All first-year students are asked to read the annual All Bonaventure Reads text, which is the cornerstone of the University 101 course. Many other courses will adopt the text, and the entire campus community is invited to read the book and participate in the numerous events planned over the course of the fall semester.
 The memoir of a woman who grew up in a small Colorado town close to Rocky Flats, a secret nuclear weapons plant once designated “the most contaminated site in America,” has been chosen as the All Bonaventure Reads selection for the Class of 2017.
“Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats” by Kristen Iversen has been praised as “gorgeously written and impressively researched.”
Growing up in Arvada, Colo., near the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant, Iversen’s family and most of her blue-collar neighbors thought Rocky Flats made household cleaning supplies. Under the backdrop of the Cold War, Rocky Flats spent more than 30 years secretly producing plutonium triggers for nuclear bombs. (The title refers to the amount of radioactive material at any time in a human body.)
In the late 1970s, “as the truth began to spread, people protested at the bomb plant and worried about radioactive and toxic waste in surrounding neighborhoods,” wrote Iversen. But production of the triggers would continue until 1989 after the FBI and EPA raided the plant.
Described as part investigative journalism and part memoir, “Full Body Burden” explores secrets — not only of the government’s cover-up of nuclear contamination, but of Iversen’s own family’s silences, too, where her father’s drinking and her mother’s denial were routinely disregarded.
The book will be distributed at Orientation to first-year students, who will be encouraged to complete it prior to the start of school in the fall. Students will engage in conversations and activities throughout Welcome Days, University 101 courses and various campus-wide events during the 2013-2014 academic year.
About the author
Listen to an NPR interview with author Kristen Iversen.
Visit the author's website
Read reviews of "Full Body Burden."
Read an excerpt from the book.
Read The BV's story about the selection.
Previous selections for All Bonaventure Reads
2012: "In the Sanctuary of Outcasts" by Neil White
2011: "Little Princes" by Conor Grennan
2010: "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot
2009: "Listening Is an Act of Love," edited by Dave Isay
2008: "Left to Tell: Discovering God amidst the Rwandan Genocide" by Immaculée Ilibagiza
2007: "Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser
2006: "A Hope in the Unseen" by Ron Suskind
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All Bonaventure
Views film festival:
{these count as Passport events}
Titles and dates to be announced
Author's visit!
A campus visit is being planned for Sept. 30, when Iversen is expected to speak with clusters of students throughout the day and conclude her visit with an evening freshman address (7 p.m., Reilly Center Arena). Her talk is free and open to the public.
QCA exhibition
News about an exhibition in the Quick Center will be forthcoming.
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