Reading list for Spring

Book Club - Spring 2018

March - The Handmaid's Tail

The Handmaid's Tail by Margaret Atwood

A dystopian novel set in a near-future New England in a United States governed by a totalitarian theocracy, where women have absolutely no rights.[1] The Handmaid's Tale explores themes of women in subjugation to misogyny in a patriarchal society and the various means by which these women attempt to gain individualism and independence.


April - The Japanese Lover

The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende

Sweeping through time and spanning generations and continents, The Japanese Lover explores questions of identity, abandonment, redemption, and the unknowable impact of fate on our lives. [1] 1939: As the world goes to war, Alma Belasco's Polish parents send her to live in safety with relatives in San Francisco. There she meets Ichimei Fukuda, the son of the family's Japanese gardener, and between them a tender love blossoms. . . [2]

May - The Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

In the novel, the Underground Railroad is chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South.[1]  In Whitehead’s conception, the Underground Railroad is not a metaphor—but an actual railroad winding beneath the earth, as conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. A suspenseful tale of escape and pursuit, it combines elements of fantasy and the counter-factual with an unflinching, painfully truthful depiction of American slavery. [1]

Stay informed

Upcoming books are:The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics by John B. Judis,, The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin, and The Rise of the Rocket Girls by Nathalia Holt

See what books we've discussed in the past by visiting the book club section of our news page. For more information about upcoming book club meetings, contact our club president at: