Join us for our Fall 2020 Kick-Off event, Wed. 9/16

Want some great book & graphic novel titles this season for your bookshelf?

Find out by joining us for:

15 for the Fall
Diverse, Heroic, & Exciting Lit Picks, from the Queen City’s Top Indie Booksellers

Wednesday, September 16th, 7:00-8:30pm
Online via ZOOM  & posted on our Facebook Page

 

FULL TITLE LIST

RSVP Here

 

For our first Fall 2020 Event, WNBA-Charlotte welcomes reps to three Charlotte-based independent bookstores. We’ll ask them about their stores, strategies for sales and marketing during the “new normal”, and most importantly, to showcase top book picks for the Fall (15 in total)!

Discover new fiction, gothic thrillers, literary biography & memoir, women’s fiction & more.  Three lucky attendees will each get a book of their choice! Full booklist to be available before the event.

MEET THE PANEL


Shelves Bookstore, Charlotte, NCAbbigail Glen
 is the Owner of Shelves Bookstore.  After working for years in the field of Human Resources Abbigail opened her business in 2019 as a mobile/pop-up store, with scheduled stations at local businesses and events throughout the city. She currently sells online and hopes to open a brick-and-mortar store in the near future.
Shelves Bookstore is a pop-up, online bookstore, offering a curated selection of Adult, Children’s Middle School, and YA titles, featuring diverse authors and stories.

 

Heroes Aren't Hard to Find, Charlotte, NCKarla Southern is the Event & Media Coordinator for Heroes Aren’t Hard To Find. Prior to joining the store in 2012, Karla was a graphic designer at The Lincoln Times-News.
Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find opened in 1980 in Charlotte’s Elizabeth neighborhood. It is one of the top comic book retailers in the US. They carry comics, manga, graphic novels, collectibles and more. They have a big presence at local and national comic shows, and carry their own line of comic collecting supplies.

 

Meghan Anderson is the Event Coordinator & Bookseller at Park Road Books. Prior to jher current role, Meghan was a HS English teacher in Nashville, TN and a member of AmericaCorps.
Park Road Books opened in 1977, and is Charlotte NC’s sole independent, full-service bookstore. They host author events, as well as offer sales programs to local self-published authors and discounts to local bookclubs.

 

Titles Below. All available for purchase the presenter’s bookstore. Three lucky attendees will win a listed book of their choice! 

RSVP Here  

Presented by Abbigail Glen (owner, Shelves Bookstore)

  • Anxious People by Fredrik Backman (Atria, HC)

  • Betty by Tiffany McDaniel (Knopf, HC)

  • Bunheads by Misty Copeland (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, HC)

  • Dear Justyce by Nic Stone (Crown Books for Young Readers, HC)

  • Grown by Tiffany D. Jackson (Katherine Teagen Books, HC)

 

Presented by Meghan Anderson (Event Coordinator, Park Road Books)

 

Presented by Karla Southern (Event Coordinator, Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find)*

*to order from Heroes, call 704.375.7462

  • Are You Listening? by Tillie Walden (First Second, TP)

  • Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me by Marino Tamaki (First Second, TP)

  • My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris (Fantagraphics, TP)

  • Paperbacks from Hell: the Twisted History of 70’s and 80’s Horror Fiction by Grady Hendrix (Quirk Books, TP)**

  • The Southern Bookclub’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix (Quirk Books, TP)**

(**Picked by Rachel Feldman, WNBA Charlotte President. Order from these and other stores)

JOIN or RENEW by Sept. 21 (updated), and be entered in our booksellers raffle!

Members who join or renew by September 21st (updated :D), will be entered to win one of six $30.00 gift card from these Charlotte, NC booksellers! 

BOOK BUYERS, (Plaza Midwood), used books of all genres.

HEROES AREN’T HARD TO FIND (Elizabeth), comics, graphic novels, manga, specialty items, and collecting supplies.

MAIN STREET BOOKS  (Davidson), full service independent bookstore

PARK ROAD BOOKS (South Park), full-service independent bookstore

SHELVES BOOKSTORE, (Charlotte Metro-Area), mobile pop-up /online store featuring multicultural titles

THAT’S NOVEL, (Camp North End), used books, plus new books from select local authors

It’s our way of saying “Thank You” for your valued, important support at this time!  

Join or renew here! Thank You and Stay Safe!

Book Club VIRTUAL Meetup June 2nd

Come and discuss The Girls at 17 Swann Street by Yara Zgheib (St. Martin’s, TP) 
Tuesday, June 2, 7:00pm
Virtually, on Zoom (rsvp)  

Synopsis: Anna Roux was a professional dancer who followed the man of her dreams from Paris to Missouri. There, alone with her biggest fears – imperfection, failure, loneliness – she spirals down anorexia and depression till she weighs a mere eighty-eight pounds. Forced to seek treatment, she is admitted into 17 Swann Street, a center for women with life-threatening eating disorders. Every bite causes anxiety. Every flavor induces guilt. And every step Anna takes toward recovery will require strength, endurance, and the support of the girls at 17 Swann Street.

All are welcome to attend, to give your input or learn about a new book to read!

? ? All titles for our bookclub are selected from WNBA’s Great Group Reads List.

National Poetry Month 2020: Los Angeles 2025 by Sarah Archer

For National Poetry Month 2020, we present the Poetry and prose from our Members.

Los Angeles, 2025
by Sarah Archer 

The car door parts for you like lips.
All night this vessel has sketched a silver web
over the contained chaos of L.A., taking fares like lovers.
You are not the only one this hour, or on this corner;
a queue of feet bisects the block,
each pair’s face lit by its hand’s cool, compartmentalized glow.

Each man to machine neatly assigned,
algorithmic fate, calculated invisibly in the emptiness above your heads,
triangulated in the stars.
Yours murmurs you down the street on a current and a spell.

The city is gussied up tonight:
the street signs slick and skinny, the all-night
donuts awning hot, tawdry pink. Bars wink
from the strings of unlit storefronts like gold
in a fortune teller’s bow of teeth.
A rare recent rain has slicked motor oil to the skin
of the asphalt.  It glimmers off the curves
of Melrose like the tips of cigarettes.
Each scene flames out in a frame.

And everywhere the cars are streaming, gliding,
they zip perfectly around parabolas as if magnetized to a track,
they are clean as needles, dazzling in their voltaic wills,
they are everyone’s and no one’s,
they conceal us.

It feels good to own nothing,
you are pure, sanitary, as empty as a reflection.
You leave nothing but air.

Sarah Archer’s first novel, The Plus One was published in July 2019, by G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Follow Sarah on Twitter @SarahArcherM

 

Book Club Meetup, Tuesday, February 4th

E43301A3-1323-474B-BC4E-336EBA2E21E9Come and discuss Southernmost by Silas House (Algonquin, TP) 
Tuesday, February 4, 7:00pm
AMELIE’S BAKERY (updated!) 4321 Park Road., Charlotte, NC.

Synopsis: An evangelical minister in Tennessee reexamining his beliefs and teachings finds himself at odds with his congregation and his wife over the issue of homosexuality in this soul-searching novel about tolerance, family, right versus wrong, and forgiveness.

All are welcome to attend, to give your input or learn about a new book to read!

? ? All titles for our bookclub are selected from WNBA’s Great Group Reads List.
Interested in knowing more about that committee? Contact Kristen Knox, KKnox.NatlReadingGrpMonth@gmail.com

Book Club Meetup: Tuesday, January 7th

C2638D58-0314-4BCD-A8EB-38DBFD093096Come and discuss Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner (Atria) 
Tuesday, January 7th, 7:00pm
Panera Bread, 5940 Fairview Rd., Charlotte, NC.

Synopsis: Growing up in 1950s Detroit, they live in a perfect “Dick and Jane” house, where their roles in the family are clearly defined. Jo is the tomboy, the bookish rebel with a passion to make the world more fair; Bethie is the pretty, feminine good girl, a would-be star who enjoys the power her beauty confers and dreams of a traditional life. But the truth ends up looking different from what the girls imagined. Jo and Bethie survive traumas and tragedies, and neither sister inhabit the world she dreams of, or a life that feels authentic or joyful. Is it too late for the women to finally stake a claim on happily ever after?

All are welcome to attend, to give your input or learn about a new book to read!

 

? ? All titles for our bookclub are selected from WNBA’s Great Group Reads List.
Interested in knowing more about that committee? Contact Kristen Knox, KKnox.NatlReadingGrpMonth@gmail.com

Book Club Meetup: Tuesday, December 3rd

laurentian divideCome and discuss Laurentian Divide by Sarah Stonich (Univ. of Minnesota Press, TP) 
Tuesday, December 3rd, 7:00pm
Panera Bread, 5940 Fairview Rd., Charlotte, NC

Synopsis: A small, northern Minnesota community waits for semi-hermit Rauri Paar to reappear in their midst, signaling the end of winter. As the residents wait, their own lives move forward even without Rauri. This is a warm, wise, and wonderful look at the inhabitants of a small town, at connection, and support in good times and bad.

Please come, whether you’ve read / liked the book or not!

All titles for our bookclub are selected from WNBA’s Great Group Reads List. Interested in knowing more about that committee? Contact Kristen Knox, KKnox.NatlReadingGrpMonth@gmail.com

Book Club Meetup: Tuesday, November 5th

Tomorrow'sBread MayhewCome and discuss Tomorrow’s Bread by Anna Jean Mayhew (Kensington Books)
Tuesday, November 5th, 7:00pm
Panera Bread, 5940 Fairview Rd., Charlotte, NC

ABOUT CHARLOTTE HISTORY, Y’ALL!
In 1961 Charlotte, North Carolina, the predominantly black neighborhood of Brooklyn is a bustling city within a city. Self-contained and vibrant, it has its own restaurants, schools, theaters, churches, and night clubs. There are shotgun shacks and poverty, along with well-maintained houses like the one Loraylee Hawkins shares with her young son, Hawk, her Uncle Ray, and her grandmother, Bibi. Loraylee’s love for Archibald Griffin, Hawk’s white father and manager of the cafeteria where she works, must be kept secret in the segregated South.

Loraylee has heard rumors that the city plans to bulldoze her neighborhood, claiming it’s dilapidated and dangerous. The government promises to provide new housing and relocate businesses. But locals like Pastor Ebenezer Polk, who’s facing the demolition of his church, know the value of Brooklyn does not lie in bricks and mortar.

 Please come, whether you’ve read / liked the book or not!

All titles for our bookclub are selected from WNBA’s Great Group Reads List. Interested in knowing more about that committee? Contact Kristen Knox, KKnox.NatlReadingGrpMonth@gmail.com

 

Charlotte Chapter BOOK CLUB PICKS for 2019-2020

NRGM GGR No DateOctober is National Reading Group Month!  And this month, titles were picked for our next 12 reading group meetups! Chosen from the newest Great Group Reads list. Part of GGR titles are selected by a committee of WNBA Members, on the basis of their appeal to reading groups. They represent timely and provocative topics, from the intimate dynamics of family and personal to major cultural / global issues.

The WNBA-Charlotte GGR Book Club meets the first Tuesday of every month, at Panera Bread in SouthPark.

Mark your calendars and reserve/order the following titles for the following meet ups: 

November 5th: Tomorrow’s Bread by Anna Jean Mayhew (Kensington, TP) African-American History, Historical Fiction, Southern Fiction

December 3rd: Laurentian Divide by Sarah Stonich (Univ. of Minnesota Press, TP) Women’s Fiction, Small Town & Rural Fiction,

January 7th: Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner (Atria, HC) Family Life, Women’s Fiction

February 4th: Southernmost by Silas House (Algonquin Books, TP) Family Life, LGBTQ, Southern History

March 3rd: The Last Year of the War by Susan Meissner (Berkeley, HC) Historical/WWII, Women’s Fiction

April 7th: The Bookwoman of Troublesome Creek  by Kim Michele Richardson (Sourcebooks, TP) Southern Fiction, Small Town & Rural, Women’s Fiction

May 5th: The Girls at 17 Swann Street by Yara Zgheib (St. Martins Press, HC) Women’s Fiction, Family Life, Psychological/Eating Disorders

June 2nd: The Tubman Command: A Novel by Elizabeth Cobbs (Arcade, HC) Civil War, Women’s Fiction, Historical Fiction

July 7th: Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice (ECW Press, TP) Dystopian Fiction, Native American & Aboriginal

August 4th: All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir  by Nicole Chung (Catapult, HC) Adoption & Fostering, Personal Memoir, Cultural/Ethnic Stories

September 8th: Tonic and Balm by Stephanie Allen (Shade Mountain Press, TP) Fiction, African American Studies, Early 20th Century Fiction

October 6th: Death of A Rainmaker by Laurie Loewenstein (Kaylie Jones Books, TP)Mystery & Detective Series, Historical Fiction

More about Great Group Reads at nationalreadinggroupmonth.org

Great Group Reads / Ideal for Book Club Picks

Announcing

GREAT GROUP READS SELECTIONS 2019-20

Every WNBA-Charlotte’s October Book Club, we vote on the booklist for the next 12 months. Books are selected from the newest Great Group Reads List. Part of the National Reading Group Month Initiative, Great Group Reads titles especially appeal to reading groups. They represent timely and provocative topics, from the intimate dynamics of family and personal to major cultural / global issues.

The Affairs of the Falcóns: A Novel by Melissa Rivero (Ecco)
Women’s Fiction, Hispanic & Latino

All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir  by Nicole Chung (Catapult)
Adoption & Fostering, Personal Memoi, Cultural/Ethnic

The Bookwoman of Troublesome Creek  by Kim Michele Richardson (Sourcebooks)
Southern Fiction, Small Town & Rural, Women’s Fiction

Death of A Rainmaker by Laurie Loewenstein (Kaylie Jones Books)
Mystery & Detective Series, Historical Fiction

The Girls at 17 Swann Street by Yara Zgheib (St. Martins Press)
Women’s Fiction, Family Life, Psychological/Eating Disorders

Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Took On Harvard by Haben Girma (Twelve)
Personal Memoir, Social Activism,

The Honey Bus: A Memoir of Loss, Courage, and a Girl Saved by Bees by Meredith May (Park Row)
Personal Memoir, Agriculture/Bee Keeping

The Last Year of the War by Susan Meissner (Berkeley)
Historical/WWII, Women’s Fiction

Laurentian Divide by Sarah Stonich (Univ. of Minnesota Press)
Women’s Fiction, Small Town & Rural Fiction,

The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart by Holly Ringland (Anasi International)
Literary Fiction

Love You Hard: A Memoir of Marriage, Brain Injury, and Reinventing Love by Abby Maslin (Dutton)
Memoir, Marriage & Long-Term Relationship, Medical

Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice (ECW Press)
Dystopian Fiction, Native American & Aboriginal

Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner (Atria)
Family Life, Women’s Fiction

No Good Asking by Fran Kimmel (ECW Press) Contemporary Women, Small Town & Rural, Literary Fiction

Retablos: Stories from a Life Lived Along the Border by Octavio Solis (City Lights)
Hispanic & Latino, Memoir, Entertainment/Performing Arts

Southernmost by Silas House (Algonquin Books)
Family Life, LGBTQ, Southern History

Tomorrow’s Bread by Anna Jean Mayhew (Kensington)
Historical Fiction, African-American History

Tonic and Balm by Stephanie Allen (Shade Mountain Press)
Fiction, African American Studies, Early 20th Century Fiction

The Tubman Command: A Novel by Elizabeth Cobbs (Arcade)
Civil War, Women’s Fiction, Historical Fiction

Unfurled by Michelle Bailat-Jones (Ig Publishing) Women’s Fiction, Sea Stories

ON OCTOBER 1, Vote on the Books We Read This Year at WNBA-Charlotte’s Book Club Picks Night

Tuesday, October 1st, 7:00-8:30pm
Panera Bread, 5940 Fairview Rd., Charlotte

With summaries given by GGR Selection Committee Manager Kristen Knox, we will vote on what 12 of the 20 titles [below] to read this year—and when.Be a voice at the book table and join us!

More about Great Group Reads at nationalreadinggroupmonth.org