Amerie’s Book Club (2024)

01/03/2024

As we close out another week, we couldn’t be more excited about this electrifying summer read, by ! In this debut short story collection, Reyes creates strange, dreamlike worlds where our lives become unrecognizable even - especially - to ourselves, from an ordinary man who discovers he’s a famous reggaetón star to an abuela who morphs into a marionette puppet to an academic who becomes a Self-Made Man at a horrifying cost. There are mango farmers and ex-guerilla fighters and cyborgs, all affected by technology and bureaucracy, and forced to make uncomfortable choices that could mean life or death, being heard or being silent. Spanning past, present, and future, these are stories about Central American identity, migration, justice, life, and new worlds.

What will you be reading this weekend?

29/02/2024

Happy Thursday! As we reach the end of another month, we’re already excited about this year’s spring and summer readings including by ! The novel follows two sisters in the wake of tragedy: Elise, who goes out dancing the night before her college graduation and Sophie, who calls to tell her that their mom is missing and brings Elise to their home on Nantucket Island. Soon, the sisters learn that their mother was stopped by police on her way home from work and deported to São Paulo, Brazil. In order to bring her back, Elise gets a job monitoring endangered birds while her college friend, socialite, and heir to a toy company Sheba inherits her grandmother’s summer mansion in Nantucket. Suddenly, Elise finds her worlds colliding as she is forced to face the events that caused the fracture of her family and the life in Brazil her mother had to leave behind but was forced to return to. Told with insight, humor, and tenderness, this is a powerful portrait of family, immigration, wealth, love, and sisterhood.

What have you been reading this week?

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28/02/2024

TODAY don’t forget to join and on Amerie’s IG Live at at 9pm EST / 6pm PST as they chat about the author’s incredible book - and remember to bring your questions to the live chat or submit them via AmeriesBookClub.com!

27/02/2024

Be sure to join and TOMORROW February 28th on IG Live at 9pm EST / 6pm PST as they discuss the author’s brilliant book ! Bring your questions to the live chat and to be extra sure your Q is answered, submit it via AmeriesBookClub.com!

26/02/2024

Happy Monday! As we kick off a new week, we’re excited to spotlight the recent publication of by ! The poetry collection follows the poet’s journey through issues of family, grief, love, lineage, food, nature, marriage, and parent-child relationships. Written with eagle-eyed detail and vulnerability, this is a powerful portrait of beauty, of new beginnings, of life.

What did you read over the weekend?

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23/02/2024

Happy Friday! As we celebrate being one day closer to the weekend, we’re putting this new summer read on your radar, by , releasing this June! Set in the tiny town of Troy, Georgia, the novel follows archenemies Beverly Underwood, a school board member, and Lulu Dean, a local celebrity determined to rid the public libraries of all inappropriate and “pornographic” books—none of which she’s actually read. Instead, she starts a lending library in front of her home, full of worthy literature curated for the town’s readers. What she doesn’t know is that a local troublemaker is stealing her wholesome books, removing the dust jackets, and restocking the library with banned books: literary classics, gay romances, Black history, witchy spell books, Judy Blume novels, and more, unexpectedly changing the lives of the neighbors who live around her. When Lulu and Beverly start running against each other to replace the town’s disgraced mayor, one of Lulu’s enemies decides to turn the tables on her, just as the townspeople who have been borrowing from the library begin to reveal themselves. A timely exploration of book bans, lending libraries, and the South, this is a provocative and hilarious love letter for book lovers and small towns.

What are you planning on reading this weekend?

22/02/2024

Happy Thursday! As we approach the end of yet another week, we’re excited for yet another summer read, by , releasing this June! Told in three parts, the novel, based on purported legends, follows Jacquotte Delahaye, an up-and-coming shipwright in Yáquimo, Santo Domingo whose dreams are bound by her suffocating life with her French father. When her town is threatened, however, she is forced to flee her home and join a motley crew of refugees including a young woman named Teresa, who Jacquotte struggles to resist. Quickly, the group becomes indentured servants to the ruthless, brutal pirate captain known as Blackhand, forcing Jacquotte to rely on her wits, resourcefulness, and friends to survive. When the captain forms a scheme to steal jewels from a Portuguese ship, it becomes clear that there is actually a grander, darker scheme at play, and it will be up to Jacquotte to save them and secure a better future for them all. A thrilling, buccaneering escapade filled with siege and battle, this is the yet-to-be-told story of a woman of color’s rise to power as one of the few female pirate captains in the Caribbean and also of forbidden love, friendship, freedom, and home.

Who are some of your favorite historical figures?

21/02/2024

“I grew up in East Dearborn. In summer, my parents housed gatherings in our detached two-car garage, which was built of wood and had a high, peaked ceiling. Folks sat in folding chairs arranged in a wide semicircle facing the open double doors, the smell of rusty tools and mildew in the air. In the dim yellow light, the men and women would chat and share news and stories about the old country as they sipped Turkish coffee and puffed on hookahs, the thick smoke curling above their heads. At some point, after hours of chatting and laughing, someone would tell a terribly sad story about a tragic death, which would inevitably lead to more stories about tragic deaths. Most were set in Lebanon, a land thousands of miles away that I had never visited. The Lebanese civil war had taken the lives of a hundred thousand civilians, so my parents and their friends had plenty of material to draw from. Like the story about a mother and her infant son who were stopped a roadblock in Beirut and forced out of their car. A militiaman dragged them down an alley and threw them to the ground, then pulled back their chins and slit their throats. For some reason, I pictured the boy in a sailor outfit. I had nightmares of him choking on his own blood.” — Ghassan Zeineddine, Dearborn

We can’t wait for and to discuss his brilliant book and this month’s book selection next week on IG Live on February 28th - get your questions ready!

How are you loving so far?

20/02/2024

Are you reading for this year’s summer reading? One novel we couldn’t be more excited for is by , releasing this July! We follow Catalina Ituralde, who is admitted to Harvard, fulfilling her destiny to become the miracle child escaping death in Latin America, moving to Queens to live with her undocumented grandparents, and becoming of the chosen, the extraordinary, the perfect. When she becomes a senior, she realizes the problem that has been in front of her all along, how to graduate into a world that has no place for the undocumented. In the face of approaching doom, she decides to infiltrate the school’s elite subcultures—internships and literary journals, posh parties and secret societies—and get caught in a whirlwind romance with a fellow student studying to become an anthropologist, who is eager to teach her about the Latin American world she was born into but never knew. As graduation looms closer, she is ever more uncertain if she can save her family, herself, and what it even means to be saved. Part campus novel, part hagiography, part pop song, this is a powerful portrait of past, future, tragedy, and possibilities.

What summer reads are you excited for?

19/02/2024

Happy Monday! As we kick off a new week, we couldn’t be more excited to highlight the newly published memoir from stand-up comedian ! This is the much-anticipated follow-up to his debut memoir where he described what it was like becoming a drug addict, criminal, and mental patient all by the age of fifteen. Now sober, the sequel picks up when Kasher is asking himself, “What now?” Readers will follow him through the next decades of his life - becoming the pubescent boy-king of Alcoholics Anonymous, a rave promoter, a DJ, an ecstasy dealer, a psychedelic security guard at Burning Man, a sign-language interpreter. He also makes important emotional strides, coming to terms with his ultra-Hasidic Jewish upbringing and the death of his father before becoming a professional comedian. Humorous and moving, this is the story of starting over again and again, all the different lives he’s lived, the people he’s found, and knowing, unequivocally, that wherever you are is where you’re supposed to be.

What did you read over the weekend?

16/02/2024

Happy Friday! As we close out another week, we’re already excited for this year’s summer reading, including by , releasing this July! The debut novel follows Elizabeth Clark, an art historian who travels to an island off the southern coast of Greece to acquire a rare female n**e sculpture. But, disoriented by jet lag, migraines, a myriad of prescription pills, and the lushness of the island, she finds herself dependent on her charming translator to guide her around the island and drawn to his wife, an artist interested in the female form. But she soon discovers that it won’t be as easy as she thought to acquire the n**e, nor is her fate once what it was. Forced to face her past, the role she’s played in the global art trade, and the ethical fallout of her decisions, she finds herself immersed in a cultural and romantic tug-of-war with the island she’s come so well to know.

What will you be reading this weekend?

14/02/2024

“The recession pounded us in 2008; I thought I’d never stuff another chicken. Sara was laid off and my accounting business faltered. Every day, I received over a dozen calls from frantic clients asking about their finances. When I didn’t return their messages, they barged into my office. They had families to raise, they cried, mortgages to pay off…Many lost their homes. My clients’ anxieties and fears exacerbated my own, for the car wash was losing money. People opted to wash their own cars to save a few bucks, and it didn’t help that more Arab-owned car washes had opened in down, giving me stiff competition. When the automotive companies threatened to close up shop, we all descended into a state of hysteria. How could we survive without Ford, Gm, and Chrysler? They employed tens of thousands of Arab men. Baba wouldn’t have made it in America without Ford. As the decade slouched toward its end, I worried that Dearborn and its people would share Detroit’s fate—a city of abandoned buildings and broken spirits.” — Ghassan Zeineddine, Dearborn

Have you begun reading this month’s book selection by ? Whether you’ve already ordered it or are picking up your copy soon, remember to watch and the author’s IG Live Chat at the end of February!

is Zeineddine’s debut short story collection exploring the lives of Arab American community members in Dearborn, Michigan. Spanning several decades, these humorous, often heartbreaking ten stories feature characters from ages and all walks of life: a father teaching his son to cheat the IRS by hiding their cash inside frozen chickens; a mysterious man frequenting the local gym pool dressed in Speeds printed with images of Lebanon; a failed stage actor trying to help a young Lebanese man become a Hollywood action here, only for ICE agents to have other plans. Told with tenderness and incisiveness, this is a powerful portrait of identity, generational conflicts, trauma, migration, sexuality, q***rness, home, belonging, and how the members of a community can help one another survive.

Have you picked up your copy of ?

13/02/2024

With spring just around the corner, we couldn’t be more excited about the upcoming publication of by , releasing this April! This novel, which was a best-seller in Japan, follows gourmet cook and serial killer Manako Kajii who has been convicted of the murders of lonely businessman who were seemingly seduced by her home cooking. But despite the public’s hunger for all the details, she refuses to speak with the press, let alone entertain visitors. But everything changes when journalist Rika Machida, the only woman in her news office, writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew, and Kajii can’t resist writing back, even allowing Rika to visit. As the visits continue, Rika hopes to soften Kajii and help her open up about the case but instead finds herself the student of a master class in food, changing with every meal she eats and causing her to wonder if she and Kajii have more in common than she once thought. Inspired by the true story of the “Konkatsu Killer,” this is a powerful, unsettling portrait of misogyny, obsession, romance, and food.

What are you reading this week?

12/02/2024

Happy Monday! As we begin a new week, we couldn’t be more thrilled to celebrate an upcoming memoir, by poet and essayist , releasing this May! Structured into short essays, vignettes, and visions, Nezhukumatathil takes on a journey to understand how food, traditions, and drinks shape our associations and remembrances, our memories and curiosities, as well as our joy, shame, exuberance, grief, desire, and nostalgia. From shaved ice to lumpia, mangoes to pecans, rambutan to vanilla, this investigates how food marks our experiences and identities and explores the boundaries between heritage and memory, all combined with personal reflections, anecdotes, images, and illustrations.

What did you read over the weekend?

09/02/2024

Happy Friday! We couldn’t be more excited about this upcoming July release, by ! Set on the tiny South Atlantic island of Tuga de Oro. the novel follows newly qualified London vet Charlotte Walker, who has fled home after an argument with her mother and accepted a fellowship to study endangered gold coin tortoises within the jungle. But more than being motivated to save a species, Charlotte believes that has her own connection to the island and its community, and is determined to solve the mystery. But not only is she attracted to the new island doctor, but she’s also roped in to become a vet to all of the islander’s animals including dogs, goats, and donkeys. Exploring love, community, and home, this is an uplifting transport to a remote island, a group of lovable people, and a whole world unto itself.

What did you read this week?

08/02/2024

“I felt as if I could put down the book, jump on a plane, and spend time with my new Dearbornean friends.” We can’t wait to hear more about this month’s book selection from Amerie and author during our IG Live Chat at the end of February!

Have you ordered your copy yet?

07/02/2024

We’re loving the highly anticipated novel that everyone is talking about, by , soon to be an AppleTV+ series! The story follows Margot Millet, the child of a Ho***rs waitress and an ex-pro wrestler who’s always had to make it on her own. After enrolling at her local junior college, she has a brief affair with her English professor and ends up getting pregnant, deciding against all odds to keep the baby. Soon, she’s 20, a single mother alone with an infant, unemployed, and about to be evicted. When her estranged father Jinx shows up on her doorstep and asks to move in, she agrees only as long as he helps out with childcare. But she takes it a step further by starting an OnlyFans account, adopting his wrestling advice to craft a compelling character and convince the audience to fall in love. Seemingly overnight, she becomes a huge success - but what she doesn’t know is if this is the answer to her problems or, like other things in her life, if it comes with too high a price. Exploring money, power, motherhood, adulthood, storytelling, and controlling your own narrative, this is a humorous portrait of what it takes to come into your own.

Who are some of your favorite book characters?

06/02/2024

Happy Tuesday! As we continue into a new week, we’re so excited to spotlight an upcoming poetry debut, by ! Wry and tender, this collection follows Davoudian’s life through self-estrangement as a gay teenager, an Armenian in Isafahan, Iran, and an immigrant in America. Coupled with the backdrop of global tragedies including the Armenian genocide, war in the Middle East, and the specter of homophobia, it also explores intimate moments with unflinching honesty: him and his mother getting ready in the morning, lovers finding a balance of power, and him experiencing a tense exchange with morality police in Iran. Throughout each magical, introspective poem, Davoudian offers us moments of reflection, life, and home.

What did you read this weekend?

02/02/2024

Happy Friday! We’re rounding out the week with an upcoming May release for all our young readers - by ! The novel follows Castillo Torres, the Student Body Association event chair and a serial planner whose life goes wrong anyway, what with the disastrous mishap at her sister’s quinceañera and the sudden passing of her mother. When she comes across an internship offered by a local lifestyle-guru-slash-party-planner, she jumps at the opportunity to ensure that things never go wrong again. The only catch? She’ll need more party planning experience before she can apply. Miraculously, she manages to book a quinceañera for a teen Disneyland vlogger, only to discover that not only is the party a publicity stunt, but she’s also catching feelings for the chambelán. Exploring fairy tales and real life, planning our lives versus participating in it, this is a moving story of a young woman trying to make her way in the world.

What did you read this week?

01/02/2024

Happy February! We’re already looking ahead to March to celebrate the upcoming publication of by ! Taking place in Pacific Hills, California, the novel follows the Shah family, who have moved into the gated community with ocean views, well-tended lawns, and serene pools twenty years after the Shah parents came to America from India. While the move represents all their hard work and dreams, their three American-born children view it a different way, igniting arguments between parents and children, older and younger siblings. But one night, their twelve-year-old son is arrested in a violent encounter with the police, causing a ripple effect across the family, their perceptions of themselves, their definition of success, and what they’ve lost for the sake of ambition. Exploring immigration, generational conflict, social class, privilege, and the myth of the model minority, this is a story of the American dream at its most tenuous and complex.

What book is up next on your TBR?

31/01/2024

Happy Wednesday! We’re excited about this new March release, by ! The novel follows 22-year-old Nina Woodrow, who joins the British Royal Air Face and entangles herself in an affair with Officer Guy Nicholson, risking her home, friends, and the love of her father. Meanwhile, Guy’s wife Kate struggles to accept the affair and finds an unlikely confidant in Nina’s father Henry, though their friendship too slowly grows into something much murkier and more menacing. With passion and pitch-perfect period detail, this is a story about two intertwined families and the secrets that simultaneously bring them together and tear them apart.

What’s the last book that made you cry?

30/01/2024

As we continue throughout the week, we couldn’t be more thrilled to spotlight yet another new poetry collection, by Zoque poet ! Translated into Spanish and English from the original Zoque text, this is a moving testament to Sánchez’s fierce and authoritative voice as the only woman ever to publish a book of poetry in her native language, spoken by the Zoque people of southern Mexico. Touching on themes of cosmology, lineage, feminism, ancestral lineage, storytelling, prophecy, and environmental activism, this is a powerful examination of colonialism, empire, and knowledge, all told from ancient ground.

What are some of your favorite poetry collections?

29/01/2024

Happy Monday! We’re kicking off a new week with a must-read poetry collection releasing this June, by Panamanian poet ! Divided into three sections, this body of work is inventive and beautiful, seductive and strange, shimmering and precise, as the poet explores topics including cinema, fashion, feminism, glitz, transformation, and textuality. Though slim in volume, each poem packs a punch and you’ll walk away, as the title suggests, feeling fabulous.

What did you read over the weekend?

26/01/2024

Happy Friday! As we round out a new week, we’re excited to spotlight by , releasing this April! Taking place in Washington Territory in 1888, the novel follows Alma Rosales and her o***m-smuggling crew who are making a fortune moving product. Afterward, they spend their nights at the Monte Carlo, the center of Tacoma’s q***r scene where everyone is free to dress and identify how they choose. But then two local men turn up dead and everyone points their fingers at Alma’s o***m trade. But an effort to get rid of the bodies goes wrong, drawing lawmen to town, one of whom happens to be Bess Spencer, Alma’s first love. Yet another handsome stranger comes to town, starting an affair with one of Alma’s crew. But when he starts asking too many questions, Alma realizes she may have allowed a spy into her circle and is forced to admit to herself, and to everyone else, just how far she’ll go to protect her trade. Rough and turbulent, this is a powerful genre and gender-blurring novel about q***r communities, modern media and medicine, and the costs of satisfying desire.

What did you read this week?

25/01/2024

We have an exciting new release for everyone to look forward to: by ! Following one American family over eighty years, we first focus on Nick Taylor in 1953, a WWII veteran turned oil company lawyer who lives with his wife Bet and their two children Katherine and Harry in the secluded forests of the Vermont mountains in Last House. Fifteen years later in 1968, America is on the brink the change thanks to the Vietnam War, MLK’s shootings, and the country’s reliance on Big Oil. Katherine, now an adult, struggles to reconcile the current injustices with the safety and privileges of her Greatest Generation parents. When the movement radically shifts, each member of the Taylor family will be forced to face the choices they’ve made, the consequences of their actions, their relationship to the resource that built their fortune and oppressed so many, and the causes they’ve believed in. Set against the backdrop of U.S. history, this is a powerful portrait of family, inheritance, progress, and empire.

What are some of your favorite books?

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24/01/2024

TODAY don’t forget to join and on Amerie’s IG Live at at 12pm EST / 9am PST as they chat about the author’s incredible book - and remember to bring your questions to the live chat or submit them via AmeriesBookClub.com!

.kara

23/01/2024

Be sure to join and TOMORROW January 24th on IG Live at 12pm EST / 9am PST as they discuss the author’s brilliant book ! Bring your questions to the live chat and to be extra sure your Q is answered, submit it via AmeriesBookClub.com!

.kara

22/01/2024

Happy Monday! We’re excited to showcase a new 2024 release, by , coming out this June! The novel follows Charles Lamosway, who, from his porch, watches the life unfolding across the river on Maine’s Penobscot Reservation, specifically moments of Roger and Mary raising their child Elizabeth. But he has a secret, one that divides him from the family and the rest of the community - Elizabeth is his daughter, and he’s finally ready to release the secret out into the world. But when Elizabeth disappears, and days turn into weeks, he grows worried and increasingly haunted by his past, all while trying to take care of his home, his friend Bobby, and his mother Louise who is suffering from dementia. Most of all, he takes the time to look back at his life - his childhood on the reservation, a brief love affair, the accidental death of his stepfather Fredrick - and faces the questions about the secret he’s been too afraid for too long to ask. This is a stunning portrait of family, legacy, bloodlines, culture, inheritance, and what we owe one another.

What did you read over the weekend?

18/01/2024

Happy Thursday! We’re back with another upcoming publication this year, by , releasing in March! The novel follows the lives of three people: Esther Larson, a grandmother who’s been cooking for funerals in Ellerie County for 70 years alongside her cohort known as the “funeral ladies,” and who falls for an internet scam that puts her home at risk; Iris, Esther’s Gen Z granddaughter who grows despondent watching her friends and family move out of their lakeside town; and Cooper Welsh, a young man who’s become a legal guardian to his half-sister after the death of his stepmother with no help from their celebrity-chef father and is healing from a public tragedy he witnessed as a paramedic. When they cross paths, they are anxious to learn from one another through the community cookbook, find the missing pieces of their lives, and possibly even find the home they’ve been looking for all along. A story about three misfits, this is also an ode to Midwestern grandmothers, food, and forgiveness.

What book is next on your list?

Amerie’s Book Club