Join the Vox Book Club!

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Our pick for April 2020 is N.K. Jemisin’s The City We Became.

Here’s how the Vox Book Club works: Every month, we pick a book. We go through it week by week, with a discussion post going up on the site every Friday. Each discussion post will contain thoughts and discussion questions from me, your humble book critic, but we’ll also have comments turned on and moderated so you can share your thoughts, too. Talk among yourselves! Post your opinions and questions! Or, use our discussion posts as a jumping-off point for (socially distanced) discussions with your own friends and family. And at the end of the month, we’ll hold a live discussion of the book on Zoom.

April’s pick is N.K. Jemisin’s The City We Became, an immensely joyful new fantasy novel in which New York City and its five boroughs come to life. There’s lots to think about here: reactionary politics, the resilience of cities, world-building, and whether New York is as special as it thinks it is.

Here’s the full Vox Book Club schedule for April 2020

Friday, April 3: The fun begins! We’ll start by reading the prologue and first five chapters of N.K. Jemisine’s The City We Became, with discussion kicking off in one week.

Friday, April 10: Discussion covering prologue—chapter 5 (pp. 1–138)

Click here to join our first discussion: As the book opens, New York City is born. What happens next?

Friday, April 17: Discussion covering chapters 6–10 (pp. 139–290)

Friday, April 24: Discussion covering chapters 11–coda (pp. 291–434)

TBD: Live Q&A on Zoom, details TBD. To be notified by email once we have set a date and time for the live event, fill out our Google form here.

Where to find a copy of The City We Became

There are a few ways you can get your hands on a copy of The City We Became without leaving your house. Most local libraries will allow you to digitally borrow an ebook for two weeks for free, and you can get access either through your library’s website or through a free app like Libby. You can also purchase the book as an ebook through Bookshop, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Play, Google Books, Kobo, or eBooks.com.

If you want a physical copy, you can call your local independent bookstore to see if they are making deliveries or offering curbside pickup (many are), or you can order a copy of the book through Bookshop, which supports indie bookstores. Note that Amazon is not currently prioritizing book orders, which may cause shipping delays.