Celebrating 3 years of Community and Reading
I have been dancing in a soulful class with my dance instructor and now longtime friend and adventure companion, Luisa, for close to 18 years. We have enjoyed lots of theater, art museums and tasty meals together over the years and have a mutual love for jigsaw puzzles, M&Ms, projects and lists. Our dance class has become a beautiful and unique community of people who each have something interesting to contribute and we have been on wonderful group field trips to quench our thirst for culture and the arts and just being together. Three years ago we decided to start a book club and over time we have opened our doors and invited friends of dance class members to join in the literary fun.
Deciding What to Read
When choosing a book for the group, we try to pick something that fall into one of these categories:
A book that is based on history where we can learn something
About a person of interest
About a topic of interest for our group (dance, art, theater)
Relationships
About another culture (African American, South African, Indian, Mexican, Vietnamese)
A debut where we can meet the author
We have read some really amazing books and have welcomed incredible writers to join us and provide behind the scenes information on themselves, their stories and their writing process. As I reminisce and think about the great discussions we have had, I want to give a shout out to the authors and their books for providing rich fodder that allowed us opportunity to delve into meaningful discussions while nurturing our relationships and making stronger connections. Here is our list of reading material so far – all of which I highly recommend!
Book Group Choices
Swing Time by Zadie Smith
Song of a Captive Bird by Jasmin Darznik
The Masterpiece by Fiona Davis – Author Visit
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday
Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose – Author Visit
Everything in Its Place: First Loves and Last Tales by Oliver Sacks – Author Visit Bill Hayes, author of Insomniac City; New York, Oliver Sacks and Me
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
If You Want to Make God Laugh by Bianca Marais – Author Visit
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
The Yellow Bird Sings by Jennifer Rosner – Author Visit
My Kind of People by Lisa Duffy – Author Visit
The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Dare
Saving Ruby King by Catherine Adel West – Author Visit
Well Behaved Indian Women by Saumya Dave – Author Visit
Fifty Words For Rain by Asha Lemmie – Author Visit
To Be A Man by Nicole Krauss
Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour
This Close to Okay by Leesa Cross Smith
Raft of Stars by Andrew J. Graff – Author Visit
Suggestions For Future Books
If you have a book suggestion for an upcoming discussion, please leave it in the comments! I look forward to hearing what you recommend!
