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!
January Pick: we are never meeting in real life
Wednesday January 15th at 6:30PM
Wood Theater Cabaret Space [207 Glen Street]
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER – This essay collection from the “bitches gotta eat” blogger, writer on Hulu’s Shrill and HBO’s And Just Like That, and “one of our country’s most fierce and foulmouthed authors” (Amber Tamblyn, Vulture) is sure to make you alternately cackle with glee and cry real tears.
“A sidesplitting polemicist for the most awful situations.”–The New York Times
Whether Samantha Irby is talking about how her difficult childhood has led to a problem in making “adult” budgets; explaining why she should be the new Bachelorette (she’s “35-ish, but could easily pass for 60-something”); detailing a disastrous pilgrimage-slash-romantic-vacation to Nashville to scatter her estranged father’s ashes; sharing awkward sexual encounters; or dispensing advice on how to navigate friendships with former drinking buddies who are now suburban moms (hang in there for the Costco loot!); she’s as deft at poking fun at the ghosts of her past self as she is at capturing powerful emotional truths.
February Pick: Chain-Gang All-Stars
Wednesday February 12th* at 6:30PM
Wood Theater Cabaret Space [207 Glen Street]
*Please note we will meet one week earlier in February!
Loretta Thurwar and Hamara ‘Hurricane Staxxx’ Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America’s increasingly dominant private prison industry. Its the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom. In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer.
March Pick: The Teller of Small Fortunes
Wednesday March 19th at 6:30PM
Wood Theater Cabaret Space [207 Glen Street]
Tao is an immigrant fortune teller, traveling between villages with just her trusty mule for company. She only tells ‘small’ fortunes: whether it will hail next week; which boy the barmaid will kiss; when the cow will calve. She knows from bitter experience that big fortunes come with big consequences. Even if it’s a lonely life, it’s better than the one she left behind. But a small fortune unexpectedly becomes something more when a (semi) reformed thief and an ex-mercenary recruit her into their desperate search for a lost child. Soon, they’re joined by a baker with a ‘knead’ for adventure, and–of course–a slightly magical cat.
April Pick: What My Bones Know
Wednesday April 16th at 6:30PM
Wood Theater Cabaret Space [207 Glen Street]
By age thirty, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: She had her dream job as an award-winning radio producer at This American Life and a loving boyfriend. But behind her office door, she was having panic attacks and sobbing at her desk every morning. After years of questioning what was wrong with herself, she was diagnosed with complex PTSD–a condition that occurs when trauma happens continuously, over the course of years. Both of Foo’s parents abandoned her when she was a teenager, after years of physical and verbal abuse and neglect. She thought she’d moved on, but her new diagnosis illuminated the way her past continued to threaten her health, relationships, and career. She found limited resources to help her, so Foo set out to heal herself, and to map her experiences onto the scarce literature about C-PTSD. In this deeply personal and thoroughly researched account, Foo interviews scientists and psychologists and tries a variety of innovative therapies. She returns to her hometown of San Jose, California, to investigate the effects of immigrant trauma on the community, and she uncovers family secrets in the country of her birth, Malaysia, to learn how trauma can be inherited through generations. Ultimately, she discovers that you don’t move on from trauma–but you can learn to move with it.