Greater Sacramento Women's Book Club

MIDTOWN May 2026 — A Man of Two Faces, by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Wed, May 20 · 6:30 PM PDT

Time Tested Books, 1114 21st St, Sacramento, CA, US

📖 Why this book? 📖

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK
AWARD

The highly original, blistering, and unconventional memoir by the Pulitzer Prizewinning author of The Sympathizer, which has now sold over one million copies worldwide

With insight, humor, formal invention, and lyricism, in A Man of Two Faces Viet Thanh Nguyen rewinds the film of his own life. He expands the genre of personal memoir by acknowledging larger stories of refugeehood, colonization, and ideas about Vietnam and America, writing with his trademark sardonic wit and incisive analysis, as well as a deep emotional openness about his life as a father and a
son.

Hard to find a copy? Suggest a title or use Zip Books at your local library

💠 What can I expect? 💠

We will meet in-person after hours in Time Tested Books. Front door will be unlocked, and staff will point the way.

💬 We catch up socially;
🧊 we recommend a book or author, and
📕 we start our book discussion at 7pm.

👜 WHAT DO I BRING? 👜

◾️A snack or drink to share
◾️$5 (cash or Venmo *8913)
◾️And you could bring your book 😄

✴️ Event Fee Details ✴️

The $5 is split between our access to this Meetup platform and our access to the meeting location.

You can venmo me (https://venmo.com/u/Rebecca-Bon *8913) or bring cash.

However❕We would never want you to miss a book club discussion because of the $5, so please message me if you have any concerns

Thanks, and see you all soon!

📚 ** BOOK SUMMARY ** 📚

At the age of four, Nguyen and his family are forced to flee his hometown of Ban Mê Thuột and come to the USA as refugees.

After being removed from his brother and parents and homed with a family on his own, Nguyen is later allowed to resettle into his own family in suburban San José.

But there is violence hidden behind the sunny façade of what he calls AMERICATM. One Christmas Eve, when Nguyen is nine, while watching cartoons at home, he learns that his parents have been shot while working at their grocery store, the SàiGòn Mới, a place where he sometimes helps price tins of fruit with a sticker gun.

Years later, as a teenager, the blood-stir-ring drama of the films of the Vietnam War such as Apocalypse Now throw Nguyen into an existential crisis: how can he be both American and Vietnamese, both the killer and the person being killed? When he learns about an adopted sister who has stayed back in Vietnam, and ultimately visits her, he grows to understand just how much his parents have left behind. And as his parents age, he worries increasingly about their comfort and care, and realizes that some of their older wounds are re-opening.

Profound in its emotions and brilliant in its thinking about cultural power, A Man of Two Faces explores the necessity of both forgetting and of memory, the promises America so readily makes and breaks, and the exceptional life storv of one of the most original and important writers working today.

GRANITE BAY May 2026 — A Man of Two Faces, by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Thu, May 21 · 6:00 PM PDT

Raley's, 6845 Douglas Blvd., Granite Bay, CA, 6845 Douglas Blvd. (Corner of Douglas & Auburn-Folsom Rd), Granite Bay, CA, US

📖 Why this book? 📖

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK
AWARD

The highly original, blistering, and unconventional memoir by the Pulitzer Prizewinning author of The Sympathizer, which has now sold over one million copies worldwide

With insight, humor, formal invention, and lyricism, in A Man of Two Faces Viet Thanh Nguyen rewinds the film of his own life. He expands the genre of personal memoir by acknowledging larger stories of refugeehood, colonization, and ideas about Vietnam and America, writing with his trademark sardonic wit and incisive analysis, as well as a deep emotional openness about his life as a father and a
son.

Hard to find a copy? Suggest a title or use Zip Books at your local library

💠 What can I expect? 💠

We will meet in-person in the ‘Gather Room’ at the back left of the store.

💬 We catch up socially;
🧊 we recommend a book or author, and
📕 we start our book discussion at 6:30pm.

👜 WHAT DO I BRING? 👜

◾️A Raley’s snack or bev to share
◾️$5 (cash or Venmo *8913)
◾️And you could bring your book 😄

✴️ Event Fee Details ✴️

The $5 is split between our access to this Meetup platform and our access to the meeting location.

You can venmo me (https://venmo.com/u/Rebecca-Bon *8913) or bring cash.

However❕We would never want you to miss a book club discussion because of the $5, so please message me if you have any concerns

Thanks, and see you all soon!

📚 ** BOOK SUMMARY ** 📚

At the age of four, Nguyen and his family are forced to flee his hometown of Ban Mê Thuột and come to the USA as refugees.

After being removed from his brother and parents and homed with a family on his own, Nguyen is later allowed to resettle into his own family in suburban San José.

But there is violence hidden behind the sunny façade of what he calls AMERICATM. One Christmas Eve, when Nguyen is nine, while watching cartoons at home, he learns that his parents have been shot while working at their grocery store, the SàiGòn Mới, a place where he sometimes helps price tins of fruit with a sticker gun.

Years later, as a teenager, the blood-stir-ring drama of the films of the Vietnam War such as Apocalypse Now throw Nguyen into an existential crisis: how can he be both American and Vietnamese, both the killer and the person being killed? When he learns about an adopted sister who has stayed back in Vietnam, and ultimately visits her, he grows to understand just how much his parents have left behind. And as his parents age, he worries increasingly about their comfort and care, and realizes that some of their older wounds are re-opening.

Profound in its emotions and brilliant in its thinking about cultural power, A Man of Two Faces explores the necessity of both forgetting and of memory, the promises America so readily makes and breaks, and the exceptional life storv of one of the most original and important writers working today.

MIDTOWN June 2026 — The Light Eaters, by Zoë Schlanger

Wed, Jun 17 · 6:30 PM PDT

Time Tested Books, 1114 21st St, Sacramento, CA, US

📖 Why this book? 📖

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
An Audible Best Nonfiction Listen of 2024
TIME's 100 Must-Read Books of 2024
• A Best Book of the Year: Barnes & Noble and Publishers Weekly
• An Amazon Best Nonfiction Book of the Year
"A masterpiece of science writing." -Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweet-grass

"Mesmerizing, world-expanding, and achingly beautiful." -Ed Yong, author of An Immense World

"Rich, vital, and full of surprises. Read it!" - Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky and The Sixth Extinction

"A brilliant must-read. This book shook and changed me." -David George Haskell, author of Sounds Wild and Broken, The Songs of Trees, and The Forest Unseen

Hard to find a copy? Suggest a title or use Zip Books at your local library

💠 What can I expect? 💠

We will meet in-person after hours in Time Tested Books. Front door will be unlocked, and staff will point the way.

💬 We catch up socially;
🧊 we recommend a book or author, and
📕 we start our book discussion at 7pm.

👜 WHAT DO I BRING? 👜

◾️A snack or drink to share
◾️$5 (cash or Venmo *8913)
◾️And you could bring your book 😄

✴️ Event Fee Details ✴️

The $5 is split between our access to this Meetup platform and our access to the meeting location.

You can venmo me (https://venmo.com/u/Rebecca-Bon *8913) or bring cash.

However❕We would never want you to miss a book club discussion because of the $5, so please message me if you have any concerns

(Heads up: Time-Tested Books can run a bit warm after hot downtown days like these. 😅)

Thanks, and see you all soon!

📚 ** BOOK SUMMARY ** 📚

Award-winning Atlantic staff writer Zoë
Schlanger delivers a groundbreaking work of popular science that probes the hidden world of the plant kingdom, "destabilizing not just how we see the green things of the world but also our place in the hierarchy of beings, and maybe the notion of that hierarchy itself." (The New Yorker)

It takes tremendous biological creativity to be a plant. To survive and thrive while rooted in a single spot, plants have adapted ingenious methods of survival. In recent years, scientists have learned about their ability to communicate, recognize their kin and behave socially, hear sounds, morph their bodies to blend into their surroundings, store useful memories that inform their life cycle, and trick animals into behaving to their benefit, to name just a few remarkable talents.

The Light Eaters is a deep immersion into the drama of green life and the complexity of this wild and awe-inspiring world that challenges our very understanding of agency, consciousness, and intelligence.
In looking closely, we see that plants, rather than imitate human intelligence, have perhaps formed a parallel system.
What is intelligent life if not a vine that grows leaves to blend into the shrub on which it climbs, a flower that shapes its bloom to fit exactly the beak of its pollinator, a pea seedling that can hear water flowing and make its way toward it? Zoë Schlanger takes us across the globe, digging into her own memories and into the soil with the scientists who have spent their waking days studying these amazing entities up close.
What can we learn about life on Earth from the living things that thrive, adapt, con-sume, and accommodate simultaneously?
More important, what do we owe these life forms once we come to understand their rich and varied abilities? Examining the latest epiphanies in botanical research, Schlanger spotlights the intellectual struggles among the researchers conceiving a wholly new view of their subject, offering a glimpse of a field in turmoil as plant scientists debate the tenets of ongoing discoveries and how they influence our understanding of what a plant is.
We need plants to survive. But what do they need us for — if at all? An eye-opening and informative look at the ecosystem we live in, this book challenges us to rethink the role of plants — and our own place — in the natural world.

GRANITE BAY June 2026 — The Light Eaters, by Zoë Schlanger

Thu, Jun 18 · 6:00 PM PDT

Raley's, 6845 Douglas Blvd., Granite Bay, CA, 6845 Douglas Blvd. (Corner of Douglas & Auburn-Folsom Rd), Granite Bay, CA, US

📖 Why this book? 📖

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
An Audible Best Nonfiction Listen of 2024
TIME's 100 Must-Read Books of 2024
• A Best Book of the Year: Barnes & Noble and Publishers Weekly
• An Amazon Best Nonfiction Book of the Year
"A masterpiece of science writing." -Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweet-grass

"Mesmerizing, world-expanding, and achingly beautiful." -Ed Yong, author of An Immense World

"Rich, vital, and full of surprises. Read it!" - Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky and The Sixth Extinction

"A brilliant must-read. This book shook and changed me." -David George Haskell, author of Sounds Wild and Broken, The Songs of Trees, and The Forest Unseen

Hard to find a copy? Suggest a title or use Zip Books at your local library

💠 What can I expect? 💠

We will meet in-person in the ‘Gather Room’ at the back left of the store.

💬 We catch up socially;
🧊 we recommend a book or author, and
📕 we start our book discussion at 6:30pm.

👜 WHAT DO I BRING? 👜

◾️A Raley’s snack or bev to share
◾️$5 (cash or Venmo *8913)
◾️And you could bring your book 😄

✴️ Event Fee Details ✴️

The $5 is split between our access to this Meetup platform and our access to the meeting location.

You can venmo me (https://venmo.com/u/Rebecca-Bon *8913) or bring cash.

However❕We would never want you to miss a book club discussion because of the $5, so please message me if you have any concerns

(Heads up: Time-Tested Books can run a bit warm after hot downtown days like these. 😅)

Thanks, and see you all soon!

📚 ** BOOK SUMMARY ** 📚

Award-winning Atlantic staff writer Zoë
Schlanger delivers a groundbreaking work of popular science that probes the hidden world of the plant kingdom, "destabilizing not just how we see the green things of the world but also our place in the hierarchy of beings, and maybe the notion of that hierarchy itself." (The New Yorker)

It takes tremendous biological creativity to be a plant. To survive and thrive while rooted in a single spot, plants have adapted ingenious methods of survival. In recent years, scientists have learned about their ability to communicate, recognize their kin and behave socially, hear sounds, morph their bodies to blend into their surroundings, store useful memories that inform their life cycle, and trick animals into behaving to their benefit, to name just a few remarkable talents.

The Light Eaters is a deep immersion into the drama of green life and the complexity of this wild and awe-inspiring world that challenges our very understanding of agency, consciousness, and intelligence.
In looking closely, we see that plants, rather than imitate human intelligence, have perhaps formed a parallel system.
What is intelligent life if not a vine that grows leaves to blend into the shrub on which it climbs, a flower that shapes its bloom to fit exactly the beak of its pollinator, a pea seedling that can hear water flowing and make its way toward it? Zoë Schlanger takes us across the globe, digging into her own memories and into the soil with the scientists who have spent their waking days studying these amazing entities up close.
What can we learn about life on Earth from the living things that thrive, adapt, con-sume, and accommodate simultaneously?
More important, what do we owe these life forms once we come to understand their rich and varied abilities? Examining the latest epiphanies in botanical research, Schlanger spotlights the intellectual struggles among the researchers conceiving a wholly new view of their subject, offering a glimpse of a field in turmoil as plant scientists debate the tenets of ongoing discoveries and how they influence our understanding of what a plant is.
We need plants to survive. But what do they need us for — if at all? An eye-opening and informative look at the ecosystem we live in, this book challenges us to rethink the role of plants — and our own place — in the natural world.