We READ, We TALK Book Club
OFPL hosts a quarterly book club to share intellectual thoughts and passionate discussions about a common book selection.
The We READ, We TALK Book Club is currently reading Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown. Discussions in January via Zoom or in person at the Main Library.
REGISTER for a copy of Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown (while supplies last).
Current Selection:
Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown
In Atlas of the Heart, Brown takes us on a journey through eighty-seven of the emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human. As she maps the necessary skills and an actionable framework for meaningful connection, she gives us the language and tools to access a universe of new choices and second chances—a universe where we can share and steward the stories of our bravest and most heartbreaking moments with one another in a way that builds connection.
Previous Book Club Selections:
Exposure
by Ramona Emerson
In the follow-up to the National Book Award–longlisted Shutter, Navajo forensic photographer Rita Todacheene grapples with a fanatical serial killer—and the ghosts he leaves behind.
Sisters of the Lost Nation
by Nick Medina
A young Native girl’s hunt for answers about the women mysteriously disappearing from her tribe’s reservation lead her to delve into the myths and stories of her people, all while being haunted herself, in this atmospheric and stunningly poignant debut.
The Seed Keeper
by Diane Wilson
A haunting novel spanning several generations, The Seed Keeper follows a Dakota family’s struggle to preserve their way of life, and their sacrifices to protect what matters most.
Blood Sisters
by Vanessa Lillie
A visceral and compelling mystery about a Cherokee archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs who is summoned to rural Oklahoma to investigate the disappearance of two women…one of them her sister.
What Happened To You?
by Bruce Perry, Oprah Winfrey
Our earliest experiences shape our lives far down the road, and What Happened to You? provides powerful scientific and emotional insights into the behavioral patterns so many of us struggle to understand.
The Night Watchman
by Louise Erdrich
Winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich’s grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, D.C., this powerful novel explores themes of love and death with lightness and gravity and unfolds with the elegant prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling of a master craftsman.
Shutter
by Ramona Emerson
This blood-chilling debut set in New Mexico’s Navajo Nation is equal parts gripping crime thriller, supernatural horror, and poignant portrayal of coming of age on the reservation.
A Place of Thin Veil
by Bob Rosebrough
Gallup, New Mexico, is a place like no other. It is disproportionally and simultaneously wonderful and terrible. It is a place of constant struggle, where the forces of good and evil collide. The former frontier mining town, bordering the Navajo Nation at the far western edge of New Mexico, is one of those few places on earth that have the power to change the course of our lives and transform us deeply.
Sankofa
by Chibundu Onuzo
Anna is at a stage of her life when she’s beginning to wonder who she really is. She has separated from her husband, her daughter is all grown up, and her mother—the only parent who raised her—is dead.
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
By Bryn Greenwood
As the daughter of a meth dealer, Wavy knows not to trust people, not even her own parents. Struggling to raise her little brother, eight-year-old Wavy is the only responsible “adult” around.
This Tender Land
By William Kent Krueger
In the summer of 1932, on the banks of Minnesota’s Gilead River, the Lincoln Indian Training School is a pitiless place where Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to Odie O’Banion, a lively orphan boy whose exploits constantly earn him the superintendent’s wrath. Odie and his brother, Albert, are the only white faces among the hundreds of Native American children at the school.
Reservation Restless
By Jim Kristofic
In the powerful and haunting lands of the Southwest, rainbows grow unexpectedly from the sky, mountain lions roam the desert, and summer storms roll over the Colorado River. As a park ranger, Kristofic explores the Ganado valley, traces the paths of the Anasazi, and finds mythic experiences on sacred mountains that explain the pain and loss promised for every person who decides to love. After reconnecting with his Navajo sister and brother, Kristofic must confront his own nightmares of the Anglo society and the future it has created. When the possible deaths of his mentor and of the American future loom before him, Kristofic must find some new way to live in the world and strike some restless path that will lead back to hózhó–a beautiful harmony.
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
By Robin Wall Kimmerer
Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings―asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass
Canyon Dreams: A Basketball Season on the Navajo Nation
By Michael Powell
Deep in the heart of northern Arizona, in a small and isolated patch of the vast 17.5-million-acre Navajo reservation, sits Chinle High School. Here, basketball is a passion, passed from grandparent to parent to child.
The Only Good Indians
By Stephen Graham Jones
A tale of revenge, cultural identity, and the cost of breaking from tradition in this latest novel from the Jordan Peele of horror literature, Stephen Graham Jones.
The Only Good Indians follow four American Indian men after a disturbing event from their youth puts them in a desperate struggle for their lives. Tracked by an entity bent on revenge, these childhood friends are helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind to catch up to them in a violent, vengeful way.
Trail of Lightning
By Rebecca Roanhorse
While most of the world has drowned beneath the sudden rising waters of a climate apocalypse, Dinétah (formerly the Navajo reservation) has been reborn. The gods and heroes of legend walk the land, but so do monsters.
Maggie Hoskie is a Dinétah monster hunter, a supernaturally gifted killer. When a small town needs help finding a missing girl, Maggie is their last—and best—hope.
Heart Berries
By Terese Marie Mailhot
Heart Berries is a powerful, poetic memoir of a woman’s coming of age on the Seabird Island Band in the Pacific Northwest. Having survived a profoundly dysfunctional upbringing only to find herself hospitalized and facing a dual diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar II disorder.
The Library Book
By Susan Orleans
On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had been cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual fire alarm.
The Woman Warrior
By Maxine Hong Kingston
A Chinese American woman tells of the Chinese myths, family stories, and events of her California childhood that have shaped her identity.
House of Broken Angels
By Luis Alberto Urrea
The definitive Mexican-American immigrant story, a sprawling and deeply felt portrait of a Mexican-American family occasioned by the impending loss of its patriarch, from one of the country’s most beloved authors.
Where the Crawdads Sing
By Delia Owens
For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl.
There There
By Tommy Orange
We all came to the powwow for different reasons. The messy, dangling threads of our lives got pulled into a braid–tied to the back of everything we’d been doing all along to get us here.
Killers of the Flower Moon
By David Grann
In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.
Cave of Bones
By Anne Hillerman
New York Times bestselling author Anne Hillerman brings together modern mystery, Navajo traditions, and the evocative landscape of the desert Southwest in this intriguing entry in the Leaphorn, Chee, and Manuelito series.