SUP Book Club
Join the Springfield Unity Project Book Club on a journey to learn -- through literature -- about cultures, social justice, history and more. It's an opportunity to see new perspectives and gain insights into our broader communities.
We'll meet once every two months. To participate, just read the book and then join us with your questions and observations. Each discussion will be led by a moderator who will discuss the book’s essence and historical relevance. Consider bringing a friend!
Upcoming Books and Book Club Meetings
DATE: TBD
Secrets We Kept: Three Women of Trinidad
by Krystal A Sital (SUP Board Member and Springfield, NJ Resident)
Register Here (TBD)
There, in a lush landscape of fire-petaled immortelle trees and vast plantations of coffee and cocoa, where the three hills along the southern coast act as guardians against hurricanes, Krystal A. Sital grew up idolizing her grandfather, a wealthy Hindu landowner. Years later, to escape crime and economic stagnation on the island, the family resettled in New Jersey, where Krystal’s mother works as a nanny, and the warmth of Trinidad seems a pretty yet distant memory. But when her grandfather lapses into a coma after a fall at home, the women he has terrorized for decades begin to speak, and a brutal past comes to light.
Krystal Sital
SUP Board Trustee and Springfield Resident
January 27, 2022- 7:30PM – 8:30PM
by Octavia Butler
Register Here
The visionary author’s masterpiece pulls us—along with her Black female hero—through time to face the horrors of slavery and explore the impacts of racism, sexism, and white supremacy then and now.
Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana's life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.
Past SUP Book Club Reads
February 2021: The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
April 2021: Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America by Maria Hinojosa
June 2021: On Earth We Were Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
September 2021: Moloka'i by Alan Brennert
November 2021: There, There by Tommy Orange
Finding the Books
So you want to join the SUP Book Club, but you don’t want to go broke buying books? Here are a few tips.
1. First, try the Springfield Library. The library is part of a consortium that requests books from other libraries for curbside pickup at the Springfield Library. Go online and look up the book on the Springfield Library website, There are also options available via the library to borrow digital and e-book copies of the book.
2. Borrow a copy from friends or family.
3. And finally, you could buy a used physical book or an ebook. Order early to allow time for delivery.
Here are a few discounted websites:
Bookfinder is a search engine that helps you find used books, new books, and e-books wherever they are sold. The price is supposed to include shipping, but check to be sure.
Half Price Books (They are not all half price, but are below full price.)