2nd Tuesday Book Club

2nd Tuesday Book Club meets the second Tuesday of each month to discuss a book the group has chosen a few months in advance. New members are always welcome.

Meetings are held at 5:30 p.m. in the Library Board Room and over Zoom. Please email Azar.Katouzian@escondidolibrary.org for more information.

Upcoming Titles

October 10, 2023 The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee

Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy—and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the financial crisis of 2008 to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a root problem: racism in our politics and policymaking. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. Racism has costs for white people, too. It is the common denominator of our most vexing public problems, the core dysfunction of our democracy and constitutive of the spiritual and moral crises that grip us all. But how did this happen? And is there a way out?

McGhee embarks on a deeply personal journey across the country from Maine to Mississippi to California, tallying what we lose when we buy into the zero-sum paradigm—the idea that progress for some of us must come at the expense of others. Along the way, she meets white people who confide in her about losing their homes, their dreams, and their shot at better jobs to the toxic mix of American racism and greed. This is the story of how public goods in this country—from parks and pools to functioning schools—have become private luxuries; of how unions collapsed, wages stagnated, and inequality increased; and of how this country, unique among the world’s advanced economies, has thwarted universal healthcare.

But in unlikely places of worship and work, McGhee finds proof of what she calls the Solidarity Dividend: the benefits we gain when people come together across race to accomplish what we simply can’t do on our own. The Sum of Us is not only a brilliant analysis of how we arrived here but also a heartfelt message, delivered with startling empathy, from a black woman to a multiracial America. It leaves us with a new vision for a future in which we finally realize that life can be more than a zero-sum game.

Previous Book Club Picks

Click here to view previous book club picks.

2023 Book Schedule

*List is subject to change.

January 10, 2023
Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri

February 14, 2023
The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna

March 14, 2023
The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave

April 11, 2023
Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake

May 9, 2023
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

June 13, 2023
Rules for Visiting by Jessica Francis Kane

July 11, 2023
The Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin

August 8, 2023
Nowhere Girl: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood by Cheryl Diamond

September 12, 2023
The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

October 10, 2023
The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee

November 14, 2023
The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich

December 12, 2023
West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge