On the Same Page is a collaborative book club hosted by the Wood Theater and Black Walnut Books. We meet at 6:30pm on the first Wednesday of each month at the Charles R. Wood Theater Cabaret Space (207 Glen Street). Each month’s book is 10% off for members of the book club or you may choose to forego the discount and make a donation to the Wood Theater and its mission! Just choose either donation or discount when adding books to your cart.
Participation in On the Same Page is completely free and all are welcome! Sign-ups are encouraged to allow us to plan for meeting sizes and send reminders but are not required! Feel free to drop in!
August Pick: The River Has Roots
Wednesday August 20th at 6:30PM
Wood Theater Cabaret Space [207 Glen St]
The River Has Roots is the hugely anticipated solo debut of the New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award winning author Amal El-Mohtar. Follow the river Liss to the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, and meet two sisters who cannot be separated, even in death.
The hardcover edition features beautiful interior illustrations and a foil case stamp.
“Half delicious murder ballad, half beguiling love story.” –Holly Black – ” An absolute must-read.” –T. Kingfisher – ” Every sentence sings!” –Sarah Beth Durst – “Utterly enchanting.” –Fonda Lee – “A story that outlasts itself.” –Alix E. Harrow – “Truly exquisite.” –Zoraida Córdova – ” A beautiful, musical, and loving story.” –Emma Törzs
“Oh what is stronger than a death? Two sisters singing with one breath.”
In the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, dwells the mysterious Hawthorn family.
There, they tend and harvest the enchanted willows and honour an ancient compact to sing to them in thanks for their magic. None more devotedly than the family’s latest daughters, Esther and Ysabel, who cherish each other as much as they cherish the ancient trees.
But when Esther rejects a forceful suitor in favor of a lover from the land of Faerie, not only the sisters’ bond but also their lives will be at risk…
September Pick: Tell Me How It Ends
Wednesday September 17th at 6:30PM
Wood Theater Cabaret Space [207 Glen St]
Structured around the forty questions Luiselli translates and asks undocumented Latin-American children facing deportation, Tell Me How It Ends (an expansion of her 2016 Freeman’s essay of the same name) humanizes these young migrants and highlights the contradiction of the idea of America as a fiction for immigrants with the reality of racism and fear–both here and back home. A damning confrontation between the American dream and the reality of undocumented children seeking a new life in the US.
October Pick: Man Made Monsters
Wednesday October 15th at 6:30PM
Wood Theater Cabaret Space [207 Glen St]
Imagine a chilling horror collection that weaves classic monsters like werewolves and vampires with the true horrors of colonialism, domestic violence, and displacement. Man Made Monsters, by acclaimed Cherokee writer Andrea Rogers, delivers.
Follow a Cherokee family across centuries, from their ancestral lands in 1830s Georgia to the battlefields of World War I and Vietnam, and beyond. Each story offers a chilling glimpse into a different era, revealing how history’s monsters intertwine with the supernatural.
Man Made Monsters is a powerful exploration of identity and the enduring legacy of colonization. Rogers masterfully blends Cherokee legends with chilling horror, creating unforgettable characters and monsters.
Each story is accompanied by haunting illustrations from Cherokee artist Jeff Edwards, incorporating the Cherokee syllabary for a truly immersive experience.
November Pick: The Coin
Wednesday November 19th at 6:30PM
Wood Theater Cabaret Space [207 Glen St]
The Coin’s narrator is a wealthy Palestinian woman with impeccable style and meticulous hygiene. And yet the ideal self, the ideal life, remains just out of reach: her inheritance is inaccessible, her homeland exists only in her memory, and her attempt to thrive in America seems doomed from the start.
In New York, she strives to put down roots. She teaches at a school for underprivileged boys, where her eccentric methods cross boundaries. She befriends a homeless swindler, and the two participate in an intercontinental scheme reselling Birkin bags.
But America is stifling her–her willfulness, her sexuality, her principles. In an attempt to regain control, she becomes preoccupied with purity, cleanliness, and self-image, all while drawing her students into her obsessions. In an unforgettable denouement, her childhood memories converge with her material and existential statelessness, and the narrator unravels spectacularly.
In enthralling, sensory prose, The Coin explores nature and civilization, beauty and justice, class and belonging–all while resisting easy moralizing. Provocative, wry, and inviting, The Coin marks the arrival of a major new literary voice.
December Pick: She of the Mountains
Wednesday December 17th at 6:30PM
Wood Theater Cabaret Space [207 Glen St]
A contemporary illustrated queer love story interwoven with a reimagining of Hindu mythology. She of the Mountains is a beautifully rendered illustrated novel by Vivek Shraya, the author of the Lambda Literary Award finalist God Loves Hair. Shraya weaves a passionate, contemporary love story between a man and his body, with a re-imagining of Hindu mythology. Both narratives explore the complexities of embodiment and the damaging effects that policing gender and sexuality can have on the human heart.