The NEPM Book Club
Do you love to read? So do we! That’s why we’ve launched the NEPM Book Club — a new quarterly meet-up dedicated to bringing NEPM friends together to chat about new, diverse and interesting fiction.
Our next meeting will be Thursday, Jan. 26 at 7 p.m. We're kicking off the new year by talking about Swing Time by Zadie Smith.
ABOUT THE NOVEL
An ambitious, exuberant novel moving from North West London to West Africa, from the multi-award-winning author of White Teeth and On Beauty.
Two brown girls dream of being dancers—but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, what constitutes a tribe, or makes a person truly free. It's a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten, either.
Tracey makes it to the chorus line but struggles with adult life, while her friend leaves the old neighborhood behind, traveling the world as an assistant to a famous singer, Aimee, observing close up how the one percent live.
But when Aimee develops grand philanthropic ambitions, the story moves from London to West Africa, where diaspora tourists travel back in time to find their roots, young men risk their lives to escape into a different future, the women dance just like Tracey—the same twists, the same shakes—and the origins of a profound inequality are not a matter of distant history, but a present dance to the music of time.
Curious for more? Check out these reviews:
- Know Thyself? 'Swing Time' Says It's Complicated (NPR)
- ‘Swing Time’: Zadie Smith’s sweeping novel about friendship, race and class (The Washington Post)
- Zadie Smith’s Dance of Ambivalence (The Atlantic)
- Swing Time by Zadie Smith review – an unflinching portrait of friendship (The Guardian)
The NEPM Book Club is sponsored by Broadside Bookshop in Northampton, Massachusetts.
MEET THE BOOK CLUB HOST
Erin O’Neill is a dedicated bibliophile and NEPM’s digital marketing and social media manager. A lifelong obsessive reader and lover of stories, Erin hosts and organizes NEPM Book Club meetings — and comes up with discussion questions!
GET THE BOOK
Need to get your copy of the latest Book Club selection? Please consider buying from one of our local NEPM Book Club partners:
Broadside Bookshop in Northampton »
Massive Bookshop, an online bookseller in Greenfield »
Olive Tree Books-n-Voices in Springfield »
UPCOMING MEETINGS
Book Club Members can help select books for us to read. Do you have a favorite novel? Is there a piece of fiction that’s on your to-read list? Email your suggestions to bookclub@nepm.org!
Though our first meetings have been on Zoom, we’re looking forward to the time when we may be able to congregate in person. As we like to say at NEPM, “Stay tuned!”