Book Club Picks, Meetings and Resources
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Book Club Picks
If you’re in need of new selections for your book club, we can help! Our quarterly picks lists below are filled with engaging titles sure to spark lively discussion. For each title, we:
- purchase multiple copies so they’ll be available to book club members
- purchase multiple formats so you can read the way you like best
- commit to keeping the titles for 18 months from the time we pick them so you can plan ahead
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Whatcom READS
Join the 2024 Whatcom READS community discussion by reading Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of A Coast Salish Punk by Sasha taqwšeblu LaPointe with your book group. Then watch for upcoming events starting in Fall 2023 that explore themes from the book.
SUMMER 2023 PICKS
“After an accident causes amnesia, Ingrid Rojas Contreras travels with her mother to Colombia seeking family memories. What they find in this poetic memoir is a complicated inheritance of history and magic.”
Nonfiction
Meredith has built a cozy, functional life in her home and as a result, hasn’t left it in nearly 3 years. But when the world comes calling, will Meredith overcome her fears to step outside her door once again? An insightful reflection on living with trauma and mental health issues, this novel faces difficult topics with a quiet strength.
Fiction
“Searching and inspiring, Ancestor Trouble is one writer’s attempt to use genealogy–a once-niche hobby that has grown into a multi-billion-dollar industry–to make peace with the secrets and contradictions of her family’s past and face its reverberations in the present.”
Nonfiction
“(A) sweeping epic that transports the reader from war-torn China, where a mother consoles her son with ancient fables, through to modern-day America, where a little girl searches for her identity and the secrets of her father’s history.”
Fiction
“What if you could take a vacation to your past? With her celebrated humor, insight, and heart, beloved New York Times bestseller Emma Straub offers her own twist on traditional time travel tropes and a different kind of love story.”
Fiction
“This important book weaves lyrical storytelling and fascinating research into a compelling narrative to look at dietary differences along class lines and nutritional disparities in America, illuminating exactly how inequality starts on the dinner plate.”
Nonfiction
“A spellbinding debut novel tracing three generations of a Southern Black family and one daughter’s discovery that she has the power to change her family’s legacy.”
Fiction
“Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman delivers an entertaining, humorous, practical, and ultimately profound guide to time and time management.”
Nonfiction
“The author of the award-winning novel Hamnet brings the world of Renaissance Italy to jewel-bright life in this unforgettable fictional portrait of the captivating young duchess Lucrezia de’ Medici as she makes her way in a troubled court.”
Fiction
“Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices . . . Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?”
Fiction