Join our virtual community to connect with fellow UNB alumni, faculty and staff as we read and discuss various book genres such as lifelong learning, personal growth, novels and other topics. Participation is free!
There are three main reasons we hope you'll be excited to participate in our book club:
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell (October - December)
Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and to devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Moderna and Regio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf.
A Clue-like, locked-room mystery and a heartwarming journey of the spirit, The Maid explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet entirely different—and reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.
A Town Called Solace--the brilliant and emotionally radiant new novel from Mary Lawson, her first in nearly a decade--opens on a family in crisis: rebellious teenager Rose been missing for weeks with no word, and Rose's younger sister, the feisty and fierce Clara, keeps a daily vigil at the living-room window, hoping for her sibling's return.
Jumping between time periods, this gripping book tells the tale of Marian Graves, a daredevil female aviator, and Hadley Baxter, the Hollywood starlet hired to portray her. Memorable characters, far-flung destinations, and meticulous historical details combine to make this reading journey one to remember!
Full of humour, sharp observations, revealing massages, and surprisingly uncomfortable lawn chairs, Happy Sands is a highly entertaining and poignant story of summer vacation gone all-too-predictably wrong. From beach bonfires to the search for Moby Trout, the mythical monster fish of Cornflower Lake, this novel is for anyone who’s spent a disappointing day at the beach.
A novel of orphans and widows, terror and hope, and the relationships that hold us together when things fall apart. Reconnecting with characters of Beth Powning's beloved The Sea Captain's Wife, this book is a story of women finding their way, together, through terrible circumstances they could neither predict nor avoid, but will stop at nothing to overcome.
A tense, page-turning psychological drama about the making and breaking of a family–and a woman whose experience of motherhood is nothing at all what she hoped for–and everything she feared. The Push is a tour de force you will read in a sitting, an utterly immersive novel that will challenge everything you think you know about motherhood, about what we owe our children, and what it feels like when women are not believed.
From the award-winning author of Station Eleven, an exhilarating novel set at the glittering intersection of two seemingly disparate events–a massive Ponzi scheme collapse and the mysterious disappearance of a woman from a ship at sea.
Set in New York and China, The Leavers is a vivid and moving examination of borders and belonging. It’s the story of how one boy comes into his own when everything he’s loved has been taken away--and how a mother learns to live with the mistakes of her past.
In this extraordinary and inspiring debut memoir, Jesse Thistle, once a high school dropout and now a rising Indigenous scholar, chronicles his life on the streets and how he overcame trauma and addiction to discover the truth about who he is.
