Wiley Cash presents Open Canon Book Club!
We live in a time when appealing to and listening to the diversity of America's voices are more important than ever. The goal of the Open Canon Book Club is to introduce readers to voices and portrayals of the American experience they may not have otherwise encountered in their day-to-day lives, their education, or their book club meetings. Literary diversity plays a vital role in making us understood to one another, and this hope of understanding is the hinge upon which our democracy swings.
As to the name of the Open Canon Book Club, below are a few definitions from Merriam-Webster that are particularly apt:
Open: not restricted to a particular group or category of participants; exposed to general view or knowledge; having no enclosing or confining barrier.
Canon: a sanctioned or accepted group or body of related works; a criterion or standard of judgment; a body of principles, rules, standards, or norms.
For each month's selection of the Open Canon Book Club I will post discussion questions here and across my social media accounts, and I will also host live book club discussions online and in independent bookstores. The authors of each month's selection will be invited to participate in any and every way that interests them. I will also post and share relevant documentaries, essays, websites, and blogs that will enrich the experience of reading and discussing the month's selection.
I'm thrilled to announce that The King's English Bookshop is willing to extend their book club discounts, between 10-20%, to members of the Open Canon Book Club.
Wiley Cash is the New York Times best selling author of the novels The Last Ballad, A Land More Kind Than Home, andThis Dark Road to Mercy. He currently serves as the writer-in-residence at the University of North Carolina-Asheville and teaches in the Mountainview Low-Residency MFA. He lives with his wife and two young daughters in Wilmington, North Carolina.
2020 Book List
January: Of Love and Dust by Ernest J. Gaines
February: Southernmost by Silas House
March: The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying by Nina Riggs
April: Refund by Karen Bender
May: Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
June: The Leavers by Lisa Ko
July: The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border by Francisco Cantú
August: American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson
September: The Other Americans by Laila Lalami
October: Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke
November: Edinburgh by Alexander Chee
December: There There by Tommy Orange
