Our book club will focus on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. The League’s Board has chosen our first book, however the members of the book club will choose the books after the first. If you are interested in joining the book club email Barbara Connolly at email@lwvlehighcounty.org.
OUR THIRD BOOK
Blurb from the New York Journal of Books: “The Personal Librarian is a good, well-paced creative nonfiction book about a real person that will snag the reader and hold his or her attention from beginning to end.”
The Personal Librarian is a perfect example of creative nonfiction. It benefits the reader from both types of reading — it is educational and it is entertaining.
The authors picked their subject, Belle da Costa Greene (aka Belle Marion Greener), with care. A true to life person, Belle, chose to work with John Pierpont Morgan establishing his library, is a fair-skinned Black woman who spends her life passing as a white woman.
This thread carries through the entirety of the story. Belle’s mother — also fair skinned, as are her other children — encourages Belle to continue the deception. She knows this is the only way her daughter will succeed in life.
It’s a heavy weight that Belle carries, never sure if her secret will be exposed. There are points in the book where she steps to the edge, almost exposing herself, but catches herself before she steps over.
OUR SECOND BOOK
Blurb from Amazon.com: NEW YORK TIMES ONE OF 10 BEST BOOKS OF 2021 – Weaving together American history, dramatic family chronicle, and searing episodes of memoir, Annette Gordon-Reed’s On Juneteenth provides a historian’s view of the country’s long road to Juneteenth, recounting both its origins in Texas and the enormous hardships that African-Americans have endured in the century since, from Reconstruction through Jim Crow and beyond. All too aware of the stories of cowboys, ranchers, and oilmen that have long dominated the lore of the Lone Star State, Gordon-Reed―herself a Texas native and the descendant of enslaved people brought to Texas as early as the 1820s―forges a new and profoundly truthful narrative of her home state, with implications for us all.
OUR FIRST BOOK
Blurb from Amazon.com: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER – REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK – From a leading voice on racial justice, an eye-opening account of growing up Black, Christian, and female that exposes how white America’s love affair with “diversity” so often falls short of its ideals.
Our first book club gathering was held on July 28.
