Welcome Readers!
This month the Online Reading Challenge is focusing on classics. Our main title for August is Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:
In the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morality.
David is a young American expatriate who has just proposed marriage to his girlfriend, Hella. While she is away on a trip, David meets a bartender named Giovanni to whom he is drawn in spite of himself. Soon the two are spending the night in Giovanni’s curtainless room, which he keeps dark to protect their privacy. But Hella’s return to Paris brings the affair to a crisis, one that rapidly spirals into tragedy.
David struggles for self-knowledge during one long, dark night—“the night which is leading me to the most terrible morning of my life.” With a sharp, probing imagination, James Baldwin’s now-classic narrative delves into the mystery of loving and creates a deeply moving story of death and passion that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart. – Vintage
Looking for some other classics? Try any of the following.
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
- Beloved by Toni Morrison
- David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
- Emma by Jane Austen
- Little Women by Louisa Alcott
- Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
- The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
- To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!