The Community Library Winter Book Group: Race through Time
Thursdays, January 21-February 25, 4 to 5 p.m., Zoom
In conjunction with the community-wide read of the novel Kindred by Octavia E. Butler, this year’s Winter Book Group will focus on three books that address the legacy of slavery and also move us through time in challenging ways. We will begin with The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, a memoir from 1845, arguably the most influential slave narrative ever published. Then we will read the science fiction novel Kindred in which a Black woman is pulled back in time from the 1970s to the antebellum period. We will conclude with the nonfiction book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, that investigates how one woman’s DNA has shaped scientific research around the world, without her or her family’s knowledge. The books present us with a variety of literary styles to consider, and various modes for grappling with issues around race, gender, and identity.
January 21 General introduction and first pages of The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass*
January 28 The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave by Frederick Douglass*
February 4 Kindred by Octavia Butler
February 11 Kindred by Octavia Butler
February 18 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
February 25 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
*The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass can be read fully online at Project Gutenberg.
Contact Jenny Emery Davidson to request the Zoom link in advance of the January 21 discussion: jdavidson@comlib.org.
