Our Common Read invites participants to read and discuss the same book in a given period of time. A Common Read can build community and foster personal growth by giving diverse people a shared experience, shared language, and a basis for deep, meaningful conversations. 

Deacon King Kong by James McBride

 Common Read Discussion of James McBride’s Acclaimed Deacon King Kong , which The New Yorker describes as a tragedy not with the punishing arm of an angry god, but rather a “comic plot – where all the clues are there if you read them right. where murderers’ hands are improbably stayed, where a ‘dead man’ is given a new life”. It’s a  book about the human struggle, about faith, and, oddly, about cheese. A book which will prompt you to consider the meaning of life on one page, and to burst out laughing on the next.

Register in advance for the discussion on May 19 at 5:30 PM on Zoom.

Register for Zoom Meeting

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Past Common Reads

  • Mistakes and Miricles by Nancy Palmer Jones and Karin Lin
  • Kindred by Octavia Bulter
  • Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
  • The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
  • The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Dare
  • The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
  • The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
  • The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
  • Breathe by Imani Perry
  • The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Michele Richarson
  • The Cooking Gene by Michael W. Twitty
  • Choke Hold by Paul Butler
  • This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger 
  • Washington Black by Esi Edugyun
  • On the Come Up by Angie Thomas
  • An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz OR An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People adapted by Jean Mendoza and Debbie Reese
  • The Overstory by Richard Powers
  • Dispatches from Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta by Richard Grant
  • Justice on Earth: People of Faith Working at the Intersections of Race, Class, and the Environment by Manish Mishra-Marzetti and Jennifer Nordstrom
  • American Gods by Neil Gaiman
  • The Book of Joy by Desmund Tutu & Dalai Lama
  • The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
  • Daring Democracy: Igniting Power, Meaning and Connection for the America We Want by Frances Moore Lappe & Adam Eichen
  • The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Religion and Politics by Jonathan Haidt
  • Beyond Words: What Animals Think & Feel by Carl Safina
  • Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance
  • The Third Reconstruction by The Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II
  • Defying the Nazis: The Sharps’ War
  • LaRose by Louise Erdrich
  • To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  • Behind the Kitchen Door by Sarumathi Jayaraman
  • Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
  • The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander