Erie Reader Book Club December 2024 Selection

Erin Phillips

Join the Erie Reader Book Club as they discuss their December selection, The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, to correspond with the upcoming Year in Review issue.

SUNDAY, DEC. 29

"Life changes fast.

Life changes in an instant."

Join the Erie Reader Book Club in December as we read Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking to correspond with our upcoming December issue, The Year in Review. 

The autobiographical retelling of a year in the life of Joan Didion (published exactly one year and a day after her husband's sudden death) – a year of consequence, a year of unthinkable loss, giving distinct imagery to the mental toll of grief. This book was Didion's attempt to reckon with "the weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness… about marriage and children and memory… about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself."

A powerful read that will resonate with nearly everyone who reads it – The Year of Magical Thinking was instantly recognized as a modern classic winning the 2005 National Book Award for Nonfiction. The book was a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. In 2024, The New York Times Book Review ranked Didion's memoir as the twelfth best book of the 21st century.

Consider joining our group – this book has a lot to unpack, it's sure to be a compelling discussion where we will focus on the nature of loss, the way Didion writes about her own grief and the categorization of the book as a "masterpiece of investigative journalism," the idea of "magical thinking" as consequential to life, and more. Find us at Werner Books and Coffee the last Sunday in December at 1 p.m. – the book is available to purchase at Werner now.

1 p.m. // Werner Books and Coffee, 3608 Liberty St. // Free to join discussion, cost of book not included // For more info: wernerbooks.com