We’re back!

Thank you to everyone who participated in our discussion earlier this month both in the comments section of SeniorPlanet.org and at our meeting over Zoom about “The Dutch House” by Ann Patchett.

Now it is time to select our next reading!

Each Tuesday, we’ll post a thread on SeniorPlanet.org inviting your comments on the next section of the book and then we’ll host a discussion over Zoom the final week of reading the book together.

But first! We’ve put together a shortlist engaging books suggested by our members and staff and it’s up to you pick which one we’ll read together next. Read on for details about each book, then take the poll at the end and tell us: What should the Senior Planet Book Club read next?

We’ll announce the result of the poll in addition to how you can access a copy of the chosen book next Tuesday!

The Books:

Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

“BOY Novak turns twenty and decides to try for a brand-new life. Flax Hill, Massachusetts, isn’t exactly a welcoming town, but it does have the virtue of being the last stop on the bus route she took from New York. Flax Hill is also the hometown of Arturo Whitman—craftsman, widower, and father of Snow. SNOW is mild-mannered, radiant and deeply cherished—exactly the sort of little girl Boy never was, and Boy is utterly beguiled by her. If Snow displays a certain inscrutability at times, that’s simply a characteristic she shares with her father, harmless until Boy gives birth to Snow’s sister, Bird. When BIRD is born Boy is forced to re-evaluate the image Arturo’s family have presented to her, and Boy, Snow and Bird are broken apart. Sparkling with wit and vibrancy, Boy, Snow, Bird is a deeply moving novel about three women and the strange connection between them. It confirms Helen Oyeyemi’s place as one of the most original and dynamic literary voices of her generation.” – GoodReads.com

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

“In a novel-in-verse that brims with grief and love, National Book Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Acevedo writes about the devastation of loss, the difficulty of forgiveness, and the bittersweet bonds that shape our lives.

Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people…” – GoodReads.com

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

“The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Ten years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters’ storylines intersect?” – GoodReads.com

Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

“The memoir of one man’s coming-of-age, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed.

Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.” – GoodReads.com

Take the poll!

Photo by Paul Schafer on Unsplash