University Libraries 2025-2026 Book Club

Join us for the 2025–2026 Book Club sponsored by the Friends of the Libraries, WSU Alumni Association, and the WSU Retirees Association.

When and Where:

This year we will kick off the Book Club discussions in person on Tuesday, September 16 at 5:30 p.m. in the Dunbar Library Room 441.

Our next discussion will be held on Wednesday, November 12 at 5:30 p.m. on WebEx.

The remaining sessions will be held via WebEx at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, January 20, 2026 and Tuesday, March 17, 2026.  Registration for all discussions is encouraged by not required.

What We’re Reading:  

September 16, 2025: Help Wanted, by Adelle Waldman

Every day at 3:55 a.m., members of Team Movement clock in for their shift at big-box store Town Square in a small upstate New York town. Under the eyes of a self-absorbed and barely competent boss, they empty the day’s truck of merchandise, stock the shelves, and scatter before the store opens and customers arrive. Their lives follow a familiar if grueling routine, but their real problem is that Town Square doesn’t schedule them for enough hours―most of them are barely getting by, even while working second or third jobs. When store manager Big Will announces he is leaving, the members of Movement spot an opportunity. If they play their cards right, one of them just might land a management job, with all the stability and possibility for advancement that that implies. The members of Team Movement―including a comedy-obsessed oddball who acts half his age, a young woman clinging on to her “cool kid” status from high school, and a college football hopeful trying to find a new path―band together to set a just-so-crazy-it-might-work plot in motion. (Description from author’s website).

 

November 12, 2025: Girl at War, by Sara Nović

Zagreb, 1991. Ana Jurić is a carefree ten-year-old, living with her family in a small apartment in Croatia’s capital. But that year, civil war breaks out across Yugoslavia, splintering Ana’s idyllic childhood. Daily life is altered by food rations and air raid drills, and soccer matches are replaced by sniper fire. Neighbors grow suspicious of one another, and Ana’s sense of safety starts to fray. When the war arrives at her doorstep, Ana must find her way in a dangerous world.

New York, 2001. Ana is now a college student in Manhattan. Though she’s tried to move on from her past, she can’t escape her memories of war—secrets she keeps even from those closest to her. Haunted by the events that forever changed her family, Ana returns to Croatia after a decade away, hoping to make peace with the place she once called home. As she faces her ghosts, she must come to terms with her country’s difficult history and the events that interrupted her childhood years before. (Description from author’s website).

 

January 20, 2026: The Husbands, by Holly Gramazio

When Lauren returns home to her flat in London late one night, she is greeted at the door by her husband, Michael. There’s only one problem—she’s not married. She’s never seen this man before in her life. But according to her friends, her much-improved decor, and the photos on her phone, they’ve been together for years.

As Lauren tries to puzzle out how she could be married to someone she can’t remember meeting, Michael goes to the attic to change a lightbulb and abruptly disappears. In his place, a new man emerges, and a new, slightly altered life re-forms around her. Realizing that her attic is creating an infinite supply of husbands, Lauren confronts the question: If swapping lives is as easy as changing a lightbulb, how do you know you’ve taken the right path? When do you stop trying to do better and start actually living? (Description from Goodreads).

 

March 17, 2026: The Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Fiction

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book titles are on order and will be available for borrowing from the WSU Libraries soon. Don't have a WSU library card? Join our Friends of the Libraries for borrowing privileges and help support the Libraries' collections and programs.