2023-2024

APRIL BOOK SELECTION
Discussion:  April 3, 2024

Sweating may be one of our weirdest biological functions, but it’s also one of our most vital and least understood. In The Joy of Sweat, Sarah Everts delves into its role in the body―and in human history. Why is sweat salty? Why do we sweat when stressed? Why do some people produce colorful sweat? And should you worry about Big Brother tracking the hundreds of molecules that leak out in your sweat―not just the stinky ones or alleged pheromones―but the ones that reveal secrets about your health and vices? Everts traces humanity’s long quest to control sweat, culminating in the multibillion-dollar industry for deodorants and antiperspirants. And she shows that while sweating can be annoying, our sophisticated temperature control strategy is one of humanity’s most powerful biological traits.

JANUARY BOOK SELECTION
Discussion:  January 10, 2024

Twelve times a week, twenty-eight-year-old Ella May Wiggins makes the two-mile trek to and from her job on the night shift at American Mill No. 2 in Bessemer City, North Carolina. The insular community considers the mill’s owners—the newly arrived Goldberg brothers—white but not American and expects them to pay Ella May and other workers less because they toil alongside African Americans like Violet, Ella May’s best friend. While the dirty, hazardous job at the mill earns Ella May a paltry nine dollars for seventy-two hours of work each week, it’s the only opportunity she has. Her no-good husband, John, has run off again, and she must keep her four young children alive with whatever work she can find.  

NOVEMBER BOOK SELECTION
Discussion:  November 15, 2023

In this taut, dystopian tale, an island nation ravaged by the Change has built an enormous concrete barrier around its coastline―the Wall. Joseph Kavanagh, a new Defender, has one task: to protect his section of the Wall from the Others, the desperate souls trapped amid the rising seas outside. A blend of the most compelling issues of our time―climate change, increasing fear, widening divisions―The Wall is a suspenseful story of love, trust, and survival. 

OCTOBER BOOK SELECTION
Discussion:  October 4, 2023

As Jacob lies dying, he begins to write a letter to his only son, Isaac. They have not seen each other or spoken in many years, and there are things that Isaac must know. Stories about his ancestral legacy in rural Arkansas that extend back to slavery. Secrets from Jacob's tumultuous relationship with Isaac's mother and the shame he carries from the dissolution of their family. Tragedies that informed Jacob's role as a father.  But most of all, Jacob must share with Isaac the unspoken truths that reside in his heart. He must give voice to the trauma that Isaac has inherited. And he must create a space for the two to find peace.  Don't Cry for Me is a monumental novel about one family grappling with love's hard edges and the unexpected places where hope and healing take flight.