WNBA Celebrates Reading Group Month With Special Events and Great Group Reads

The Women’s National Book Association (WNBA) is marking its fifth annual celebration of October as National Reading Group Month with a series of events across the country celebrating the joy of shared reading. The group has also published list of 20 titles — 17 novels and three memoirs — that it has designated Great Group Reads.

“WNBA is proud to celebrate reading groups on a national stage,” said the group’s national president, Mary Grey James. “After several years of uncertainty on every level of the book industry, it’s clear that reading as an activity is not threatened, but enhanced, by new technology. Authors have more options for getting their work to the public, and reading groups have ever-increasing sources for discussion. WNBA’s mission of promoting books and reading and to bring together women and men active in the ‘community of the book’ is put into action during National Reading Group Month.”

National Reading Group Month’s Signature Event will be held in Tennessee at the Nashville Public Library Downtown on Saturday, October 15. Featured authors are Tayari Jones (Silver Sparrow, Algonquin Books), Ann Patchett (State of Wonder, HarperCollins), Tom Perrotta (The Leftovers, St. Martin's Press), Erin Morgenstern (The Night Circus, Doubleday/Random House), and Justin Torres (We the Animals, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). Nina Cardona, Nashville Public Radio WPLN, will emcee the program. More information, as well as details about events hosted by WNBA’s 10 chapters, can be found at nationalreadinggroupmonth.org.

The 20 Great Group Reads, listed below, were recognized by the National Reading Group Month/Great Reads Selection Committee for their ability “to open up lively conversations about a host of timely and provocative topics.” The selection committee also focused on under-represented gems from small presses and lesser-known mid-list releases from larger houses.

National Reading Group Month Great Group Reads

• The Beauty of Humanity Movement by Camilla Gibb (The Penguin Press)
• Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber (W.W. Norton & Co.)
• The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka (Knopf)
• Dance Lessons by Áine Greaney (Syracuse University Press)
• Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War by Annia Ciezadlo (Free Press)
• The Good Sister by Drusilla Campbell (Grand Central Publishing)
• The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell (Mariner Books)
• If You Knew Then What I Know Now by Ryan Van Meter (Sarabande Books)
• The Memory Palace: A Memoir by Mira Bartók (Free Press)
• My Name is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira (Penguin Books)
• Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones (Algonquin Books)
• The Soldier's Wife by Margaret Leroy (Voice)
• The Summer Without Men by Siri Hustvedt (Picador)
• Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away by Christie Watson (Other Press)
• To Be Sung Underwater by Tom McNeal (Little, Brown and Co.)
• Under the Mercy Trees by Heather Newton (Harper Paperbacks)
• When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman (Bloomsbury USA)
• Wingshooters by Nina Revoyr (Akashic Books)
• The Year We Left Home by Jean Thompson (Simon & Schuster)
• You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon (Amy Einhorn Books)