Come join the Daytime Book Club as we discuss this month's book! New members are always welcome (we love meeting new people!). Registration is appreciated but not required.

This month we will be discussing Erasure by Percival Everett. The description for the book is below:
"Thelonious (Monk) Ellison has never allowed race to define his identity. But as both a writer and an African American, he is offended and angered by the success of We's Lives in Da Ghetto, the exploitative debut novel of a young, middle-class black woman who once visited "some relatives in Harlem for a couple of days." Hailed as an authentic representation of the African American experience, the book is a national bestseller and its author feted on the Kenya Dunston television show. The book's success rankles all the more as Monk's own most recent novel has just notched its seventh rejection.

Even as his career as a writer appears to have stalled, Monk finds himself coping with changes in his personal life. In need of distraction from old memories, new responsibilities, and his professional stagnation, Monk composes, in a heat of inspiration and energy, a fierce parody of the sort of exploitative, ghetto wanna-be lit represented by We's Lives in Da Ghetto.

But when his agent sends this literary indictment (included here in its entirety) out to publishers, it is greeted as an authentic new voice of black America. Monk -- or his pseudonymous alter ego, Stagg R. Leigh -- is offered money, fame, success beyond anything he has known. And as demand begins to build for meetings with and appearances by Leigh, Monk is faced with a whole new set of problems."

We look forward to seeing you all soon!

Interested in attending a future Daytime Book Club meeting? Take a look at our reading list below:

June 11, 2025: Erasure by Percival Everett

July 9, 2025: I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger

August 6, 2025: Rough Sleepers by Tracy Kidder

September 10, 2025: Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

October 8, 2025: Trust by Hernán Díaz

November 12, 2025: Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe

December 10, 2025: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

January 14, 2026: North Woods by Daniel Mason

February 11, 2026: Kindred by Octavia Butler

March 11, 2026: An Immense World by Ed Yong

April 15, 2026: The God of the Woods by Liz Moore