Building Bridges Book Group

Through the reading and discussion of acclaimed works of fact and fiction, we seek greater appreciation of the rich diversity of life, to build understanding, empathy, and connection in our world.

Our hybrid group meets on the last Saturday of the month at 10am both in the library conference room and on Zoom. Contact Alicia Yokoyama, Adult Services Librarian, at ayokoyama@lakeoswego.city to register for the Zoom link or if you have any questions.

Coming Up:

Saturday, February 28: We've postponed discussion of The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai until June. We will still meet this month to discuss great books that we've recently read or are currently reading. 

Saturday, March 28: The Mango Tree: A Memoir of Fruit, Florida, and Felony by Annabelle Tometich

Past Building Bridges Book Group selections:

March by John Lewis

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

This is Paradise: My North Korean Childhood by Hyok Kang

In The Country We Love: My Family Divided by Diane Guerrero

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

A Hope More Powerful Than The Sea: One Refugee’s Incredible Story of Love, Loss, and Survival by Melissa Fleming

Futureface: A Family Mystery, An Epic Quest, and the Secret to Belonging by Alex Wagner

Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More by Janet Mock

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay

My Life, My Love, My Legacy by Coretta Scott King

Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist by Eli Saslow

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui

The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race edited by Jesmyn Ward

Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation by Damian Duffy and John Jennings

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black & Free in America by Darnell L. Moore

There There by Tommy Orange

Becoming by Michelle Obama

The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border by Francisco Cantu

Let It Bang: A Young Black Man’s Reluctant Odyssey Into Guns by RJ Young

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin

Radical Hope: Letters of Love and Dissent in Dangerous Times edited by Carolina De Robertis

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin DiAngelo

The Leavers by Lisa Ko

The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich

The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Cherokee America by Margaret Verble

 All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende

Afterlife by Julia Alvarez

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

The Color of Air by Gail Tsukiyama

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

At the Edge of the Haight by Katherine Seligman

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

The Agitators: Three Friends Who Fought for Abolition and Women's Rights by Dorothy Wickenden

Deacon King Kong by James McBride

The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki

How Much of These Hills is Gold by C. Pam Zhang

Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang

My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor

What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray 

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones

The Beadworkers by Beth Piatote

The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade

Strength to Love by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

The Mothers by Brit Bennett

The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton

The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson

Neither Wolf nor Dog by Kent Nerburn

Every Day is a Gift by Tammy Duckworth

The Many Daughters of Afong Moy by Jamie Ford

Independence by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

Daughters of Smoke and Fire by Ava Homa

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

No God Like the Mother by Kesha Ajose Fisher

Rough Sleepers by Tracy Kidder

Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad

When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka

Honor by Thrity Umrigar

Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond

The Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

The Postcard by Anne Berest

The Unwinding of the Miracle by Julie Yip-Williams

Memory Piece by Lisa Ko

Twilight Territory by Andrew X. Pham

James by Percival Everett

Acts of Forgiveness by Maura Cheeks

How to Read a Book by Monica Wood

Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman's Search for Justice in Indian Country by Sierra Crane Murdoch

The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr

Rental House by Weike Wang

Lovely One by Ketanji Brown Jackson

We Will Be Jaguars: A Memoir of My People by Nemonte Nenquimo

Solito: A Memoir by Javier Zamora

We Do Not Part by Han Kang

Master Slave, Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo

Closer by Miriam Gershow