Three Sessions:
Thursday, June 26 • 12.00 – 1.15pm (Eastern)
Thursday, July 24 • 12.00 – 1.15pm (Eastern)
Thursday, August 21 • 12.00 – 1.15pm (Eastern)

This program is offered free of charge. Donations to the work of The BTS Center will be received with gratitude.

Registering for this program will include you as part of our Fiction Book Club, an ongoing initiative that includes this Summer Fiction Book Club as well as future events. There is no need to register for each event separately.

Each month, participants will read a selected novel on their own, and then we will gather virtually to discuss as a group. In addition to small group discussion, a guest conversation partner will join us to offer some reflections on the book and share about its impact in their life.

We welcome you to join us from June through August as we explore spellbinding stories and discuss their voices, visions, and themes. Join us for one, two, or all three sessions!

This summer, please join us in reading and discussing the following novels:

On June 26: Playground by Richard Powers

12:00-1:15 pm (Eastern)

From the publisher: A magisterial new novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning and New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory and Bewilderment.

Set in the world’s largest ocean, this awe-filled book explores that last wild place we have yet to colonize in a still-unfolding oceanic game, and interweaves beautiful writing, rich characterization, profound themes of technology and the environment, and a deep exploration of our shared humanity in a way only Richard Powers can.

On July 24: A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

12:00-1:15 pm (Eastern)

From the publisher: In A Psalm for the Wild-Built, best-selling Becky Chambers’s delightful new Monk and Robot series, gives us hope for the future.

It’s been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend. One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of “what do people need?” is answered.

But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They’re going to need to ask it a lot. Becky Chambers’s new series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?

On August 21: A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet

12:00-1:15 pm (Eastern)

From the publisher: A Children’s Bible follows a group of twelve eerily mature children on a forced vacation with their families at a sprawling lakeside mansion. Contemptuous of their parents, the children decide to run away when a destructive storm descends on the summer estate, embarking on a dangerous foray into the apocalyptic chaos outside. Lydia Millet’s prophetic and heartbreaking story of generational divide offers a haunting vision of what awaits us on the far side of Revelation.