race

Author On the Bookcase
Susan Gregg Gilmore

Thrilled to welcome Susan Gregg Gilmore, author of The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove, to On the Bookcase. Susan novel's tells the story of Bezellia Grove, the daughter of Nashville's most prominent families. She is expected to embrace her position in high society. Nobody in Nashville has a bigger name to live up to than. In 1960's Nashville, relationships are complicated, where society remains neatly ordered by class, status and skin color. Bezellia and Samuel, son of her nanny, and the family's handyman, have a clandestine affair. Their romance is met with anger and fear from both families. In a time and place where rebelling against the rules carries a steep price.

Author On the Bookcase
Jennifer Vanderbes

I'm thrilled to welcome Jennifer Vanderbes, author of the new book, Strangers at the Feasts, to On the Bookcase. On Thanksgiving Day 2007, three generations of the Olson family gather. While the Olsons navigate the tensions and secrets that mark their relationships, seventeen-year-old Kijo Jackson and his best friend Spider set out from the nearby housing projects on a mysterious job. A series of tragic events bring these two worlds ever closer, exposing the dangerously thin line between suburban privilege and urban poverty, and culminating in a crime that will change everyone's life.

Jennifer writes stories that "attempt to answer certain questions." A simple "what if" question started the story that became Strangers at the Feast.

July 11 is the 50th anniversary of To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning classic. Featuring some of the most memorable characters in literary history—attorney Atticus Finch, his children Scout and Jem, and of course Boo Radley—To Kill a Mockingbird is the indelible story of race, class, and growing up in the Deep South of the 1930s. Great reading group discussion topics!

To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, and been made into an enormously popular movie.