UWinnipeg Alumni Book Club
Free for alumni
Thanks to the generous support of our alumni partner, The Personal Home and Auto Insurance there is no cost to participate. Books may be bought or borrowed in electronic or paper format.
How does the Book Club work? The University of Winnipeg Alumni Book Club connects through a private online forum where members respond to different discussion questions and other book-related topics. We spend about two months reading each book to accommodate reader schedules and preferences. Discussions occur online and are asynchronous, so members can provide their input at any time, wherever they may be in the world.
Book Club Selection March - May 2024
Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, Angela Rodel (Translator)
Award-winning Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov has enthralled readers around the world with his labyrinth-like, Kafkaesque tales of contemporary Europe.
In Time Shelter, an enigmatic flâneur named Gaustine opens a “clinic for the past” that offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer’s sufferers: each floor reproduces a decade in minute detail, transporting patients back in time. As Gaustine’s assistant, the unnamed narrator is tasked with collecting the flotsam and jetsam of the past, from 1960s furniture and 1940s shirt buttons to scents and even afternoon light. But as the rooms become more convincing, an increasing number of healthy people seek out the clinic as a “time shelter”—a development that results in an unexpected conundrum when the past begins to invade the present. Intricately crafted, and eloquently translated by Angela Rodel, Time Shelter announces Gospodinov to American readers as an essential voice in international literature.
Book Club Selection May-July 2024
Unearthing: A Story of Tangled Love and Family Secrets
Three months after Kyo Maclear's father dies in December 2018, she gets the results of a DNA test showing that she and the father who raised her are not biologically related. Suddenly Maclear becomes a detective in her own life, unravelling a family mystery piece by piece, and assembling the story of her biological father. Along the way, larger questions arise: what exactly is kinship? And what does it mean to be a family?
Books we've read:
What our Alumni Book Club members are saying:
Patricia Palahniuk (BA 91)
I quite enjoy being in the Alumni bookclub. First of all, we have now lived in the US for 30 years! Yikes! However, my heart is still in Winnipeg and it’s been such a good experience hearing from fellow Winnipeggers throughout the discussion of the last read. It’s also beneficial when there is lively discussion on the pros and cons of a book. We all bring our own perspectives to a reading but we also try to figure out the author’s intent. Books enrich our lives!!!