Community is at the heart of Brighton Green, and while we share our much-loved neighborhood, we all come from different life-experiences and backgrounds that make us unique. In an effort to learn about each other, we are launching the Brighton Green Book Club, which focuses on stories and voices from around the world.
August 24th
Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR
by Lisa Napoli
In the years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, women in the workplace still found themselves relegated to secretarial positions or locked out of jobs entirely. This was especially true in the news business, a backwater of male chauvinism where a woman might be lucky to get a foothold on the “women’s pages.” But when a pioneering nonprofit called National Public Radio came along in the 1970s, and the door to serious journalism opened a crack, four remarkable women came along and blew it off the hinges.
Susan, Linda, Nina, and Cokie is journalist Lisa Napoli’s captivating account of these four women, their deep and enduring friendships, and the trail they blazed to becoming icons. They had radically different stories. Cokie Roberts was born into a political dynasty, roamed the halls of Congress as a child, and felt a tug toward public service. Susan Stamberg, who had lived in India with her husband who worked for the State Department, was the first woman to anchor a nightly news program and pressed for accommodations to balance work and home life. Linda Wertheimer, the daughter of shopkeepers in New Mexico, fought her way to a scholarship and a spot on-air. And Nina Totenberg, the network's legal affairs correspondent, invented a new way to cover the Supreme Court. Based on extensive interviews and calling on the author’s deep connections in news and public radio, Susan, Linda, Nina, and Cokie will be as beguiling and sharp as its formidable subjects. |
September 28th
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
by Sherman Alexie
Born with a variety of medical problems, Junior Spirit is picked on by everyone but his best friend on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to get a good education, the budding cartoonist leaves the rez to attend an all-white school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Despite being condemned as a traitor to his people and enduring great tragedies, Junior attacks life with wit and humor and discovers his own inner strength.
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October 26th
This is How it Always Is
by Laurie Frankel
In recent years we’ve seen an increasing number of memoirs from transgender individuals and from parents forging uncharted waters in order to help their transgender children live happy, healthy lives in a society that still large-ly defines gender by what’s in your pants. In her novel This is How It Always Is Laurie Frankel takes those real-life ex-periences and puts them into a big-hearted story of family and secrets. Penn and Rosie are a close, loving couple, liv-ing in Madison, Wisconsin with their five boys. But it be-comes evident before long that their youngest, Claude, feels like he should have been born a girl. So how do these strong, supportive parents go about helping their son live as the person he wants to be? It’s a fascinating thing to be-hold.
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December 14
We Are Not Like Them
by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza
Jen and Riley have been best friends since kindergarten. As adults, they remain as close as sisters, though their lives have taken different directions. Jen married young, and after years of trying, is finally pregnant. Riley pursued her childhood dream of becoming a television journalist and is poised to become one of the first Black female anchors of the top news channel in their hometown of Philadelphia.
But the deep bond they share is severely tested when Jen’s husband, a city police officer, is involved in the shooting of an unarmed Black teenager. Six months pregnant, Jen is in freefall as her future, her husband’s freedom, and her friendship with Riley are thrown into uncertainty. Covering this career-making story, Riley wrestles with the implications of this tragic incident for her Black community, her ambitions, and her relation- |
Book Club Facilitators
StephanieStephanie is a Transition Training Associate at VCU Center on Transition Innovations (CTI) where she works on best practices for transition-age youth with disabilities. She is the mother of two rambunctious toddler boys and enjoys reading, crafting, and a good murder mystery drama
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Margaret
Margaret is the Manager of Bon Air Library, she loves serving her community and encouraging literacy in all its forms. She is also a wife, mom, and classic extrovert, she loves making friends and meeting neighbors.
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