About us
Our group is for anyone who is an avid, a once in a while, new, or wanting to get back to reading person. Many of us would like a little bit (or a lot) of "me" time and get absorbed in a good book. Anyone else do the "when I have time" thing? buy a book that isn't read? read such a fantastic (or horrible book for that matter) and have no one to discuss with? Raise your hand! Ok put them all down now.
There's a plethora of ways (a PLETHORA I tell ya) to access books/audios. Take advantage of your local library (yep they're still around I promise) and ahhhh that book smell!. I'm a member of five libraries. Seriously. (Shhh they don't have to know about each other.) It's surprising how far along you get with audiobooks while driving, folding laundry, cleaning, walking the dog/or yourself, sitting at the DMV with your #73 ticket as #32 is called, or waiting for your partner/kids/grandma to finish sampling everything at Costco.
Our goal is an approachable, relaxed group all can look forward to. I encourage you to book swap as well! We're discovering new genres together too. Plus come on; we're so cool like that reading together. Alrighty then ... what are you waiting for?! Up your grooviness and read. Oprah and I say so.
A few simple rules:
* Please no sensitive subjects outside our book discussion. We all have our personal beliefs; our book club is not the place.
* Trash talking, intimidation or sexual harassment will not be not tolerated. PERIOD.
* RESPECT ALWAYS
Here's a read on why a book club is for you https://terrikozlowski.com/why-join-a-book-club
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7073013817 - permanent Zoom link.
Upcoming events
1
The Reformatory - By Tananarive Due
·OnlineOnline👻 🎃🔪💀🫣 It's SPOOKY SEASON everyone! 👻 🎃🔪💀🫣
*** ZOOM PW 123 ***In Tananarive Due’s new novel, a boy sentenced to a brutal reform school must capture the phantoms of those who died at the institution in the past.
Tananarive Due's The Reformatory is one of the best novels published in 2023. A superb mix of literary fiction, horror, and historical fiction ...
It is the summer of 1950 and 12-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr. and his older sister Gloria encounter teenager Lyle McCormack, the son of Red McCormack, a man who basically owns the little town where they live, Gracetown. Lyle looks at Gloria strangely and then touches her arm and says some things he shouldn't, so Robbie kicks him. As a result, he gets a bloody ear from Red McCormack and a six-month sentence at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory with a dark past in which boys of all races often vanish forever.
While the reformatory is full of racists — and Robbie soon learns that extreme physical punishment is common — one of the biggest surprises is that he can see ghosts, haints, regularly. The haints don't hurt Robbie and he learns to deal with them quickly. He even thinks he can communicate with his dead mother through the pipes in the showers. The other ghosts, however, show signs of violence and Robbie soon starts to unveil the reformatory's dark, violent history through these apparitions.
Meanwhile, Gloria does everything in her power to rescue her little brother while also coping with their father's forced absence and the changing ways in which she has to navigate the world as a Black girl that's now seen as young Black woman by those around her. - Full Book Review by Gabino Iglesias
The novel is dedicated to the real-life Robert Stephens, Due's great-uncle who died at the Dozier School for Boys in 1937 at the age of fifteen. Wikipedia
The Reformatory is a haunting work of historical fiction written as only American Book Award–winning author Tananarive Due could, by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting novel. - Full NY Times Book Review
An insightful, and honest article written by the author herself for Medium August 30, 2019. "Writing through grief: The Dozier School and my novel-in-progress, The Reformatory." Full article.
From NPR's 2012 Florida's Dozier School For Boys: A True Horror Story article: "Over the past decade, hundreds of men have come forward to tell gruesome stories of abuse and terrible beatings they suffered at Florida's Dozier School for Boys, a notorious, state-run institution that closed last year after more than a century."
Full Goodreads synopsis.
7 attendees
Past events
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