We are an informal group. Join us whether you have finished reading the book or just want to enjoy our lively conversation. We usually meet at Barnes and Noble book store on Kingston Pike in the cafe area - on the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:30 pm.
Call or e-mail Peggy Littmann 776-1013, plittmann@comcast.net to RSVP for more information.
This month's selection is The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead.
June 20th, we’ll discuss Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
July 18th, we'll discuss America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray.
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead.
Oprah’s Bookclub
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hellish for all the slaves but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood - where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned and, though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.
In Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor - engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven - but the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. Even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.
As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.