Tag Archives: book club spotlight

When Pierce Brown signed on for the three-book deal with Random House, he was 23, living above his former political science professor’s garage. Propelled by the ancient play Antigone and inspired by the sight of the planet Mars, Brown, a down-on-his-luck aspiring writer, wrote a novel that would change his life, Red Rising. The first of the main trilogy whose world includes a four-part follow-up saga, a number of comic books, and even a board game set in the same world, Red Rising is one of those novels that, despite being marketed as “YA”, find their stride in engaging the adult audience far beyond the last page.  

All Darrow knows is the mines. Ever since humans came to Mars his people, the Reds, are a part of the dangerous, and often fatal, mining helium-3 which will help in preparing the world for habitation by the rest of humanity. It’s just them down below, watched over by the supervisory colors, sacrificing their short lives for the sake of a better future. While the Reds are a proud people, an undercurrent of discontent runs through small factions and rumors of their subjugation heighten around Darrow until he is forced to face the unthinkable. Mars is already inhabited. Generations of Reds have died long before their time in the hope of humanity’s prosperous future, when all along, the surface is thriving on the corpses of their ancestors. The young, fearless miner is enlisted by a resistance group to become the next step in their plan to overturn the corrupt rule of the Golds. And to do that, Darrow must become one himself.

In Red Rising, the reader explores a violent world and its caste system in which our protagonist must claw his way through the ranks to gain power and justice for his people. Though our hero, Darrow, goes through an incredible and harrowing Captain America-like transformation to become an elite “gold”, he still must do the internal and emotional work it takes to become the leader his people need him to be. While in an elite training institute which turns out to be a front for a deadly war simulator, Darrow meets and must gain the trust of his classmates and “fellow” Golds. Despite everything in him wanting to get revenge as quickly and ruthlessly as possible, he must grapple with his growing bonds between his classmates and their humanity amidst the bloodshed. Red Rising is great for older YA readers and Adult Book Club Groups, and has all the hallmarks of a great Dystopia novel. A close reading of the text is a good way to introduce themes like castes and class divide, gender equality in fantasy, societal instance on conformity, and the weight of responsibility into your group discussions. 

If you’re interested in requesting Red Rising for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 8 copies. (A librarian must request items)

Brown, Pierce. Red Rising. Del Rey. 2014.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27th), is dedicated in memory of those who struggled and were murdered under the Nazi regime. This year, as we continue to face uncertainties in our lives, I wanted to look at a story of fortitude and hope in defiance of our oppressors. In 2007, essayist and art curator Judy Batalion was searching through the histories of notable Jewish women, when she stumbled across an old Yiddish book, Freuen in di Ghettos, which sparked a light in her to learn more. Across dozens of memoirs from small presses, dusty catalogs and archives, and family stories, Batalion learned the names of young Jewish girls who took up armed resistance against the Nazi regime and who were almost lost to history: Renia Kukielka, Zivia Lubetkin, Toaia Altman, Chajka Meed, Bela Hazan, and so many more. Batalion’s decade-long research culminated in her non-fiction book The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos. 

Jewish youths in pre-WWII Poland, unable to join the Youth Groups of their countrymen, formed their own tightknit clubs that unbeknownst to them, would one day lead the armed and brave Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. Dozens of these co-ed Jewish Youth Groups made up of a hundred thousand young Jews, learned and explored different ideologies and purposes, while instilling a work ethic and comradery that proved priceless as they formed underground resistance factions against the Nazi Regime. Often taking advantage of their more Aryan features, Jewish girls (some as young as 15), used their meek and mild appearances to trick soldiers and guards as they smuggled news, weapons, money, forged documents, and underground magazines between ghettos and holdouts across Poland. These girls were known to break thousands of Jews out of confinement, smuggling people in giant soup pots or over roofs, finding safe connections and hiding places for the refugees. Three bold young women even attended a Gestapo Christmas party together while undercover. Despite their strong leadership, quick thinking, and incredible skills, large resistance operations put men in leading positions over the young women whose commitment to the cause was indispensable. During the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, one third of the armed fighters were women, risking and losing their lives as equals. The camaraderie between these young women was unparalleled, their heroism and intelligence gave them hope even in the bleakest of times. Hope, not always for their lives, but for their people. 

The Light of Days, while documenting camaraderie of the Jewish resistance to the Nazi government, also focuses on the differing ideals and purposes of these upstart youth organizations who suddenly had to join together despite their differences. The main contention between the groups that both resistance fighters and civilians had to make a stand on was the concept of fight or flight. These two ideals drove the parties, known as hereness or thereness–  should they stay and fight for the only home they know in the name of doikayt, or leave to form a country all their own in pursuit of Aliya? Too few stories of the Jewish Resistance against the Nazi’s and the Holocaust are told and even fewer of the remarkable young women who risked lives relentlessly fighting the regime from the ghettos, the forests, and all over the country. Their stories were hidden to further political motives, and survivors were shamed into silence. Book Club Groups looking to expand their knowledge of WWII, women’s history, or who are in search of tales of resistance will be moved by the emotional and personal accounts of these young women. The Light of Days is a must-read. Batalion asks her readers: how does a person cope after witnessing such atrocities first hand? Why would people and politicians work so hard to suppress these stories of heroism, and what do they have to gain by perpetuating a narrative of victimhood and complicity?

“It is deeply troubling to make laws about what historical narratives are allowed to be told—it shows a rulership interested in propaganda, not truth.” – Judy Batalion, The Light of Days

Further Resources:

• Author Discussion with Molly Crabapple 

• The Light of Days: Young Reader’s Edition

• Modern Jewish Resistance Groups:
  • IfNotNow
  • Jewish Voices for Peace

If you’re interested in requesting The Light of Days for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 8 copies and an Audio CD. (A librarian must request items)

Battalion, Judy. The Light of Days. HarperCollins. 2020.

The young and respectable bachelors of London’s high society like Daphne Bridgerton. They like her, but not enough to marry her. For a young woman out in society, being liked but not romantically pursued is devastating for her future and her social standing. The funny and charming eldest daughter of the large, lovable Bridgerton family is starting to lose hope on finding a suitable match when the newly appointed Duke of Hastings suddenly reenters society. Arriving back in England only after his estranged father’s death, the dashing and enigmatic Duke quickly becomes the ton’s most eligible bachelor much to his distress. For he has sworn to never marry and never ever have children. After a chance encounter, Daphne and the Duke, Simon, become fast friends and hatch a scheme to make the social season a success for both parties. A fake courtship will deter any young ladies and their scheming mama’s from pursuing Simon, and the eligible men will finally see Daphne as a romantic option. Simon is certain that his budding infatuation with Daphne will not get in the way of his carefully laid plans, but a careless moment in the garden changes everything. 

The Duke and I is a fun, romantic escapist romp. Quinn’s characters are intelligent, likeable, and well written. Her writing style easily flows off the page and doesn’t bog down on any unnecessary historical details or side plots. Escapism is a hallmark of the Bridgerton series, here our characters exist without the worries of our modern age. The biggest scandals revolve around an unmarried pair walking unchaperoned, being snubbed at a ball, or wearing a dress in an odious color picked by your mother. Familial bonds and human connection make up the novel’s backbone. Daphne cares for her chaotic family, and they love and protect her in kind. Simon, who was shunned by his father for a perceived defect, has never felt such love and must confront his demons in order to allow himself happiness and a place in a family who care so fiercely for one another. 

Written in 2000, The Duke and I came out at a time when “girl power” was on the rise, and Quinn’s heroines are no exception. They are funny, can hold their own in a game of wit, and enter into relationships of their own choosing. While these heroines are more “enlightened”, they are still products of their time and class. Growing up in a restrictive society, young women weren’t always prepared for what married life would expect of them. Throughout the novel, Daphne struggles with her naivety and must trust in Simon and his experience after they are married. This leads to the book’s most infamous scene, where, after learning of Simon’s deception (which was only possible due to her naivety), Daphne chooses to take advantage of him in return. It’s not an easy moment to see our romantic leads at such intense odds, but for the right adult Book Club Group, it opens up the floor for a great discussion on women’s agency in the regency era, their body autonomy, and how our views on marriage and intimacy has changed from the 1800’s, to the 2000’s, to today. Do two wrongs make a right?

If you’re interested in requesting The Duke and I for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 5 copies. (A librarian must request items)

Quinn, Julia. The Duke and I. Avon Books. 2000.

Though an artist may be long gone, their work lives on. A statement that they were here. Hand drawn paintings on cave walls, carvings in stones under ash, graffiti that won’t wash away. Art, as a humanistic concept, is as old as human existence itself. And in author Rebecca Makkai’s 2018 novel The Great Believers, she follows this thread of art through time, connecting our lost generations in a hauntingly beautiful portrait. A National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize Finalist, The Great Believers brings the Lost Generation of WWI and the lost generation of the AIDS Crisis together. Two groups who slipped through the cracks of an uncaring system, but whose art lives on in paintings, literature, music, and beyond. For every Wilfred Owen, a Keith Haring.

In search of her estranged daughter, Fiona Marcus finds herself in Paris calling on an old friend, Richard Campo. There, she and the famous documentarian photographer rekindle a bond forged 30 years ago in Chicago. Back when their friends were exploring life, art, and love. Back when Yale Tishman’s budding career rides on the donations of never-before-seen works of a 1920s Lost Generation artist. Until the looming threat of a new disease slowly drips into their community, until they must contend with a tidal wave of loss, fighting back with resistance and love. And today, Fiona, still burdened by the ghosts of the young men whose innocence, agency, and lives were stripped away during the AIDS Crisis, might lose her daughter as well. 

Makkai’s book starts slowly, intentionally immersing the reader in its world. The reader learns the lives and loves of each of these young men affected, as the loss grows around them. In The Great Believers, Makkai asks: What happens once a story is over? What about those who are left to carry the mantle and memory of those who are gone? Are they still haunted by the loss of innocence and their whole community? Do we feel them still? Our last Book Club Spotlight covered similar themes to The Great Believers. How do we cope with loss at such an unimaginable scale? How do we maintain a cultural memory of these moments and these people without losing ourselves to it? In The Sentence, Erdrich’s characters are mourning the eradication of their people and culture due to colonization, in contrast with the COVID-19 epidemic. And Makkai’s novel follows a community fighting against that eradication during the AIDS epidemic, and the survivors reeling from losing 10,000 people in a single generation, much like how a community is forever changed after war. Adult Book Clubs with members belonging to different generations will benefit from discussing together. Younger members, who have not lived in a world without AIDS/HIV, can learn from those who were alive during the epidemic. And together they can discuss how we approach the topic today, what has changed, and what has not.

Further Resources:

• World AIDS Day
  • “World AIDS Day exists to shine a light on the real experiences of people living with HIV today, while celebrating the strength, resilience and diversity of the communities most affected. It is a moment to inspire the leadership needed to create a future where HIV doesn’t stand in the way of anyone’s life.”

• “They Were Warriors” by Rebecca Makkai
  • Article on the Chicago AIDS Protests

• “Marginal Waters” by Doug Ischar
  •  Photo History of Chicago’s Boystown

• Nebraska AIDS Project
  • “NAP provides HIV and sexual health services to the entire state of Nebraska and 11 counties in Southwest Iowa.“

• Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
  • Read Alike Book Club Spotlight

If you’re interested in requesting The Great Believers  for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 4 copies. (A librarian must request items)Makkai, Rebecca. The Great Believers. Penguin Random House. 2018

Siblings Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert have sent for an orphan boy whom they can raise to help tend their farm as they age. Instead of a strapping young boy, a waifish red haired little girl named Anne Shirley waits for them at the train depot. Despite their misgivings, the pair quickly fall for Anne’s charm and feisty spirit, deciding to let her stay and not call for a boy after all. As Anne grows up on the idyllic Prince Edward Island, her excitable, imaginative, and stubborn temperament gets her into trouble but her caring family and community help her grow and mature into a bright young woman ready to face the world. Laden with unforgettable characters, Anne Shirley’s world is one to get lost in.

As a child, Montgomery was not allowed to read novels, but poetry shaped her young mind into a romantic style that is evident in her lush descriptions of the world Anne finds herself in. A small girl, looking at a breathtaking world, taking the time to soak in the beauty around her. Its emphasis on community, self-growth, and life’s natural beauty makes it an enduring classic that is taught in schools around the world. Anne’s youthful adventures on Prince Edward Island have a tremendous staying power, translated into over 37 languages, made into movies and tv shows, the novel has a large following all over the world, with an especially strong contingent in Japan. Reading Groups of all ages should enjoy this beautiful novel, and revel in its soft and entertaining lessons of growing up.

“People laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas, you have to use big words to express them, haven’t you?”

If you’re interested in requesting Anne of Green Gables for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 6 copies (A librarian must request items)

Montgomery, L.M. Anne of Green Gables. L.C. Page & Company. (1908) 

If you haven’t read a spooky book for Halloween yet, you’re running out of time! Today’s Book Club Spotlight is a short story collection out of Gothenburg, Sweden that mixes just the right amount of thrills, chills, and murder to get its reader in the mood for the 31st. An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good by Helene Tursten (trans. Marlaine Delargy) turns the elderly amateur sleuth trope on its head. You won’t find a group of retirees running around solving crimes here. Here, they’re the killers! Author Helene Tursten is known for her successful Nordic Noir books, especially her “Inspector Huss” series, and began writing her deliciously murderous heroine for a Christmas anthology. So if you’re a “scary ghost stories” Christmas enjoyer, consider this a head start!

Eighty-eight-year-old Maud wants very little. She wants to keep her spacious rent-free apartment, travel as she likes, and most importantly, she wants to be left alone. But sometimes, it seems like the world is conspiring against her quiet life. And when that happens, Maud takes matters into her own hands. Whether it means poking a rather rude deli clerk with a safety pin in the buttocks, or dropping an entire chandelier on a would-be apartment thief’s head, she’s always ready with a plan. Because that’s what people get wrong about Maud. She may play up the dithering old lady act around others, but she is as every bit as capable and quick-thinking as any ruthless murderer out there. Just don’t get on her bad side!

This irreverent and darkly funny story collection is a quick read to get your blood spiking this Halloween season. Book Club Groups that don’t mind a little blood and chaos will find this strange book charming and fun. Despite Maud’s penchant for murder, you can’t help but root for her to get her way. Her victims are always people who have wronged her, or were too annoying to deal with in any other manner. It’s cathartic in a macabre way. An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good, is a ridiculous tale of exactly that. Maud is truly up to no good. But can you blame her? That’s what people get for underestimating and trying to take advantage of her. Through the murders and the blood, Tursten is making a bold claim about ageism and especially the social phenomena “Invisible Women Syndrome”. Maud gets away with her crimes, purely because no one can grasp their minds around a fragile old lady committing such cold-blooded murders. Except maybe, some old souls themselves. But who would listen to them?

If you’re interested in requesting An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 5 copies (A librarian must request items)

Tursten, Helene. An Elderly Lady is Up To No Good. Soho Press, Inc. (2018) 

In 2015, Wall Street Journal journalist John Carreyrou was searching for his next big story. Having just finished a bombshell report on the fraud and abuse in Medicare that won him his second Pulitzer Prize, he received a tip that had the potential to take down one of Silicon Valley’s wealthiest startups. According to his source, feminist icon and media darling Elizabeth Holmes was a total fraud. The young Stanford dropout had the tech world and its rich investors convinced that her company, Theranos, could run any diagnostic test instantly with a single drop of blood. But that technology never existed. With her co-conspirator, Sunny Balwani, these scam tests were used all across the United States in hospitals, doctors offices, and even in pharmacy giant, Walgreens. Anyone who dared to speak out against the unethical practice and faulty tech, risked their career, reputation, and even safety. Bad Blood follows the youngest self-made female billionaire, whose pursuit of fame and power lead to deadly consequences.

A Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year, Bad Blood follows the ill-fated Theranos from its origins right up to its death blow “massive fraud” conviction by the Securities and Exchange Commission in March of 2018. A happy ending, thanks in no small part to the reporting done by Carreyrou. For Book Club Groups interested in the “True Crime” genre but not necessarily the kind with serial killers and occultists. What makes this particular account so compelling, is that as a beat journalist, Carreyrou finds himself in the middle of the action and potential danger. By exposing the dealings at Theranos, whistleblowers risked career suicide, their families were torn apart, they were hounded by high-end lawyers and they were even being tailed. Bad Blood isn’t sensational, and Carreyrou goes out of his way to stick to what’s known as facts up until the Epilogue where he gives the reader his personal thoughts into Elizabeth Holmes’ psychology, ambition and ultimate responsibility to her clients.

Holmes and Balwani are currently serving time in federal prison until 2032.

Further Resources:

‘Hot Startup Theranos Has Struggles With Its Blood-Test Technology’ (2015)

• The first investigative article published by John Carreyrou on Theranos

Bad Blood: The Final Chapter (2021)

• “John Carreyrou broke the Theranos scandal. Now he’ll take you into the courtroom as he examines Silicon Valley’s fake it-til-you-make it culture, and the case against Holmes.”

‘What to Read, Watch, and Listen to About Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos After The Dropout‘

• An article by TIME Magazine compiling the “podcasts, documentaries, and other projects have aimed to tell the story of one of the most famous scams in the history of Silicon Valley.”

If you’re interested in requesting Bad Blood  for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 9 copies (A librarian must request items)

Carreyrou, John. Bad Blood. Penguin Random House. (2018) 

It’s September, do you know where your library card is?

“One Card, Endless Possibilities” is the rallying cry for this year’s Library Card Sign-up Month, and all those possibilities led to this week’s incredible Book Club Spotlight. A recipient of the 2024 Chicago Library Foundation 21st Century Award, author Cristina Henríquez wrote her novel, The Book of Unknown Americans at her “second home”- the local library! The Iowa Writers’ Workshop alumni’s sophomore novel was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, a New York Times Notable Book of 2014, and an NPR Great Read.

The residents of the Kirkwood Apartments in Newark, Delaware all have a story to tell. While few of them anticipated ending up in the low-income apartments, they’ve all come to call it home. One resident, Alma Rivera, never imagined moving from her gorgeous home in Patzcuaro, Mexico to enroll her daughter in a specialized school for disabled students. Blaming herself for the accident that left Maribel with a traumatic brain injury a year ago, Alma has devoted her whole life to keeping her daughter safe. Now, her small family is in a foreign country, trying to scrape by Arturo’s meager income, and navigate an English speaking world. While trying to shield and understand a girl, who, under the haze of her injury, is still a teenager who wants to enjoy her life on her own terms. 

Through reading, Book Club Groups will follow Alma’s guilt over her daughter’s accident, and how she punishes herself in the process. They can discuss the weight of responsibility on Mayor’s shoulders to be the perfect son and follow the rules despite his heart telling him to be true to himself. Told in alternating viewpoints, mostly focusing on Alma and Mayor, Henríquez expands her world with interstitial chapters of the other residents that breathe her story to life. 

If you’re interested in requesting The Book of Unknown Americans for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 4 copies (A librarian must request items)

Henríquez, Cristina. Book of Unknown Americans. Knopf. (2014) 

On a hot summer day in the forgotten borough of New York, 30 years of rotting trash is being slowly buried under mountains of asphalt, trapping and poisoning the landfills’ rat denizens with methane gas. The unsuspecting citizens of the quiet Staten Island suburb are in the fright of their lives as hordes of mutated rats burst from the seams, with a taste for blood. Self-proclaimed rat expert Sarah and her little brother Mike must race to stop the murderous infestation before it takes over New York City. But little do they know, they have a mole amongst the rats.

Rats is a part of Zindel’s “The Zone Unknown Series” which are stand-alone horror/thriller books featuring young teens fighting to survive a mutated and perilous natural world. Teachers and librarians are always looking for the perfect book to get through to their reluctant readers, books that are engaging and exciting stories written with non-readers in mind. Since Halloween is only two months away, maybe you’re looking for a gnarly and visceral horror novel to hook your reluctant readers. In Rats, Zindel weaves his gross-out descriptions with prose that, at times, is startlingly evocative. It contains both emotional and environmental messages that can lead to good discussion. Students can learn about proper Landfill Capping, and the harmful effects of pollution. They will also read about personal and family strife. How to reach out for help and to not hide their problems from those who love them, letting it poison and fester until it’s too big to control.

If you’re a school librarian or are leading a preteen to teen book group, I do recommend giving Rats a look-over first to see if the graphic images and scenarios are right for your particular students. Some readers will be too squeamish while others will be thoroughly captivated. It takes all kinds!

In 1969 I quit teaching altogether. I felt I could do more for teenagers by writing for them. I started reading some young adult books, and what I saw in most of them had no connection to the teenagers I knew. I thought I knew what kids would want in a book, so I made a list and followed it. I try to show teens they aren’t alone. I believe I must convince my readers that I am on their side; I know it’s a continuous battle to get through the years between twelve and twenty — an abrasive time. And so I write always from their own point of view. – Paul Zindel 

If you’re interested in requesting Rats for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 11 copies (A librarian must request items)

Zindel, Paul. Rats. Hyperion. (1999) 

Two Pikuni (Blackfeet) youth set out across the Montana Territory with a horse-stealing party to prove their might against the enemy Crow, where one fateful misstep propels them towards different destinies. Fast Horse, haunted by his failed mission, abandons his band to join a rogue group of Pikuni who are wanted for the murder of a white man. While White Man’s Dog, who grew up in the shadow of his friend, takes down a Crow chief in a bold move of revenge, earning his new name- Fools Crow. Now, a respected hunter, medicine man, and husband, Fools Crow sees firsthand the pressure and bloodshed of colonization nipping at his tribe’s heels. And the tribal leaders who cannot choose whether to fight a losing war or to trust the Napikwans’ promise of peace at the expense of their culture.

Fools Crow is a beautiful and haunting look into the daily lives of the late 1880s Western Indian, and what brought them to being given a false choice of assimilation into the white man’s world or war, either choice meaning certain death to their culture and their people. Mature-level readers will be deeply moved by this tale of humanity’s persistence in the face of destruction and hardship. Welch writes with compassion and understanding, but not a sanitized lens. His Pikuni are not always upright moral people; they are fallible and will make ugly decisions on the way. But he argues that they are no less deserving of recognition of their personhood and their way of life than any other. Weaving in the real figures of Mountain Chief, Owl Child, Joe Kipp, and more, Fools Crow, while a fictional account, is steeped in history, culture, and language. To aid your group’s discussion, I have compiled two helpful guides: Characters and Glossary and Discussion Questions. 

Many of the stories and legends found in Fools Crow were passed down to Welch through his great-grandmother, Red Paint Woman. As a member of Heavy Runner’s band, she survived the Marias Massacre and passed her stories down through the generations. Storytelling is a foundation of many cultures, and the Blackfeet are no exception. Despite the federal dispossession of their lands, the murder of their people, and the U.S. Indian Boarding Schools, the perseverance of the Blackfeet lives on in their descendants today. Despite it all, their culture survived. A great example of the continued tradition of Blackfeet storytellers is author Stephan Graham Jones, whose recent novel The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, runs parallel to the real historical events found in Fools Crow, and broadens the legend for a modern audience. 

If you’re interested in requesting Fools Crow for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 10 copies (A librarian must request items)

Welch, James. Fools Crow. Penguin Books. (1986) 

A balloon crashes on a farmhouse in the middle of Nebraska and inside is a man of wizardry and illusions. As he is nursed back to health by the Old Sisters Egan, the magician regales them with the tale of his dramatic departure from the tumultuous city of Omaha and the seedy underbelly of the 1898 World’s Fair. It is a story of love built on deception, greed, and magic. And at the heart of it, is the Fair’s mastermind who stole our hero’s true love away.

While the lasting economic impact of the Omaha World’s Fair is dubious, its influence on culture is not- most specifically in literature. Inspired by the fair itself, Frank Baum’s titular Wizard of Oz  is nothing more than a circus magician from Omaha, Nebraska, worshiped by the Ozians for his seemingly real powers. In The Swan Gondola, Schaffert has taken this enigmatic character and imagines his down-to-earth origins complete with an emerald palace, winged monkeys, and a little girl named Dorothy. For Book Club Groups looking for a little bit of summer magic and drama, this novel indulges in the classic romantic tale of traveling theatre troupes, circuses, and the rogues who make their living roaming from town to town across the United States. Will Ferret and Cecily’s summer love stand up to the test, or will it be as fragile as the grand faux facades dotting the Grand Court? 

If you’re interested in requesting Swan Gondola for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 16 copies. (A librarian must request items)

Schaffert, Timothy. Swan Gondola. Riverhead Books. (2015)

This Thursday, State and Federal offices across the country will be closed in observance of our newest official federal holiday, Juneteenth! 160 years ago on June 19th, 1865- 250,000 enslaved people were finally emancipated two years and a war after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Despite this, Jim Crow laws continued until the mid-1960s, another hundred years after the liberation. Today’s Book Club Spotlight, The Nickel Boys, (also a 2024 movie) takes place during the tumultuous 1960s at the end of the Civil Rights Movement inside of a Florida reform school. The 2019 book by author Colson Whitehead won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, making Whitehead one of four authors to have won the award twice. 

There are three versions of Elwood Curtis. The young, intelligent Elwood dreams of attending college and making something of himself beyond his segregated Tallahassee home. The Elwood of the authoritarian Nickel Academy Reform School, is a righteous young man striving to follow the words and ideals of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But the Academy is stronger and crueler than love can conquer; torturing him and his peers to either submission or death. Finally, there is the Elwood who escapes and lives on. A haunted man, trying to find his way in the world with nothing but his name. How was this goodhearted boy with a bright future ahead of him sentenced to such a life? The truth lies with the bodies of young men hidden on the grounds of Nickel.

The Nickel Boys is, unfortunately, based on a real reform school in Florida that was shut down in 2011. The Dozier School for Boys, much like Residential Schools, was a state-sanctioned way to force children into submission and assimilation under the guise of civility and patriotism. After the school was closed there was an outpouring of stories from former students who told of the horror faced there, including beatings, sexual assault, and murder. Dubbed “America’s Storyteller”, Whitehead doesn’t shy away from our tragic history, and his influence in writing The Nickel Boys came from a need to make sense of the world and fight back against the “larger culture of impunity”. Book Club groups can discuss the influences of thought and worldviews found in the novel, especially in how they play out between our main characters Elwood and Turner as they must adapt to the school’s barbaric rule of law and its lasting consequences. How do we cope in a world without justice?

Further Resources on The Dozier School for Boys:

• The Official White House Boys website
  • Run by survivors of the school

• “For Their Own Good”
  • An article detailing stories from survivors 

• The Reformatory by Tananarive Due 
  • A 2023 fictionalized novel about the school

Lincoln Juneteenth Events (2025)

• 6/19: Legal Fight for Freedom: Student Research Panel and Keynote Address – UNL
• 6/21: Malone Center Juneteenth Event

To read more about Juneteenth and related topics, The National Museum of African American History & Culture has curated a “Juneteenth Reading List”, which features titles from our Book Club Collection!

If you’re interested in requesting The Nickel Boys for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 7 copies. (A librarian must request items)

Whitehead, Colson. The Nickel Boys. Doubleday. (2019)

A muse is a powerful creature. Love and praise may fall on deaf ears to an unrealized man….but whisper tales of mortality, fleeting beauty, and adoration, the desperation of the damned will overtake them. As it overtakes the young man, he, in a pit of panic, pledges his soul so the burden of time will be placed upon his mirrored self in portraiture. Young Dorian Gray. A beautiful muse and love of painter Basil Hallward, and the manipulated mentee of the hedonistic fast-talking Lord Henry, tears through the polite society of London, leaving all who approach ruined in his wake. While his portrait decays in his attic, exposing the monstrous degradation of his soul.

To the people of the Victorian era, perception was everything. The women had to be beautiful, charming, but unobtrusive. The men, stoic masculine providers with no time for frivolities or deviant behaviors. And Dorian Gray is the perfect young Victorian man. He is beautiful, charming, and has all the merits his class dictates. His impressionable mind is warped by voyeuristic Aesthete Lord Henry, into an existential crisis that leads to selfishness and cruelty all in the pursuit of pleasure. This is what made The Picture of Dorian Gray so subversive in its time. It held a mirror to society, forcing it to look at its faults and secrets, and even at Wilde’s beloved Aestheticism Movement. Book Club Groups can explore the themes of love, art, beauty, and influence through each unique character carefully crafted by Wilde, and the conflicting realities held within them. To help guide discussion, our copies include an introduction by Penguin Classics Editor, Robert Mighall, and a backmatter of notations to provide the modern reader with further context and knowledge for the novel.

Oscar Wilde in a letter to Ralph Payne (1894):

I am so glad you like that strange coloured book of mine: it contains much of me in it. Basil Hallward is what I think I am Lord Henry what the world thinks of me: Dorian what I would like to be – in other ages, perhaps.

If you’re interested in requesting The Picture of Dorian Gray for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 16 copies. (A librarian must request items)

Wilde. Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Penguin Classics. (1891)

Five-year-old Jack lives with Ma in Room. There, they play, learn, brush their teeth, exercise, and look out Skylight. Every night, he goes to sleep in Wardrobe while a mysterious man comes to visit. Ma doesn’t seem to like Old Nick, but Jack likes it when he brings them new things like clothes, food, and sometimes candy! To Jack, Room is all there is, and he wants everything to stay the same forever. But now that Jack is 5 years old, his curiosity is harder to contain, he gets in fights with Ma, and Old Nick gets so upset that their power is off for days! Maybe he should have just stayed 4. Ma is changing too. She decides it’s time to tell Jack a story, a real story this time, about a place called Outside. And about a plan where Jack must be brave, get to Outside, and save Ma.

Engaging for Mature Teen and Adult readers, Room is a sociological exploration of what makes our reality, and the persistence of the human race to thrive against all odds. From discussing faith, the sensationalism of tragedy, and the spirit of motherhood, love is at the forefront of this novel. Narrated by Jack’s unusual and childish voice, Room’s language will take a second to get used to and is not for everyone. We follow his malleable young mind as it opens up and tries to process this place that was previously far beyond his understanding. But once the reader is enveloped in his unique world, it’s hard to leave and return to Outside.  

Room was adapted by Emma Donoghue into an academy award winning movie of the same name starring Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay.

If you’re interested in requesting Room for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 11 copies and an Audio CD. (A librarian must request items)

Donoghue, Emma. Room. Little, Brown and Company. (2010)