READING BLACK LIVES

BOOK GROUP
The Reading Black Lives Book Group was founded in 2020 by Denise Woodin with a commitment to read books written by Black authors from the U.S. and abroad. Genres include contemporary novels, historical fiction, mysteries, and biographies. Join us for a discussion and fellowship on the book we have just read. All are welcome!
For more information, please contact [email protected].
• NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER •

NAMED A NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST

Currently reading:
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Dream Count by

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born in Enugu, Nigeria in 1977. She grew up on the campus of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where her father was a professor and her mother was the first female Registrar. She studied medicine for a year at Nsukka and then left for the US at the age of 19 to continue her education on a different path. She graduated summa cum laude from Eastern Connecticut State University with a degree in Communication and Political Science.

She has a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins University and a Master of Arts degree in African History from Yale University. She was awarded a Hodder fellowship at Princeton University for the 2005-2006 academic year, and a fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute of Harvard University for the 2011-2012 academic year. In 2008, she received a MacArthur Fellowship.

She has received honorary doctorate degrees from Eastern Connecticut State University, Johns Hopkins University, Haverford College, Williams College, the University of Edinburgh, Duke University, Amherst College, Bowdoin College, SOAS University of London, American University, Georgetown University, Yale University, Rhode Island School of Design, Northwestern University, University of Pennsylvania, Skidmore College and University of Johannesburg.


SYNOPSIS
Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until—betrayed and brokenhearted—she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America—but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve.

In Dream Count, Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state? And how honest must we be with ourselves in order to love, and to be loved? A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations of the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power. It confirms Adichie’s status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.
Credit: www.chimamanda.com
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Scheduled for discussion January 24, 1:15pm at FUSW.

Upcoming Reads in 2026

  • Hell of a Book - by Jason Mott (March)
  • The Wilderness - by Angela Flournoy (April)

Previous Reads

  1. ​Deacon King Kong – by James McBride
  2. Beloved – by Toni Morrison
  3. Such a Fun Age – by Kiley Reid
  4. The Vanishing Half – by Brit Bennett 
  5. An American Marriage – by Tayari Jones
  6. The Good Lord Bird – by James McBride
  7. If Beale Street Could Talk – by James Baldwin 
  8. Memorial – by Bryan Washington 
  9. Their Eyes Were Watching God – by Zora Neale Hurston
  10. Americanah – by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
  11. The Watsons Go to Birmingham – by Christopher Paul Curtis
  12. Washington Black – by Esi Edugyan
  13. Devil in a Blue Dress – by Walter Mosley
  14. Girl, Woman, Other – by Bernadine Evaristo
  15. On Beauty – by Zadie Smith
  16. On the Rooftop - by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
  17. Harlem Shuffle – by Colson Whitehead
  18. When We Were Birds – by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
  19. The Love Songs of W. E. B. DuBois - by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers​
  20. How Beautiful We Were - by Imbolo Mbue
  21. The Sellout - by Paul Beatty
  22. The Violin Conspiracy - by Brendan Slocumb
  23. Hidden Figures - by Margot Lee Shetterly
  24. The House of Eve - by Sadeqa Johnson
  25. Take My Hand - by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
  26. The Known World - by Edward P. Jones
  27. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store - by James McBride
  28. Black Cake - by Charmaine Wilkerson
  29. Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People - by Tiya Miles
  30. One of Our Kind - by Nicola Yoon
  31. The Fraud - by Zadie Smith
  32. James - by Percival Everett
  33. The Mothers - by Brit Bennett
  34. ​Homegoing - by Yaa Gyasi
  35. ​The Wedding - by Dorothy West
  36. ​The Street - by Ann Petry
  37. Come and Get It - by Kiley Reid
  38. Yet Here I Am: Lessons from a Black Man's Search for Home - by Jonathan Capehart
  39. Dream Count - by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  40. (MARCH 2026) Hell of a Book - by Jason Mott
  41. (APRIL 2026) The Wilderness - by Angela Flournoy