Motherhood by the Book is led by Claire, VB staffer, mother of a 7-year-old, and stepmother of an adolescent.

The book group meets on the second Sunday of every month at 2pm on the mezzanine level, next to our poetry section and near the Book Fare Cafe, for an hour of spirited discussion of books that celebrate the trials, tribulations, and rewards of motherhood, and what it means to be a mother. This group is by no means exclusive to moms with kids still at home. We will read fiction and non-fiction, older and newer titles, all with the theme of Motherhood. Join us! Authors do not usually attend.

Sunday, November 11, 2:00pm

The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne

Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead. At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from - and over his many years, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country, and much more.

Motherhood by the Book is led by Claire, VB staffer, mother of a 7-year-old, and stepmother of an adolescent.

The book group meets on the second Sunday of every month at 2pm on the mezzanine level, next to our poetry section and near the Book Fare Cafe, for an hour of spirited discussion of books that celebrate the trials, tribulations, and rewards of motherhood, and what it means to be a mother. This group is by no means exclusive to moms with kids still at home. We will read fiction and non-fiction, older and newer titles, all with the theme of Motherhood. Join us! Authors do not usually attend.

Sunday, January 13, 2:00pm

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney

A love letter to city life in all its guts and grandeur, Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney paints a portrait of a remarkable woman across the canvas of a changing America: from the Jazz Age to the onset of the AIDS epidemic; the Great Depression to the birth of hip-hop. Lillian figures she might as well take her time. For now, after all, the night is still young.

Motherhood by the Book is led by Claire, VB staffer, mother of a 7-year-old, and stepmother of an adolescent.

The book group meets on the second Sunday of every month at 2pm on the mezzanine level, next to our poetry section and near the Book Fare Cafe, for an hour of spirited discussion of books that celebrate the trials, tribulations, and rewards of motherhood, and what it means to be a mother. This group is by no means exclusive to moms with kids still at home. We will read fiction and non-fiction, older and newer titles, all with the theme of Motherhood. Join us! Authors do not usually attend.

Sunday, March 10, 2:00pm

Miss Burma by Charmaine Craig

Miss Burma tells the story of modern-day Burma through the eyes of Benny and Khin, husband and wife, and their daughter Louisa. After attending school in Calcutta, Benny settles in Rangoon, then part of the British Empire, and falls in love with Khin, a woman who is part of a long-persecuted ethnic minority group, the Karen. World War II comes to Southeast Asia, and Benny and Khin must go into hiding in the eastern part of the country during the Japanese Occupation, beginning a journey that will lead them to change the country's history. After the war, the British authorities make a deal with the Burman nationalists, led by Aung San, whose party gains control of the country. When Aung San is assassinated, his successor ignores the pleas for self-government of the Karen people and other ethnic groups, and in doing so sets off what will become the longest-running civil war in recorded history. Benny and Khin's eldest child, Louisa, has a danger-filled, tempestuous childhood and reaches prominence as Burma's first beauty queen soon before the country falls to dictatorship. As Louisa navigates her newfound fame, she is forced to reckon with her family's past, the West's ongoing covert dealings in her country, and her own loyalty to the cause of the Karen people.

Motherhood by the Book is led by Claire, VB staffer, mother of a 7-year-old, and stepmother of an adolescent.

The book group meets on the second Sunday of every month at 2pm on the mezzanine level, next to our poetry section and near the Book Fare Cafe, for an hour of spirited discussion of books that celebrate the trials, tribulations, and rewards of motherhood, and what it means to be a mother. This group is by no means exclusive to moms with kids still at home. We will read fiction and non-fiction, older and newer titles, all with the theme of Motherhood. Join us! Authors do not usually attend.

Sunday, May ?, 2:00pm

Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran

In this astonishing novel, Shanthi Sekaran gives voice to the devotion and anguish of motherhood through two women bound together by their love for one boy. Soli, a young undocumented Mexican woman in Berkeley, CA, finds that motherhood offers her an identity in a world where she's otherwise invisible. When she is placed in immigrant detention, her son comes under the care of Kavya, an Indian-American wife overwhelmed by her own impossible desire to have a child. As Soli fights for her son, Kavya builds her love on a fault line, her heart wrapped around someone else's child. Exploring the ways in which dreams and determination can reshape a family, Sekaran transforms real life into a thing of beauty. From rural Oaxaca to Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto to the dreamscapes of Silicon Valley, Lucky Boy offers a moving and revelatory look at the evolving landscape of the American dream and the ever-changing borders of love.

Motherhood by the Book is led by Claire, VB staffer, mother of a 7-year-old, and stepmother of an adolescent.

The book group meets on the second Sunday of every month at 2pm on the mezzanine level, next to our poetry section and near the Book Fare Cafe, for an hour of spirited discussion of books that celebrate the trials, tribulations, and rewards of motherhood, and what it means to be a mother. This group is by no means exclusive to moms with kids still at home. We will read fiction and non-fiction, older and newer titles, all with the theme of Motherhood. Join us! Authors do not usually attend.

Sunday, July 14, 2:00pm

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah *ISBN currently unavailable for paperback

The stories collected here are by turns hilarious, dramatic, and deeply affecting. Whether subsisting on caterpillars for dinner during hard times, being thrown from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping, or just trying to survive the life-and-death pitfalls of dating in high school, Trevor illuminates his curious world with an incisive wit and unflinching honesty. His stories weave together to form a moving and searingly funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time, armed only with a keen sense of humor and a mother's unconventional, unconditional love.