The Smith Club Book Club generally focuses on fiction and non-fiction books authored by or written about Smith women. Everyone is welcome, whether you’ve read the book or not. The conversations are always illuminating, convivial and wide-ranging.
The Smith Club Book Club meets at 2:00 pm on Sunday of every other month. Starting in 2020, we began meeting over Zoom and continue to gather virtually to include Smithies from across Colorado and Wyoming. Contact smithclubco@gmail.com to get on the book club email list.
The next book club meeting will be on Sunday, July 23 at 2:00 pm. We’ll be discussing Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt.
About Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.
Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors—until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.
Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova’s son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it’s too late.
Shelby Van Pelt’s debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.
Let us know if you’re interested in joining the Smith Club Book Club.
2023 Smith Club Book Club Dates and Selections
- January 29: We are Never Meeting in Real Life: Essays by Samantha Irby
- March 26: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara ’95
- May 21: The Only Woman in the Room: Golda Meir and Her Path to Power by Pnina Lahav
- July 23: Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
- September 17: Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships by Nina Totenberg
- November 19: Coming of Age With Elephants: A Memoir by Joyce Poole ’79
2022 Smith Club Book Club Selections
- The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki ‘80
- Ms. Adventure: My Wild Explorations in Science, Lava, and Life by Jess Phoenix ‘05
- Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman
- Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
- The Honeymoon by Dinitia Smith ’67
- 48 Peaks, Hiking and Healing in the White Mountains by Cheryl Suchors ’72
2021 Smith Club Book Club Selections
- Untamed by Glennon Doyle
- America’s First Daughter by Stephanie Dray ’93 & Laura Kamoie
- The Body is Not An Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor
- The Barbizon: The Hotel That Set Women Free by Paulina Bren
- Band of Sisters by Lauren Willig
- Kindred by Octavia Butler
2020 Smith Club Book Club Selections
- Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West by Dorothy Wickenden
- The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern ’00
- Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
- American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson
- Friends and Strangers by J. Courtney Sullivan ’03
- Julia Child: The Last Interview and Other Conversations by Julia Child ’34, Introduction by Helen Rosner ’04
2019 Smith Club Book Club Selections
- The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
- Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster by Stephen Carter
- Kickdown: A Novel by Rebecca Clarren ’97
- The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote by Elaine F. Weiss
- Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
- Becoming by Michelle Obama
2018 Smith Club Book Club Selections
- Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
- The Velveteen Daughter by Laurel Davis Huber ’73
- Citizen Scientist: Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction by Mary Ellen Hannibal ’81
- We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
- The Road from Coorain by Jill Ker Conway
- My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg
2017 Smith Club Book Club Selections
- A Spoonful of Sugar by Amanda Orr ’90
- Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love by Simran Sethi ’92
- My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem ’56
- Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper ’96
- Terrible Virtue by Ellen Feldman (Bryn Mawr College ’64, MA ’67).
- The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henríquez
2016 Smith Club Book Club Selections
- Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman ’92
- The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern ’00
- Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family by Amy Ellis Nutt ’77
- The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara ’95
- Dreaming in French: The Paris Years of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and Angela Davis by Alice Kaplan