CJE VIRTUAL BOOK CLUB

3rd Wednesday at 11 am

Join us for our next CJE Virtual Book Club discussion with Reed Hansen!

Book Title: The Museum of Extraordinary Things
Book Author: Alice Hoffman
Date: March 18, 2026

A historical novel set in 1911 New York City, blending romance, mystery, and historical detail, particularly around the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. It follows Coralie Sardie, a “human mermaid” in her father’s Coney Island sideshow, and Eddie Cohen, a Russian immigrant photographer, whose lives intertwine as they navigate love, loss, and the city’s changing landscape.

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Book Title: Too Many Crooks Spoil the Broth
Book Author: Tamar Myers
Date: April 15, 2026

This debut novel in Tamar Myers’ Pennsylvania Dutch Mystery series, features Mennonite innkeeper Magdalena Yoder, who must solve a murder at her PennDutch Inn during hunting season when guests include hunters and activists, leading to suspicious deaths and chaos. The cozy mystery is known for its witty protagonist, unique setting, and inclusion of authentic Mennonite recipes.

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Check out even more reading recommendations from CJE staff and friends:

Book Title: This Tender Land

Book Author: William Kent Krueger

Four orphans flee a harsh Minnesota school during the Great Depression, embarking on a life-changing journey down the Mississippi River. Odie, his brother Albert, their friend Mose, and a young girl named Emmy encounter adventures, friendship, the meaning of home, and the American landscape.
Book Title: The Island of the Sea Women

Book Author: Lisa See

This is a historical novel about female friendship and survival on Korea’s Jeju Island, following best friends Mi-ja and Young-sook as they become haenyeo (women divers) in the 1930s and navigate Japanese colonialism, WWII, the Korean War, and its brutal aftermath, exploring themes of loyalty, betrayal, cultural change, and forgiveness through their intertwined lives and tragic separation.
Book Title: The Night Watchman

Book Author: Louise Erdrich

Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich’s grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, D.C. Thomas Wazhashk is a Chippewa Council member who is trying to understand the consequences of a new “emancipation” bill on its way to the floor of the United States Congress. The bill is a “termination” that threatens the rights of Native Americans to their land and their very identity. Unlike most of the girls on the reservation, Patrice, the class valedictorian, has no desire to wear herself down with a husband and kids. She trails her beloved older sister, Vera, to the big city of Minneapolis on word that she has disappeared and has a baby. Thomas and Patrice live in this impoverished reservation community along with memorable characters who are forced to grapple with the worst and best impulses of human nature.
Book Title: The Dictionary of Lost Words

Book Author: Pip Williams

In 1901, the word ‘Bondmaid’ was found missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. This is the story of Esme, a motherless girl raised in a garden shed in Oxford where her father and lexicographers gather words for the Dictionary. As she grows up, Esme realizes that words related to women’s experiences are often overlooked. While dedicating herself to the Oxford English Dictionary, she secretly begins creating her own: The Dictionary of Lost Words. Set against the backdrop of the women’s suffrage movement and the looming Great War, this story uncovers a hidden narrative in a history written by men.
Book Title: Private Revolutions

Book Author: Yuan Yang

This is a book about the coming of age of four women born in China in the 1980s and 1990s, in a society about to change beyond recognition. Leiya wants to escape the fate of the women in her village. June, at fifteen, sets off for university rather than to raise pigs. Siyue, ranked second-to-bottom of her English class, decides to prove her teachers wrong. And Sam becomes an activist – even as the authorities slowly take her peers from the streets. With unprecedented access to the lives, hopes, and diaries of four ordinary women, Private Revolutions gives a voice to those whose stories go untold. At a time of rising state censorship and suppression, it unearths the identity of modern Chinese society – and something of our own.
Book Title: Smile: A Memoir

Book Author: Sarah Ruhl

With a play opening on Broadway, Sarah Ruhl has just survived a high-risk pregnancy when she discovers the left side of her face is completely paralyzed. She is assured that 90% of Bell’s palsy patients experience a full recovery—like Ruhl’s own mother. But Sarah is in the unlucky 10%. And for a woman, wife, mother, and artist working in theater, the paralysis and the disconnect between the interior and exterior brings significant challenges. So Ruhl begins an intense search for a cure while simultaneously grappling with the reality of her new face, one that is incapable of accurately communicating feelings or intentions. Ruhl chronicles her journey as a patient, wife, mother, and artist. She explores the struggle of a body yearning to match its inner landscape, the pain of postpartum depression, the story of a marriage, being a playwright and working mom, and the desire for a resilient spiritual life in the face of illness.
Book Title: The Nickel Boys

Book Author: Colson Whitehead

Abandoned by his parents and brought up by his loving, strict and clear-sighted grandmother, Elwood Curtis is about to enroll in the local black college. But one innocent mistake is enough to send Elwood to The Nickel Academy, which claims to provide ‘physical, intellectual and moral training’ which will equip its inmates to become ‘honorable and honest men’. In reality, The Nickel Academy is rife with physical, emotional and sexual abuse, and where any boy who resists is likely to disappear ‘out back’. Elwood’s fellow inmate and new friend Turner thinks the only way to survive is to emulate the cruelty and cynicism of their oppressors. The tension between Elwood’s idealism and Turner’s skepticism leads to a decision which will have decades-long repercussions. Based on the history of a real reform school in Florida that operated for 111 years and destroyed the lives of thousands of children.
Book Title: The Last Garden in England

Book Author: Julia Kelly

The Last Garden is a poignant and unforgettable tale of five women living across three different times whose lives are all connected by one very special place.

Present day: Emma Lovett, who has dedicated her career to breathing new life into long-neglected gardens, has just been given the opportunity of a lifetime: to restore the gardens of the famed Highbury House estate. But as Emma dives deeper into the gardens’ past, she begins to uncover secrets that have long lain hidden.

1944: When Beth Pedley arrives at a farm on the outskirts of the village of Highbury, all she wants is to find a place she can call home. Cook Stella Adderton is desperate to leave Highbury House to pursue her own dreams. And widow Diana Symonds, the mistress of the house, is anxiously trying to cling to her pre-war life. But when war threatens Highbury House’s treasured gardens, these three very different women are drawn together by a secret that will last for decades.

1907: A talented artist with a growing reputation, Venetia Smith has carved out a niche for herself as a garden designer to industrialists, solicitors, and bankers looking to show off their wealth. When she is hired to design the gardens of Highbury House, the gardens—and the people she meets—promise to change her life forever.
Book Title: James

Book Author: Percival Everett

A brilliant reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view. When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the promise of the Free States and beyond. While many narrative set pieces of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place, Jim’s agency, intelligence, and compassion are shown in a radically new light.
Book Title:The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Harper Perennial Deluxe Edition 2024)

Book Author: Mark Twain

A nineteenth-century boy from a Mississippi River town recounts his adventures as he travels down the river with a runaway slave, encountering a family involved in a feud, two scoundrels pretending to be royalty, and Tom Sawyer’s aunt who mistakes him for Tom.
Book Title: Circe

Book Author: Madeline Miller

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born, Circe. But she is neither powerful like her father nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals, Circe discovers her power of witchcraft. Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts, and crosses paths with mythology’s most famous figures. But Circe draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must choose whether she belongs with the gods she is born from or with the mortals she has come to love.
Book Title: The Berlin Letters

Book Author: Katherine Raey

Bestselling author Katherine Reay returns with an unforgettable tale set during the Cold War, following a CIA codebreaker who risks it all to free her father from an East German prison. From a young age, Luisa Voekler has had a passion for solving puzzles and cracking codes. Her brilliance and sharp logic have set high expectations for a fast rise within the CIA. However, while her colleagues take on exciting assignments in the high-stakes world of the late 1980s, Luisa finds herself relegated to decoding World War II messages—until a personal mission changes everything.
Book Title: Boots in the Ashes

Book Author: Cynthia Beebe

Join us for an exciting program with author Cynthia Beebe as she discusses her memoir, Boots in the Ashes.
In this captivating book, Cynthia recounts her groundbreaking career as
one of the first women special agents for the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Raised as a smart and
independent girl in suburban Chicago, Cynthia unexpectedly found herself
among the pioneers of women hunting down violent criminals for the
federal government. Don’t miss this incredible opportunity to hear her
inspiring story firsthand!
Book Title: The Lost and Found Bookshop

Book Author: Susan Wiggs

There is a book for everything . . .In the wake of a shocking tragedy, Natalie Harper inherits her mother’s charming but financially strapped bookshop in San Francisco. She also becomes caretaker for her ailing grandfather. After she moves into the small studio apartment above the shop, Natalie hires a contractor to do necessary repairs. His young daughter also becomes a regular at the store, and she and Natalie begin reading together. To Natalie’s surprise, her sorrow begins to dissipate as her life becomes an unexpected journey of new connections, discoveries, and revelations, including unearthing artifacts hidden in the bookshop’s walls.
Book Title: The Vulnerables

Book Author: Sigrid Nunez

The Vulnerables offers a meditation on our contemporary era, as a solitary female narrator asks what it means to be alive at this complex moment in history and considers how our present reality affects the way a person looks back on her past. Equally vital is connection with others, who include a spirited parrot named Eureka. The Vulnerables reveals what happens when strangers are willing to open their hearts to each other and how far even small acts of caring can go to ease another’s distress.
Book Title: Invisible Women

Book Author: Caroline Criado Perez

From economic development, to healthcare, education and public policy, we rely on numbers to allocate resources and make crucial decisions. But data often fails to take gender into account; it treats men as the default and women as atypical, bias and discrimination are baked into our systems. And women pay tremendous costs for this bias in time, money, and sometimes with their lives. Invisible Women investigates the shocking root cause of gender inequality and research, diving into women’s lives at home, the workplace, the public square, the doctor’s office, and more. Built on hundreds of studies in the US, the UK, and around the world, and written with energy, wit, and sparkling intelligence, this is a groundbreaking, unforgettable exposé that will change the way you look at the world.
Book Title: The Book Thief

Book Author: Markus Zusak

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. By her brother’s graveside, Liesel’s life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger’s Handbook. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordion-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor’s wife’s library, and wherever there are books to be found. But when Liesel’s foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel’s world is both opened, and closed.
Book Title: Evergreen

Book Author: Naomi Hirahara

It’s been 2 years since Aki Ito and her family were released from Manzanar detention center and resettled in Chicago. Now the Itos have finally been allowed to return home to California, but thousands of people live in dismal refugee camps while they struggle to find new houses and jobs in over-crowded Los Angeles. Little Tokyo is rocked by a murder and when the cops start sniffing around Aki’s home, she begins to worry that the violence tearing through her community might threaten her family.
Book Title: Lady Tan’s Circle of Women

Book Author: Lisa See

Tan Yunxian—born into an elite family, yet haunted by death, separations, and loneliness—is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. From a young age, Yunxian learns about women’s illnesses, alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling. The two girls vow to be forever friends, but when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women and girls in the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wife and stay forever within the walls of the family compound.
Book Title: The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession

Book Author: Michael Finkel
For centuries, works of art have been stolen from all over the world, but no one has been quite as successful at it as the master thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Carrying out more than 200 heists over nearly 10 years, Breitwieser, along with his girlfriend, stole more than 300 objects, until it all fell apart in spectacular fashion.
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed from the Chicago Public Library.
Book Title: Small Things Like These

Book Author: Claire Keegan
It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces his busiest season. While delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed from the Chicago Public Library.
Book Title: Remarkably Bright Creatures

Book Author: Shelby Van Pelt
In Shelby Van Pelt’s debut novel, Tova Sullivan finds solace in working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium after the mysterious disappearance of her son, Erik, years ago. Through her interactions with Marcellus, a cantankerous octopus residing at the aquarium, Tova forms an unlikely bond. Marcellus, using his remarkable abilities, becomes a detective of sorts, unraveling the truth behind Erik’s vanishing. As Tova confronts her past with Marcellus’s help, they embark on a journey of healing and discovery. Van Pelt’s novel beautifully illustrates the power of confronting one’s history to forge an unexpected and hopeful future.
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed from the Chicago Public Library.
Book Title: Finding Me

Book Author: Viola Davis
Finding Me follows the life of Viola, a young girl who escapes her troubled past and embarks on a life-changing journey. From a dilapidated apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the grand stages of New York City, Viola’s story explores the themes of self-discovery and the struggle to be recognized in a competitive world. The book offers a poignant reflection on the importance of authenticity and the power of creative expression. Through her own experiences, Viola hopes to inspire readers to embrace their true selves and find fulfillment in life.
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed from the Chicago Public Library.
Book Title: Clark and Division

Book Author: Naomi Hirahara
Set in Chicago 1944, twenty-year-old Aki Ito and her parents have just been released from Manzanar, where they have been detained by the US government since the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, together with thousands of other Japanese Americans. The life in California the Itos were forced to leave behind is gone; instead, they are being resettled two thousand miles away in Chicago, where Aki’s older sister, Rose, moved to the new Japanese American neighborhood near Clark and Division streets. But on the eve of the Ito family’s reunion, Rose is killed by a subway train. Officials are ruling Rose’s death a suicide. Aki’s instinct tells her there is much more to the story, and she knows she is the only person who could ever learn the truth. Inspired by historical events, Naomi Hirahara has gleaned from 30 years of research in Japanese American history.
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed from the Chicago Public Library.
Book Title: Let Me Tell You What I Mean (selected essays)
Book Author: Joan Didion
Alicia and the underground press
Getting serenity
On beingunchosen by the college of one’s choice
Fathers, sons, screaming eagles
Why I write
Telling stories
Everywoman.com
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed from the Chicago Public Library.
Book Title: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Book Author: Rebecca Skloot
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer, yet her cells—taken without her consent—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for over 60 years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine, uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects. Yet Henrietta Lacks is buried in an unmarked grave.
Rebecca Skloot takes us from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 50s to labs with freezers full of HeLa cells; from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells.
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed from the Chicago Public Library.
Book Title: The Measure

Book Author: Nikki Erlick
Eight ordinary people. One extraordinary choice. It seems like any other day. You wake up, pour a cup of coffee, and head out. But today, when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. This box holds the answer to the exact number of years you will live. From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. The Measure charts the dawn of this new world through characters whose decisions and fates interweave with one another: best friends whose dreams are entwined, pen pals finding refuge, a doctor who cannot save himself, and a politician whose box becomes the powder keg that ultimately changes everything.
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed from the Chicago Public Library.
Book Title: Lessons in Chemistry

Book Author: Bonnie Garmus
Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results. But like science, life is unpredictable. Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed from the Chicago Public Library.
Book Title: Rules of Civility

Book Author: Amor Towles
On the last night of 1937, 25-year-old Katey is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar when a handsome banker happens to sit down at the neighboring table. This chance encounter propels Katey on a journey into the upper echelons of New York society—where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and cool nerve. With its sparkling depiction of New York’s social strata and immensely appealing characters, Rules of Civility won the hearts of readers and critics alike.
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed from the Chicago Public Library.
Book Title: Violeta

Book Author: Isabel Allende
From the start, Violeta’s life will be marked by extraordinary events of the Great War and Spanish flu. The family will come through unscathed, only to face the Great Depression. Her family is forced to retreat to a remote part of the country. There, Violeta tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves, recounting heartbreak and passionate affairs, times of poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Her life will be shaped by some of the most important events of history: women’s rights, tyranny, and two pandemics. Isabel Allende brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional.
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed from the Chicago Public Library.
Book Title: The Sweetness of Water

Book Author: Nathan Harris
Brothers Prentiss and Landry—freed by the recent Emancipation Proclamation—seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm. Prentiss and Landry plan to journey north and reunite with their mother, who was sold when they were boys. Parallel to their story runs a forbidden romance between two Confederate soldiers. When their secret is discovered, the resulting murder unleashes repercussions on the entire community. Nathan Harris creates an unforgettable cast of characters, depicting Georgia in the violent crucible of Reconstruction.
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed from the Chicago Public Library.
Book Title: Klara and the Sun

Book Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans. In Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed from the Chicago Public Library.
Book Title: Selected Works from Tenth of December Short Stories
Book Author: George Saunders
The list of short stories will be discussing:
Victory Lap
The Semplica Girl Diaries
Tenth of December
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed from the Chicago Public Library.
Book Title: Maisie Dobbs

Book Author: Jacqueline Winspear
Maisie Dobbs got her start as a maid in an aristocratic London household when she was thirteen. Her employer, suffragette Lady Rowan Compton, soon became her patron, taking the remarkably bright youngster under her wing. Lady Rowan’s friend, Maurice Blanche, often retained as an investigator by the European elite, recognized Maisie’s intuitive gifts and helped her earn admission to the prestigious Girton College in Cambridge, where Maisie planned to complete her education. The outbreak of war changed everything. Maisie trained as a nurse, then left for France to serve at the Front. Ten years after the Armistice, Maisie sets out on her own as a private investigator. When Fate brings Maisie a case involving The Retreat, she must finally confront the ghost that has haunted her for over a decade.
Book Title: An Unorthodox Match

Book Author: Naomi Ragen
California girl Lola has her life all set up when suddenly everything tragically implodes. After years fruitlessly searching for love, marriage, and children, she decides to seek spirituality in the ultraorthodox enclave of Boro Park, Brooklyn. There, fate brings her to the home of newly-widowed Jacob, a devout Torah scholar, whose life is also in turmoil, and whose small children are aching for kindness. The shocking and unexpected messages of her new community finally force her into a deeper understanding of the real choices she now faces and which will ultimately decide her fate.
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed from the Chicago Public Library.
Book Title: Colson Whitehead

Book Author: The Underground Railroad
Cora is a young slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood–where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him. In Colson Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering, like Gulliver, strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop.
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed from the Chicago Public Library.
Book Title: The Henna Artist

Book Author: Alka Joshi
Escaping from an abusive marriage, seventeen-year-old Lakshmi makes her way alone to the vibrant 1950s pink city of Jaipur. There she becomes the most highly requested henna artist-and confidante-to the wealthy women of the upper class. But trusted with the secrets of the wealthy, she can never reveal her own. Known for her original designs and sage advice, Lakshmi must tread carefully to avoid the jealous gossips who could ruin her reputation and her livelihood. As she pursues her dream of an independent life, she is startled one day when she is confronted by her husband, who has tracked her down.
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed from the Chicago Public Library.
Book Title: The Overstory

Book Author: Richard Powers
A sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’ novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours—vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed from the Chicago Public Library.
Book Title: Infinite Country: A Novel

Book Author: Patricia Engel
Patricia Engel, a dual citizen and daughter of immigrants, gives voice to a family as they navigate the particulars of their circumstances. Talia must urgently get back home to Bogotá, where her father and a plane ticket to the United States are waiting for her. If she misses her flight, she might also miss her chance to finally be reunited with her family. How this family came to occupy two different countries, two different worlds, comes into focus like twists of a kaleidoscope. We see Talia’s parents fall in love against a backdrop of civil war and social unrest. We see them leave Bogotá with their firstborn in pursuit of safety and opportunity in the United States, and we see the births of two more children on American soil. Rich with Bogotá urban life, steeped in Andean myth, and tense with the daily reality of the undocumented in America, Infinite Country “is as much an all-American story as it is a global one”.
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed from the Chicago Public Library.
Book Title: Devil in the White City

Book Author: Erik Larson.
Erik Larson tells the stories of two men: Daniel H. Burnham, the architect responsible for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair construction, and H.H. Holmes, a serial killer masquerading as a charming doctor. Burnham’s challenge was immense. In a short period of time, he was forced to overcome the death of his partner and numerous other obstacles to construct the famous “White City”. The activities of the sinister Dr. Holmes, who is believed to be responsible for scores of murders around the time of the fair, are equally remarkable. He devised and erected the World’s Fair Hotel, complete with crematorium and gas chamber, near the fairgrounds and used the event to lure victims.
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed from the Chicago Public Library.
Book Title: Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books by Aaron

Book Author: Aaron Lansky
As a twenty-three-year-old graduate student, Aaron Lansky set out to save the world’s abandoned Yiddish books before it was too late. Today, more than a million books later, he has accomplished what has been called “the greatest cultural rescue effort in Jewish history.” In Outwitting History, Lansky shares his adventures as well as the poignant and often laugh-out-loud stories he heard as he traveled the country collecting books. Introducing us to a dazzling array of writers, he shows us how an almost-lost culture is the bridge between the old world and the future—and how the written word can unite everyone who believes in the power of great literature.
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed as a Chicago Public Library Ebook.
Book Title: Euphoria

Book Author: Lily King
In 1933, three young, gifted anthropologists are thrown together in the jungle of New Guinea. They are Nell Stone, fascinating, magnetic, and famous for her controversial work studying South Pacific tribes her intelligent and aggressive husband Fen and Andrew Bankson, who stumbles into the lives of this strange couple and becomes totally enthralled. Within months, the trio are producing their best ever work, but soon a firestorm of fierce love and jealousy begins to burn out of control, threatening their bonds, their careers, and, ultimately, their lives…
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed as a Chicago Public Library Ebook or as an Audiobook.
Book Title: Educated

Book Author: Tara Westover
Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed as a Chicago Public Library Ebook or as an Audiobook.
Book Title: The Thing Around Your Neck

Book Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
This collection of short stories explores two cultures and the deeply human struggle to reconcile them. Adichie turns her penetrating eye on not only Nigeria but America in twelve dazzling stories that explore the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Africa and the United States. Stories for discussion: A Private Experience, The Thing Around your Neck, The American Embassy, The Headstrong Historian.
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed as a Chicago Public Library Ebook or as an Audiobook.
Book Title: The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen

Book Author: Hendrick Groen
Technically speaking, Hendrik is elderly but has no plans to go out quietly. Hendrik has decided to rebel – on his own terms. A funny and tender-hearted tale about friendship, love, and an old man young at heart.
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide.
Book Title: The Man Called Ove

Book Author: Fredrick Backman
At first sight, Ove is almost certainly the grumpiest man you will ever meet. But isn’t it rare to find such unswerving conviction about what the world should be, and a lifelong dedication to making it just so? A funny, moving, uplifting tale of love and community that will leave you with a spring in your step.
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed as a Chicago Public Library Ebook here or as an Audiobook here. For those outside of the Chicago Public Library system, you can search for this Ebook at your local public library here or as an Audiobook here.
Book Title: The Tunnel

Book Author: A. B. Yehoshua

A suspenseful and poignant story of a family coping with the mental decline of their husband and father—an engineer who they discover is involved in an ominous secret military project.
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed as a Chicago Public Library Ebook here or as an Audiobook here. For those outside of the Chicago Public Library system, you can search for this Ebook at your local public library here or as an Audiobook here.
Book Title: Sisters in Law

Book Author: Linda Hirshman.
Hirshman’s dual biography about two trailblazing Supreme Court Justices, Republican Sandra Day O’Connor and Democrat Ruth Bader Ginsburg, shows how both groundbreaking judges strengthened and supported each other, transforming American law and making our country a more equal place for all women.
This book can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed as a Chicago Public Library Ebook here. For those outside of the Chicago Public Library system, you can search for this Ebook at your local public library here or as an Audiobook here.
Book Title:The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer

Book Author: Anne-Marie O’Connor.
O’Connor thrillingly writes about the international dispute surrounding Gustav Klimt’s 1907 masterpiece portrait of Viennese Jewish socialite, Adele Bloch-Bauer. Stolen by Nazis during World War II, the painting became the subject of a decade-long dispute between her heirs and the Austrian government.
This book can be bought on Amazon, Barnes and Noble. You can also purchase the book directly through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options) or purchase online at Bookshop.org, an online bookshop that financially supports independent bookshops locally and nationwide. It can also be borrowed as a Chicago Public Library Ebook here. For those outside of the Chicago Public Library system, you can search for this Ebook at your local public library here.
Book Title:The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek

Book Author: Kim Michele Richardson’s
Overview: Richardson’s book is about a young woman, Cussie Mary Carter, also named Bluet, who worked for the Pack Horse Library Project of Kentucky. Bluet spends her days delivering books to the poor and underserved community of Troublesome Creek, Kentucky in the 1930s. Richardson’s book is a powerful portrayal of how the written word can impact people’s lives.
This book can be bought on Amazon, Barnes and Noble or through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options). It can also be borrowed as a Chicago Public Library Ebook here or borrowed as a Chicago Public Library Audiobook here. For those not in the Chicago Public Library system, you can search for this Ebook or Audiobook at your local public library here
Book Title: Americanah

Book Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s.
Overview: Adichie tells an immigrant story through the eyes of two young Nigerians making their way in the U.S. and the UK. Ifemelu is a bright young woman who struggles to find success in America, but ultimately succeeds by embracing her own identity. Obinze, Ifemelu’s soft-spoken high school sweetheart, finds himself alone and afraid in the UK as an undocumented immigrant. After getting deported back to Nigeria, Obinze later finds wealth and success. The two reunite in Nigeria years later, both perceived by Nigerian society as Americanah – those who return from abroad to look down on their fellow countrymen.
This book can be bought on Amazon, Barnes and Noble or through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options). It can also be borrowed as a Chicago Public Library Ebook here or borrowed as a Chicago Public Library Audiobook here. For those not in the Chicago Public Library system, you can search for this Ebook or Audiobook at your local public library here.
Book Title: In the Garden of the Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin.

Book Author: Erik Larson
Larson thrillingly captures the story of William E. Dodd, America’s newly appointed ambassador to Germany right before World War II. Dodd wasn’t a diplomat or politician, but rather a college professor, devoted to the history of the American South. Despite his lack of political experience, Dodd arrived in Berlin during the summer of 1933 with his wife and grown children to navigate the dangerous waters between American Isolationism and the growing cries of our allies to join their fight against Hitler.
This book can be bought on Amazon, Barnes and Noble or through your favorite independent bookstore (check for curbside pickup options). It can also be borrowed as a Chicago Public Library Ebook here or borrowed as a Chicago Public Library Audiobook here. For those not in the Chicago Public Library system, you can search for this Ebook or Audiobook at your local public library here
Book Title: 700 Sundays
Book Title: The Last Year of the War

Book Author: Susan Meissner

After her father is accused of being a Nazi sympathizer in 1943, Elise Sontag’s normal Iowa teenage existence comes to an end when her German-American family is placed in a Texas internment camp. We follow Elise as she and her family are caught up in the paranoia and politics of World War II and forced to embark upon a course of events beyond their control.
Book Title: Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love

Book Author: Dani Shapiro

After submitting her DNA to a genealogy website, Dani Shapiro receives shocking news about her paternity. Her memoir charts her journey through self-discovery, the true meaning of family, and the secrets we are willing to keep to prevent hurting those we love.
Book Title: Uncanny Valley: A Memoir
Book Title: The Overstory

Book Author: Richard Powers

This novel explores why people believe what they believe and what sacrifices they’re willing to make to fight for what they think is right. They are several main characters all tied together by trees. The book explores environmental justice themes over several decades.
Book Title: Man’s Search for Meaning

Book Author: Viktor E. Frankl

Dr. Frankl describes his experiences in 4 Nazi death camps and the lessons he learned for spiritual survival. Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. This book continues to inspire us all to find significance in the very act of living.
Book Title: The Giver of Stars

Book Author: Jojo Moyes

This book is a wonderful historic and fictional account of “packhorse librarians” (started as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s traveling library idea) in rural Kentucky. It takes place during the depression, and develops characters worth caring about facing cultural expectations of class, gender, and marriage, etc.).