Tuesday Morning Booktalks

This fall, join Emily Auerbach and other booklovers for discussions of three acclaimed 2021 releases—two novels and one work of nonfiction—that uncover how America’s history shapes its present. Classes are free and meet from 10-11 AM Central Time on the last Tuesday morning of September, October, and November.

We tentatively plan to meet both in person and with an online option via Zoom. We’ll meet at 2238 S. Park St, which has free parking and accessibility for those in wheelchairs and walkers. If attending in person, feel free to come a half hour early to mingle with others over refreshments from 9:30-10 AM.

In lieu of an enrollment fee, we invite participants to make a generous contribution to the  UW Odyssey Project to empower more families to overcome adversity and achieve dreams through higher education.

September 27: Naima Coster, What’s Mine and Yours  

Naima Coster, a Dominican-American author identifying as Black and Latina, introduces readers to American families wrestling with complicated questions of racial identity. What happens when integration forces black and white students in a North Carolina community to come together? Where do half-Latina students with a mother insisting that they are “white only” fit in? Ms. Magazine called the multigenerational novel What’s Mine and Yours “the sweeping, spellbinding, cascading saga of the year.”

October 25: Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery across America (UW’s Go Big Read selection)

In advance of the author’s visit to the UW campus on November 1, we’ll read his groundbreaking work of non-fiction showing how America’s history ironically can be hidden in plain sight. Vestiges of slavery may be discovered on a drive to work or a visit to a major city. Author Matthew Desmond observes, “Writing from Confederate Army cemeteries, former plantations, modern-day prisons, and other historical sites, Clint Smith moves seamlessly between past and present, revealing how slavery is remembered and misremembered—and why it matters. Engaging and wise, this book combines history and reportage, poem and memoir. It is a deep lesson and a reckoning.”

November 29: Louise Erdrich, The Sentence

Award-winning Native American novelist Louise Erdrich sets this ghost tale in a small Minneapolis bookstore haunted by an exasperating white customer falsely claiming to be indigenous. Bookseller Tookie tries to solve the mystery while coping with the aftermath of her own incarceration as well as the tumultuous times in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd. A New York Times reviewer calls The Sentence “a bewitching novel…Strange, enchanting and funny: a work about motherhood, doom, regret and the magic—dark, benevolent and every shade in between—of words on paper.” 

Please register here if you'd like to attend or if you'd like future emails about this event.

Join Zoom Meeting: https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/99864104678?pwd=blQzUld0cTh5a2RvR2dEdDVUcW1PUT09

Meeting ID: 998 6410 4678

Passcode: TMB22

Check with emily.auerbach@wisc.edu for updates.