FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OVER 100 ENJOY J. SARGEANT REYNOLDS COMMUNITY COLLEGE RICHMOND, Va (November 4, 2005) - Over 100 people enjoyed J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College’s “Around the World through Books” discussion series on the evening of Thursday, November 3rd, when local author Dean King visited the Parham Road Campus to participate in a talk about his best-selling book Skeletons on the Zahara. The evening opened with King showing a documentary about his visit to the Sahara Desert and how he personally retraced the route of Captain James Riley. Following the video, King spoke about the writing of his best-selling book and answered questions from the audience. Skeletons on the Zahara recounts the harrowing experience sailors had when they found themselves shipwrecked on the treacherous North African coast where they were subjected not only to brutal treatment by the warrior tribes of the Sahara but also to the harsh elements of the desert itself. The American merchant brig Commerce, sailing out of Middletown, Connecticut, went aground on the Moroccan coast in 1815 and for Captain James Riley and his 12 crewmen, striking the rocks off Cape Bojador was not as big a disaster as what would follow over the next two-and-a-half months. Using memoirs written by two survivors of the ordeal, Captain Riley and Seaman Archibald Robbins, King, a noted journalist and biographer, retraces the sea and land route taken by the men of the Commerce from the time they embarked on this ill-fated cruise until some of them finally made it home again. The St. Christopher graduate and current Richmond resident’s novel climbed the New York Times best-seller list this past summer and Steven Spielberg's production company, Dreamworks, recently bought the movie rights. The next “Around the World through Books” discussion event is scheduled for Thursday, March 2nd, when the group will talk about Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies For more information on the book discussion series, please contact Hong Wu at (804) 523-5329 or Randy Pittman at (804) 5223-5499, or visit ###
J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College | Press Center |
