Thanks for the Memoirs Book Club

Thanks for the Memoirs Book Club will focus on memoirs from authors representing a variety of backgrounds and lived experiences. We will meet on the 2nd Thursday at 10am, every other month, starting in February.

This month we're reading Men We Reaped: A Memoir by Jesmyn Ward. Discussions will be facilitated by Mary Sussman, who previously led Shakespeare and Company (2003-2005), dedicated to the works of William Shakespeare; and League Café, dedicated to books about racial equity (2018-2023). 

Named a Best Book of the Century by The New York Times Book Review and New York Magazine.

The two-time National Book Award winner and author of Salvage the Bones and Let Us Descend, contends with the deaths of five young men dear to her, and the risk of being a Black man in the rural South. 

In five years, Jesmyn Ward lost five young men in her life to drugs, accidents, suicide, and the bad luck that can follow people who live in poverty, particularly black men. But why? As she began to write about living through all the dying, Jesmyn realized the truth -- and it took her breath away. Her brother and her friends all died because of who they were and where they were from, because they lived with a history of racism and economic struggle.

Future Selections Include: 
June 12 – Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon; August 14 – The White Mosque: A Memoir by Sofia Samatar; October 9 – The Liars’ Club: A Memoir by Mary Karr; December 11 - The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute To His White Mother by James McBride.