Lit Youngstown's current series of book discussions centers around the literary element of place. We meet at 5:30pm on the 2nd Thursday at the Main Library, 305 Wick Ave., in the 2nd floor meeting room. Haven't read the book yet? No worries.
The February title is Just Us by Claudia Rankine. This book is available at the Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County, the YSU Barnes & Noble, and POP! Arts, Book, Culture via Bookshop.
"Just Us is an invitation to discover what it takes to stay in the room together, even and especially in breaching the silence, guilt, and violence that follow direct addresses of whiteness... This brilliant arrangement of essays, poems, and images includes the voices and rebuttals of others: white men in first class responding to, and with, their white male privilege; a friend's explanation of her infuriating behavior at a play; and women confronting the political currency of dyeing their hair blond, all running alongside fact-checked notes and commentary that complements Rankine's own text, complicating notions of authority and who gets the last word.”
Upcoming books in this series:
March (short stories) What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us by Laura van den Berg
April (memoir) 50 Miles by Sheryl St. Germain
May (novel) Ohio by Stephen Markley