Book Club
The book club is an opportunity to engage in learning and professional development by reading a book, getting together with your colleagues to explore new ideas, network, discuss the content of the book, and create an action plan to apply your learning at work and in life.
Format
The book club follows this format:
- Participants will meet three times per book as a group.
- Each person receives a personal copy of the book (yours to keep), along with guided questions to consider for discussion with the larger group.
- Participants, please read the book.
- Sessions focus on a discussion about the contents and themes of the book, sharing thoughts about how the ideas presented in the book may be applied within the university community.
Session information
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Fall 2026 – Yesteryear
Yesteryear
A traditional American woman, a beautiful wife and mother who sells her pioneer lifestyle of raw milk and farm-fresh eggs to her millions of social media followers, suddenly awakens cold, filthy, and terrified in the brutal reality of 1855—where she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister in this sensational debut novel.Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the heir to a political dynasty? What Natalie’s followers—all 8 million of them—don’t know won’t hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They’re sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn’t simply living the good life, she’s living the ideal—and just so happens to be building an empire from it.
Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a ruthless reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible.
A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening, Yesteryear is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood.
Navigating abandonment, abuse, and ableism, she finds her birth parents and a new chosen family in the disability community.
Join us to discuss:
Date: October 13, November 3, November 24
Time: 11 a.m. to noon
Location: Virtual