Erie Reader Book Club Selection for July 2024

Erin Phillips

Join the members of the Erie Reader Book Club, the last Sunday of July, as we discuss Normal People by Sally Rooney, in connection with our 40 Under 40 issue.

SUNDAY, JULY 28

To correspond with our 40 Under 40 issue, the Erie Reader Book Club members decided upon a coming-of-age story in Normal People by Sally Rooney. Rooney, an Irish author, published her second novel Normal People in 2018 and it quickly became an international bestseller. The novel was adapted as a television show (available to watch on Hulu), and both the book and the show will be topics of conversation at our next book club meeting. 

Normal People and Rooney have won scads of literary awards including: winner of the British Book Award, Costa Book Award, the An Post Irish Novel of the Year, the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award and was shortlisted and longlisted for a number of other literary awards and prizes. The book was named first on the New York Times Book Review's 100 Notable Books of 2019.

Normal People follows two characters, Connell and Marianne, through their childhood and into early adulthood as they navigate their individual social worlds and disparate personalities – and how the two keep intertwining. "Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship." The Guardian notes that it is sure to be a "future classic," calling it "structurally clever," and describes Rooney's dialogue as highlighting the "self-deluding fumblings of millennial dialogue – her wackily candid one-liners, her ability to mine both the comedy and the tragedy from any simple human interaction, are at once dazzlingly contemporary and enjoyably timeless."

The Erie Reader Book Club is open to anyone who would like to discuss the selection – no commitment to future book club meetings necessary. We meet at Werner Books and Coffee on the last Sunday of each month at 1 p.m. It is free to join the discussion.

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