U of A Virtual Book Club
Book-lovers unite! (Online, that is.)
Introducing the U of A Virtual Book Club. Connect with an online community to read and discuss a variety of engaging books of genres ranging from novels to memoirs, social justice to personal growth, and more.
The U of A Virtual Book Club is open to all members of the University of Alberta community — alumni, faculty, staff, students and friends — located anywhere in the world. As long as you have an internet connection, a comfortable place to sit and a love of reading, you’re in!
There’s no cost to join, all you need are the books. Whether you borrow a copy from the library, download to your tablet, or buy your own print copy, the format is up to you.
Now Reading | August to October 2024
Brave New World
by Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley's profoundly important classic of world literature, Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. “A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine” (The New Yorker), Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization. Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New World likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.
Coming Up Next | October to December 2024
The Berry Pickers
by Amanda Peters
July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come.
In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.
Click here for a list of previous book club picks!
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