August Book Club

Note: All the upcoming books and those that we didn’t select in the May vote are listed at the bottom of this section.

August: It Can't Happen Here Paperback by Sinclair Lewis

It Can’t Happen Here is the only one of Sinclair Lewis’s later novels to match the power of Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith. A cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, it is an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America.
Written during the Great Depression, when the country was largely oblivious to Hitler’s aggression, it juxtaposes sharp political satire with the chillingly realistic rise of a president who becomes a dictator to save the nation from welfare cheats, sex, crime, and a liberal press.
Called “a message to thinking Americans” by the Springfield Republican when it was published in 1935, It Can’t Happen Here is a shockingly prescient novel that remains as fresh and contemporary as today’s news.

Pat will be moderating this month. Hope you can join us for some thoughtful discussion.

Upcoming books: (September is the next book selection month.)
September: How Equality Wins: A New Vision for an Inclusive America by Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow (Steve)
October: We the Men: How Forgetting Women's Struggles for Equality Perpetuates Inequality by Jill Elaine Hasday (Steve)

Not selected this time (in May):
Alice Isn't Dead: A Search for a Missing Wife and an Otherworldly Conspiracy by Joseph Fink
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee
Under the Sky We Make: How to Be Human in a Warming World by Kimberly Nicholas PhD
Women's Work: A Reckoning with Work and Home by Megan K. Stack