Tag Archives: books

We are getting a head start on the Book Club Spotlight’s 3rd biennial Toni Morrison summer read in honor of America’s Second Independence Day this Friday (June 19th). Like in Nebraska, freedmen made their way out to Oklahoma to homestead often in all Black settlements and farming communities where residents were free from racial violence and segregation laws. In her 1997 novel, Paradise, Morrison presents a fictionalized community of Black Homesteaders in its decline after generations of prosperity. She approaches their self-made isolation and segregation and asks the reader if true “paradise necessitates exclusion.” (x)

“They shot the white girl first. With the rest they can take their time.” This first execution was justified in the early morning raiders’ minds. After all, they were here to save their town from the evil influences that lay inside the old Convent. Ruby, the remnants of a once thriving town of Black Homesteaders split into factions, should have been a haven for its residents. Free from racial violence and a governmental system built against them, they were proud of the safe community they built. When the cracks of the peaceful town begin to show, the men of Ruby turn their eyes to an old convent outside of town, rumored to harbor witches. Who were these women of the Convent? Those that were murdered in the name of safety by their neighbors? 

“How exquisitely human was the wish for permanent happiness, and how thin human imagination became trying to achieve it.”

– Toni Morrison

Aside from the residents of Ruby, races of the characters rarely noted, especially of the women who live in the Convent. This may come as a surprise to readers as they search for meaning behind the townspeople’s actions who believe their hard-fought racial segregation is what will keep them and their families safe. The Covenant’s ambiguous racial makeup allows the novel to take an approach on intersectionality that focuses on how despite one’s race, class, religion, or ability, women are joined together in the never ending struggle for gender equality and safety even from those who have sworn to protect them. As the follow-up novel to her Nobel Prize win, Paradise is Morrison’s final say in the iconic “Beloved Trilogy”, finishing her three-book contemplation on the search for love and belonging in the shadow of human tenderness and generational trauma. Set in 9 parts, Paradise is ripe for discussion, and Adult Book Club Groups who are fans of Morrison will continue to be stunned by her beautiful prose and heart wrenching characters.

If you’re interested in requesting Paradise for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 12 copies. (A librarian must request items)

Morrison, Toni. Paradise. Alfred A Knopf, 1997

“For the perfume to work, the wearer has to believe what I tell them .”

– Timothy Schaffert

Pantomiming a performance of the once great city to appease the Nazi soldiers who were promised The City of Lights, artists and those on the margins who were once embraced had to tread carefully to survive. Featuring a protagonist in their 70s, the novel’s acts of bravery and rebellion are not as loud and explosive as other stories of heroes facing Nazis may be, but the subtlety and cunning employed by those not on the front lines is no less important or deadly. There is much to learn from the beautiful and colorful characters who grace the page of The Perfume Thief, and Adult Book Groups who are fans of Historical Fiction will enjoy this look into a world of espionage and perfume resulting from Schaffert’s dedicated research.

Like all countries ravaged by the war, France is still coming to terms with the devastation caused and the effects it still has on its people and culture today. In 2025, Paris unveiled a memorial to the LGBTQ+ victims of the holocaust of a giant metallic star with one side a matte black of the dark and painful history it remembers, and a bright mirror on the other, reflecting back hope and light of a bright future onto the viewer. 

If your readers are fans of Schaffert, you’re in luck! He will be speaking at Norfolk Public Library on June 20th, followed by a reception at the Norfolk Arts Center featuring his work.

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

Schaffert, Timothy. The Perfume Thief. Anchor. 2021

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and for today’s Book Club Spotlight, we are revisiting a previously featured author who wrote one of my favorite books from last year, The Samurai’s Garden.

Chinese-Japanese American author Gail Tsukiyama, known for introspective historical fiction highlighting her dual ancestral ties, has been recognized as an influential writer and humanitarian across the globe. She was a featured author at the Library of Congress’ first National Book Festival in 2001, a guest speaker at literary and writers’ festivals in Hong Kong, Sydney, Toronto and Vancouver, and she is the current Executive Director at the non-profit Waterbridge Outreach. Tsukiyama’s 2013 novel, A Hundred Flowers, takes a personal look at the impact the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the Hundred Flowers Campaign had on ordinary families.

“Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend” – Mao Zedong, 1956.

There are many reasons why Tao may have chosen to climb the great kapok tree. It could have been a rush of youthful rebellion that led him to scale up its branches in the early morning light. Or maybe he went in search of the seeds and bark his mother used when making traditional medicine for their neighbors. In truth, Tao climbed the tall tree in his family’s courtyard in hopes of spying White Cloud Mountain off in the distance. If only he could see White Cloud Mountain, his father would return home. Kai Ying’s husband had been gone for a year when Tao decided to climb the kapok tree. Policemen had taken Sheng, like all political dissidents, far away to a labor camp when Mao’s “Hundred Flowers” campaign turned on the intellectuals it previously encouraged. When Tao climbed the kapok tree, Wei harbored a secret that he feared he could never share, giving all his energy and time to his grandson in an act of atonement and love. It is only after Tao falls out of the kapok tree, does a new life begin for the small family. 

“But he also remembered the beauty and intellectual curiosity of a country that could have easily caught up with the rest of the world, if she weren’t always being dragged backward.”

– Gail Tsukiyama

Like Tsukiyama’s other works, A Hundred Flowers, is a quiet and introspective novel detailing personal relationships between the family of your birth, and the one that you have chosen along the way. With no strong words or action, A Hundred Flowers is a great read for anyone who is looking for a thoughtful novel to discuss with their Book Club Group. In her signature beautiful and easy flowing prose Tsukiyama uses the backdrop of a beloved country under an intellectually-repressive regime to allow the reader a look into the past in order to learn more about themselves and how it can relate to us today. With a strong belief in the power of historical fiction to engage readers with new ideas and places, Tsukiyama leads her readers to countries beyond their own, in hopes of finding a greater understanding of ourselves as a human race. 

“I’m always equally surprised at how the environment of fear can bring out the best and the worst in humanity. But ultimately, it’s the resilience of the human spirit during turbulent times that always remains the most inspiring thing for me.”

– Gail Tsukiyama [x]

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

Tsukiyama, Gail. A Hundred Flowers. St. Martin’s Griffin. 2013.

In 1908, The United States was at war with itself. The standardization of American English was torn between the language you’re reading now, and the Roosevelt/Carnegie-backed Simplified Spelling Board. The Spelling Board fought hard to “simplify” the written word, while the rest of the country scratched their heads at this new “fonetic” spelling. Then, from the depths of battle came the first ever National Spelling Bee Competition, and its use of standard English spelling began the death knell of simplified English. Burgeoning out of our cultural emphasis on a unified language, spelling, education system, and its opportunity as a class equalizer, spelling bees provide a unique look into Americana. Myla Goldberg’s 2000 debut novel Bee Season, uses this seemingly-squeaky clean All-American pastime to look at a modern family whose obsession to rise above banality ends up tearing them apart

Eleven years old and unimpressive by all accounts, Eliza feels dull compared to her gifted and successful family. Until she hits a stroke of luck and surprisingly wins her school’s spelling bee, and then the district spelling bee after that. What follows is the portrait of a Pennsylvanian family at the turn of the century as they encourage Eliza in her spelling pursuits while facing internal inadequacies and jealousies through religiosity, obsessiveness, and the pressures they put on themselves and each other. Eliza finds herself stuck in a dizzying world of ritualism, reaching out for her family who are lost in the realm of greater ascendancy. 

“Eliza begins to look at life in alphabetical terms. School is consonantal in its unchanging status. God, full of possibility, is a vowel. Death: the ultimate consonant.”

Myla Goldberg

Perfection! Perfectimundo! Enlightenment! The “True Self”! Tikkun Olam. Each member of Eliza’s family is seeking some sort of divine wholeness through ritualistic obsession. They forgo their familial connections in search of this supernatural belonging, ostracizing and distancing themselves from each other in the process. While reading this book for Jewish Heritage Month, I was surprised at the depths of religious mysticism discussed in Bee Season. Eliza’s father, Saul, studies Kabbalah, and believes that through Eliza’s new gift for spelling, she can heal the world, placing the broken shards back together to make everything whole and Divine. Eliza’s brother and mother in turn, are also caught up in their own searching for this Divine. Aaron, chasing after the strong otherworldly presence he felt during his Bar Mitzvah, finds it in the intense Hare Krishna Movement. And Miriam obsessively surrounds herself with (stolen) perfect objects to reach a sense of wholeness, while risking herself. Each family member quietly leading to their own destruction. For Adult Book Club Groups, Bee Season will surprise readers with the lengths the Naumann family goes to achieve satisfaction and maintain family order. Discussions around literary foils, perfectionism, self-doubt, and our own search for that completed wholeness can be paired with a viewing of the 2005 movie adaptation starring Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche. 

Further Resources:

• “Song for Myla Goldberg” by The Decemberists 
• “You’re Wrong About” Podcast: The Great American Spelling Bee with Gabe Henry

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

Goldberg, Myla. Bee Season. Knopf Doubleday. 2001.

Cassie Logan and her brothers race through forest. Their laughter and jokes fill the air, high up into the lush canopies above as their house fades into the distance of the early morning light. Cassie pauses, the cool earth beneath her feet… something is wrong. The trees, always stoic but welcoming, are quiet, as if they are frightened. That’s when she hears them. There are lumbermen in the forest- their forest! With her father away for work, only her mother, her grandmother, and siblings are left to stand against Mr. Anderson and his lumbermen forcing their way onto Big Ma’s land. The Logans must stand up for themselves and what is theirs, even if it frightens them.

“Around shaggy-bark hickories and sharp-needled pines, past blue-gray beeches and sturdy black walnuts I sailed while my laughter resounded through the ancient forest, filling every chink.“

– Mildred D. Taylor

While it was the first published, The Song of the Trees is chronologically the third book in the “Logan Family” series, followed by her Newbery Medal Award winning novel Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. This novella can be used as a teaching tool and a stepping stone to introduce readers to the Logan family, their love for their land, family pride, and the time period the series takes place in. Based on her family stories about growing up African American in the deep south, Taylor’s writing is accessible for ages 9 and up. The novellas short pages are filled with beautiful prose and insight that will brighten your heart and leave you wanting more.  While her characters face obstacles, the story reaffirms the necessity to have pride in oneself, in your dignity, and to stand up for what’s right, even when it’s hard. 

“Throughout my childhood he [my father] impressed upon my sister and me that we were somebody, that we were important and could do anything we set our minds to do or be. He was not the kind of father who demanded A’s on report cards. He was more concerned about how we carried ourselves, how we respected ourselves and others, and how we pursued the principles upon which he hoped we would build our lives. He was constantly reminding us that how we saw ourselves was far more important than how others saw us” 

– Mildred T. Taylor’s Newbery Award Acceptance Speech (1977)

If you’re interested in requesting Song of the Trees for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 15 copies. (A librarian must request items)

Taylor, Mildred D. Song of the Trees. Dial Press. 1975.

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.

“Man cannot be freed by the same injustice that enslaved it.”

Pierce Brown

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.