Join us for these upcoming book discussions at Wilmette Public Library.
Classics & Contemporary
Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar Tuesday, September 14th, 10:30am
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ayad Akhtar forges a new narrative voice to capture a country in which debt has ruined countless lives and the gods of finance rule, where immigrants live in fear, and where the nation's unhealed wounds wreak havoc around the world. Akhtar attempts to make sense of it all through the lens of a story about one family, from a heartland town in America to palatial suites in Central Europe to guerrilla lookouts in the mountains of Afghanistan, and spares no one—least of all himself—in the process. (From the Publisher)
Copies of the book are available here. Ebook and audiobook copies are available through Digital Library of Illinois or the Libby app.
Registration will close two hours before the program begins and registrants will receive a link to join shortly thereafter.
League of Women Voters/WPL Book Group
The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee Wednesday, September 22nd, 11am
Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy—and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the financial crisis to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a common root problem: racism. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. Racism has costs for white people, too. The Sum of Us is a brilliant analysis of how we arrived here: divided and self-destructing, materially rich but spiritually starved and vastly unequal. McGhee marshals economic and sociological research to paint an irrefutable story of racism’s costs, but at the heart of the book are the humble stories of people yearning to be part of a better America, including white supremacy’s collateral victims: white people themselve
s. With startling empathy, this heartfelt message from a Black woman to a multiracial America leaves us with a new vision for a future in which we finally realize that life can be more than a zero-sum game. (Adapted from the publisher)
Find a copy of the book here. Ebook and eaudiobook copies are available through Digital Library of Illinois or the Libby app.
Registration will close two hours before the program begins and registrants will receive a link to join shortly thereafter.
