September 19, 2024: Behind You is the Sea, by Susan Muaddi Darraj

Funny and touching, Behind You is the Sea brings us into the homes and lives of three main families—the Baladis, the Salamehs, and the Ammars—Palestinian immigrants who’ve all found a different welcome in America.

Behind You is the Sea faces stereotypes about Palestinian culture head-on, shifting perspectives to weave a complex social fabric replete with weddings, funerals, broken hearts, and devastating secrets. (Description from author’s website).

Special guest Dr. Vaughn Shannon, Professor, International and Comparative Studies, will provide background information on the history of Palestine.

November 21, 2024: Broughtupsy, by Christina Cooke

Told through an intimate first-person account, Broughtupsy follows a 20-year-old Akúa as she attempts to reconstruct her fractured family by flying from Canada to her native Jamaica to reconnect with her estranged older sister Tamika, her younger brother Bryson’s ashes in tow. As she tries to get closer to her sister and put her brother to rest, Akúa’s confronted with the difficult realities of being gay in a deeply religious family, of feeling separate from her home culture after years of living abroad, and of battling the grief of losing her mother and then brother at pivotal moments in her young life.

As she spreads her brother’s ashes while home in Kingston, Akúa meets Jayda, a bashful young woman who shows her a different side of the city and gives her a glimmer of hope of how to be at peace with her sister and herself. At its core, Broughtupsy asks us all: what are we willing to do for family? And what are we willing to do to savor the feeling of home? (Description from the author’s website).

January 16, 2025: A Sign of Her Own, by Sarah Marsh

A mesmerizing tale of historical fiction that follows a deaf former student of Alexander Graham Bell as she learns to reclaim her own authentic voice.

Ellen Lark is on the verge of marriage when she and her fiancé receive an unexpected visit from Alexander Graham Bell. Ellen is deaf and for a time she was Bell’s student learning visible speech. During their lessons, Bell also confided in her about his dream of producing a device that would transmit the human voice along a wire: the telephone.

Now, on the cusp of wealth and renown, Bell wants Ellen to speak up in support of his claim to the patent of the telephone, which is being challenged by rival inventors. But Ellen has a different story to tell: that of how Bell betrayed her and other deaf pupils in pursuit of his own ambition. Ellen knows that this is her one opportunity to tell the true story—her story—but to do so will risk her engagement, her future prospects and her mother’s last wish for her.

Inspired by Alexander Graham Bell’s real deaf students, this stunning historical debut casts new light on the inventor and the invention that would forever change how we communicate.  (Description from the publisher).

March 20, 2025: Prophet Song, by Paul Lynch – The Dayton Literary Peace Prize Winner for Fiction

The explosive literary sensation: a mother faces a terrible choice as Ireland slides into totalitarianism.

On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her step. Two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police are here to interrogate her husband, Larry, a trade unionist. 

Ireland is falling apart. The country is in the grip of a government turning towards tyranny and when her husband disappears, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a society that is quickly unravelling. Soon, she must decide just how far she is willing to go to keep her family safe. 

Exhilarating, terrifying and propulsive, Paul Lynch’s Booker Prize-winning novel is a devastating vision of a country falling apart and a moving portrait of the resilience of the human spirit when faced with the darkest of times. (Description from the publisher).