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Hi everyone!

We hope you are all enjoying your summer break and staying safe in the heat! It’s still a few weeks before classes start, but we wanted to send an email to officially welcome everyone to a new year of book club, along with some helpful information.

First, a reminder of our book picks for this semester: Our summer read is The Wedding People by Alison Espach. It’s purely optional, but we’re planning to talk about it at the first meeting of the semester. As usual, everyone is welcome to the meeting whether or not they have read the book!

The book picks for Fall 2026 are We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson and The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister. Since Jackson’s book is pretty short, we’re planning to read it first and hope to fit both books into this semester. We’ll be planning for the semester at our first meeting as well, so come prepared to give input on our reading schedule.

To obtain copies of the books, we recommend borrowing from the UMD library or the Duluth Public Library. The UMD library even has a free, full-text ebook of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, available here. Both libraries also provide Libby access if you prefer audiobooks or ebooks. If you’d rather buy your books, check out Thriftbooks or Half-Price Books for affordable options. We can also provide copies for some book club members upon request, so please reach out if you’re interested!

Also, please stay tuned for our next email in a few weeks. We’ll be sending out a When To Meet form, so we can pick meeting times that work for as many people as possible.

Shirley Our club plant Shirley is doing amazing but she is going through the natural life cycle aka death. But she has had 2 babies who are growing well!

We’re looking forward to seeing you all soon!

Warmly,

Nicole and Mia