Book Discussion Group of AAUW North Dallas
The Book Discussion group meets on the 4th Tuesday of every other month at Sweet Basil Italian Restaurant, 17610 Midway Road at Trinity Mills, Carrollton. We gather at 6:30 p.m. in a room separated from the rest of the dining areas. We order from the menu and begin discussion at 7:00 p.m. Reading the book is not a requirement for attending as you will surely learn from the other participants. Everyone is welcome.
AAUW Book Selections for 2023-2024
September 27, 2023
Lessons in Chemistry, a novel by Bonnie Garmus.
It is imaginative, creative, and hilarious. It’s a story of feminism in the 50s and 60s. A New York Times reviewer said, “Welcome to the 1960s, where a woman’s arsenal of tools was often limited to the kitchen–and where Elizabeth Zott is hellbent on overturning the status quo one meal at a time.”
Discussion leader: Jan McDowell
November 28, 2023
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
An unforgettable true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to end mass incarceration in America—from one of the most inspiring lawyers of our time.
Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a nonprofit law office in Montgomery, Alabama, dedicated to defending the poor, the incarcerated, and the wrongly condemned.
Just Mercy tells the story of EJI, from the early days with a small staff facing the nation’s highest death sentencing and execution rates, through a successful campaign to challenge the cruel practice of sentencing children to die in prison, to revolutionary projects designed to confront Americans with our history of racial injustice.
Discussion Leader: Jane Henry
February 27, 2024
The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray
“Historical fiction at its best!”
A remarkable novel about J. P. Morgan’s personal librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, the Black American woman who was forced to hide her true identity and pass as white in order to leave a lasting legacy that enriched our nation. The authors tell the story of an extraordinary woman, famous for her intellect, style, and wit, and share the lengths she must go to—for the protection of her family and her legacy—to preserve her carefully crafted white identity in the racist world in which she lives.
Discussion Leader: Kari Gould
April 23, 2024
History of Art, Without Men by Katy Hessel. How many women artists do you know? Who makes art history? Did women even work as artists before the twentieth century? And what is the Baroque anyway? This is the history of art as it’s never been told before.
Discussion Leader: Viccy Kemp