SEPTEMBER 26 (Sat) at The Royal Room @7:30pm

Station Eleven

Emily St. John Mandel (2014)

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A flu pandemic wipes out most of humanity in a matter of days. Fifteen years later, the Traveling Symphony moves between scattered survivor settlements performing Shakespeare and music, their motto: "Because survival is insufficient." Kirsten was a child actress the night it all began; now she's onstage in the ruins of the old world, making something beautiful. Mandel's haunting novel asks what we hold onto when everything else is gone and answers with art, memory, and the strange grace of human connection.

“Deeply melancholy, but beautifully written, and wonderfully elegiac . . . A book that I will long remember, and return to.”  - George R. R. Martin

“Strange, poetic, thrilling, and grim all at once, Station Eleven is a prismatic tale about survival, unexpected coincidences, and the significance of art.”  - Bustle, “Best Book of the Month”

Heads up: The world of Station Eleven features death, a pandemic, and violence, including references to sexual violence.

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OCTOBER 17 (Sat) at Phinney Neighborhood Center Community Hall @7:30pm

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH

Robert C. O'Brien (1971)

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Mrs. Frisby is a widowed field mouse with a sick child and an impossible deadline: move before the spring plowing, or the child will face certain death. Fortunately, she’s got some truly incredible neighbors. The extraordinarily intelligent rats of NIMH, who escaped a government laboratory and are building a civilization of their own, take her plight as their own and illustrate the profound power of asking for help.

“Thoroughly engrossing, thought-provoking fantasy.”  - School Library Journal (starred review)

“Robert O'Brien has a knack for captivating his audience by creating humanlike personalities…Underlying the book's humor and fantastic elements are a set of values that children won't soon forget.”  - Common Sense Media

Heads up: No major content warnings. Suitable for all ages.

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NOVEMBER 14 (Sat) at The Royal Room @7:30pm

Dungeon Crawler Carl

Matt Dinniman (2020)

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One moment, Earth exists. The next, every human-made structure has been atomized and transformed into an 18-level dungeon complete with goblins, traps, loot, and an alien audience of billions tuning in to every moment. Enter Carl, a Coast Guard vet, and Princess Donut, his ex-girlfriend's very opinionated show cat. The rules: survive each level before the timer runs out, kill with style, build a following, or die spectacularly entertaining the galaxy.

“If you’ve asked for a book recommendation lately, chances are you’ve been buttonholed by some goggle-eyed person babbling about boxer shorts, dungeon levels, and a tiara-wearing Persian show cat named Princess Donut…Dungeon Crawler Carl is funny.”  - Slate

Heads up: Dungeon Crawler Carl contains death, murder, drug use, and some steamy stuff.

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DECEMBER 6 (Sun) at Theatre Off Jackson @7:00pm

Annual InkAloud! Show featuring three local authors TBA

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JANUARY 9 (Sat) at The Royal Room @7:30pm

The Odyssey

Homer

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It’s ten years since the fall of Troy and Odysseus still hasn't made it home. So begins one of literature's great longshot sagas: conspiring gods, beckoning enchantresses, and a house full of suitors helping themselves to his kingdom. Homer's ancient epic of loss, cunning, loyalty, and the relentless pull of home remains, over 2,700 years later, one of the most enduring narratives ever told—especially in Emily Wilson’s acclaimed 2017 translation.

“At the heart of the Odyssey there is life, and survival.”  - The Guardian

“To read the book closely is to know that Odysseus is a complex hero: he is reckless, he is sharp, he is inventive, he is violent, but he is also empathetic…Perhaps we return to adaptations of The Odyssey over and over again because we need to be reminded of human stories.”  - Boston University

Heads up: The Odyssey contains blood, death, infidelity, violence, and war.

More: Does the Dog Die / Book Trigger Warnings

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FEBRUARY 7 (Sun) at Theatre Off Jackson @7:00pm

Hidden Figures

Margot Lee Shetterly (2016)

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Before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of Black women calculated the equations that got him there—and then were asked to use a separate bathroom. Hidden Figures tells the true story of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, Christine Darden, and Gloria Champine: the "human computers" at NASA whose brilliance powered the Space Race while Jim Crow laws tried to erase them.

“Hidden Figures is worth reading on many levels. It is the tale of triumph over adversity. Not just over the adversity of discrimination, but over the adversities which visit all families: illness, death of a spouse, and loss of employment. The women featured found ways to surmount these challenges...I recommend this book to anyone.”  - National Space Society

Heads up: Hidden Figures contains racism, sexism, misogyny, and references to war and illness.

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MARCH (TBA)

The Lord of the Rings

J.R.R. Tolkien (1954)

 

The Dark Lord wants his ring back. The fate of Middle-earth hangs in the balance. And the person carrying it is a small, soft-footed hobbit from a very comfortable hole in the ground. Tolkien's foundational epic is grand in every sense—sweeping landscapes, ancient evil, immortal poetry—but its secret is that it never loses sight of Frodo and Sam, two ordinary souls a very long way from home.

“Along with the heartbreaking sorrow, there is a grandeur to this view of human life, to the ruin persisting long after the tower has fallen. Deeply and essentially true, Tolkien’s vision can give shape and meaning to those griefs we as humans cannot escape.”  - New York Times

Heads up: Frodo’s timeless journey takes him through war, violence, and death.

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APRIL 10 (Sat) at The Royal Room @7:30pm

Ceremony

Leslie Marmon Silko (1977)
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Tayo returns from World War II to the Laguna Pueblo Reservation shattered. He is scarred by combat, imprisonment, and the rejection he faces at home. His path back to himself winds through ceremony, myth, and the land itself, guided by a medicine man whose healing is as unconventional as it is profound. Silko's novel is widely considered one of the most important works in Indigenous American literature: a story of trauma, identity, and the resilience of culture.

“The novel is very deliberately a ceremony in itself—demanding but confident and beautifully written.”  - The Boston Globe

“Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony is close to what I would call sacred in fiction. There are not many books I would put in this category...What I mean by sacred when talking about this book is its singular devotion to knowing and gorgeously describing the lands it depicts; the way this book allows for its people to find new ways to heal from heartache and trauma in a broken and war-torn world.”  - Tommy Orange

Heads up: Ceremony contains heavy themes around post-traumatic stress disorder, war, violence, addiction, and racism.

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MAY 8 (Sat) at The Royal Room @7:30pm

Chain-Gang All-Stars

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (2023)
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Welcome to CAPE—Criminal Action Penal Entertainment—where prisoners fight to the death in front of packed arenas for the chance to win their freedom. Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are the stars, teammates, and lovers, navigating a system designed to crush them. Adjei-Brenyah's blazing debut novel is part gladiator epic, part searing satire of America's prison-industrial complex, and one of the most urgent novels in recent memory.

“Epic…Intoxicating…It is a testament to Adjei-Brenyah’s idiosyncratic talents as a satirist that this premise…feels disquietingly plausible by the novel’s end.”  - The Atlantic

“Haunting, lyrical and evocative, this book challenges readers with questions surrounding fairness, justice and freedom, and is perfect for readers who are passionate or curious about social justice and the history of policing in the United States.”  - Forbes

Heads up: Chain-Gang All-Stars contains extreme violence, graphic death, systemic racism, and strong language throughout.

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JUNE 13 (Sun) at Theatre Off Jackson @7:00pm

Hatchet

Gary Paulsen (1987)

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Brian Robeson is thirteen, alone in the Canadian wilderness, and the only tool between him and starvation is a hatchet from his mom. Gary Paulsen's Newbery Honor classic earns every page of what comes next—the failed fires, the wrong berries, the slow accumulation of skills that nobody teaches you until your life depends on them. It's a survival story, but more than that it's a portrait of a kid who gets very, very good at starting over.

“Gary Paulsen does not romanticize the difficulties Brian faces. Readers witness his gut-wrenching sickness from eating too many berries and his shock when he realizes he has never before heard total silence. His failures and triumphs are also presented as equal parts of one life-altering experience. In the two months he spends in the wild, Brian undergoes countless emotional and physical changes. But Paulsen keeps the reader at Brian's side as he discovers how strong he has always been.”  - Common Sense Media

Heads up: Hatchet contains depictions of injuries and an attempted suicide.

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