam and both will confront cultural isolation, fractured family ties, and a community quick to scapegoat. Their journey carries haunting echoes of conquest in both India and the American West, with water ever present as a source of life, conflict, and transformation.
Shobha will be joined in conversation by Del Shannon, a leading global expert on dam engineering who helped oversee the historic Klamath Dam Removal, the largest in the world.…