UUCV Book Group – Schedule and Books for 2026

January 25 – How to Stand Up to a Dictator by Maria Ressa. (John Katz)

Pioneering digital journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa begins with autobiography, but ultimately chronicles her conflict with Filipino thug-dictator Duterte–and explains how social media facilitates the rise of global fascism.

February 22 – Dear America, Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas. (Susan Rimby)

Vargas immigrated to the United States as a twelve-year-old Filipino boy to live with his grandparents in Los Angeles. Four years later, he learned that his papers had been forged and that he was undocumented. What follows is his account of his life in the United States and his criticisms of a broken immigration system. It’s a fascinating read by a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist.

March 22 – The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. (Bev Ayers-Nachamkin)

Premise: Somewhere beyond the edge of the universe, there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality you might have lived had you made a different choice at any point in your life. Protagonist, Nora Seed, finds herself faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one. She must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.

April 26 – North Woods by Daniel Mason. (Christine Carracino)

A sweeping novel about a single house in the woods of New England, told through the lives of those who inhabit it across the centuries- “a time-spanning, genre-blurring work of storytelling magic” (The Washington Post) from the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Piano Tuner and The Winter Soldier. 

May 17 – The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon. (Susan Rimby)

In the early 1990s, historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich published A Midwife’s Tale. This book wove together the diary (1789-1812)  of Maine midwife, Martha Moore Ballard, and various other local sources from Hallowell, Maine to give us an in-depth view of New England society in the early American Republic. It read like a novel; I. couldn’t put it down. Not surprisingly, Ulrich won a Pulitzer for the book.

Now, Ariel Lawhon has written a novel, published in 2023, focusing on one incident in Ulrich’s book, the gang rape of the local minister’s wife. Ballard is called to testify at the men’s trial, because she attended to the rape victim after the rape, and delivered the baby that was a product of that rape. Will the court take women’s testimony seriously? And will the rapists be brought to justice? The novel is even more compelling than Ulrich’s monograph.

June 28 – The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley.  (Rick Sollman)

Mixes romance, sci-fi, immigrant/refugee themes, and questions of power, identity, and history to tell a fictional story about a secret government project in Britain in the not-so-distant future that rescues historical figures who’d have died in their own time and brings them into the present. I think it could spark discussion on our personal perception of time and history, as well as the plight of refugees. 

July 26 – Wild Dark Shores by Charlotte McConaghy. (Bev Motich)

Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers, but with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants. Until, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman mysteriously washes ashore.

OK, the official synopsis sounds intriguing, right? But I loved this book for the beautiful descriptions of the natural inhabitants of the island – the seals, penguins, whales and even a nesting albatross couple. The brutality of the island storms reminded me of The Black House by Peter May, which we read last year. This is the third book by Australian writer McConaghy, classified as “climate fiction” and I can’t get it out of my thoughts after finishing it. 

August 23 – The Art Thief: The True Story of Love, Crime and a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel. (Brian McPherson)

The true account of the most prolific art thief of all time, who pulled off more than 200 heists, often in crowded museums in broad daylight.

“One of the most remarkable true-crime narratives of the twenty-first century” — New York Times

September 27 – Matrix by Lauren Groff. (Bev Ayers-Nachamkin)

Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine (1124-1204), deemed too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life, seventeen-year-old Marie de France is sent to England to be the new prioress of an impoverished abbey, its nuns on the brink of starvation and beset by disease.

Equally alive to the sacred and the profane, Matrix gathers currents of violence, sensuality, and religious ecstasy in a mesmerizing portrait of consuming passion, aberrant faith, and a woman that history moves both through and around — a defiant and timely exploration of the raw power of female creativity in a corrupted world.

October 25 – Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green. (Rick Sollman)

This is a non-fiction narrative of a young TB patient in Sierra Leone interwoven with medical history, global health politics, and ethics. Green argues that though the disease is curable, human choices keep it alive and potent, which can lead us into discussion about the intersection of humanity’s collective problems and systemic injustice. 

November 22 – Selections for 2027