Books That Will Change Your Life: A Nonfiction Book Club

Join librarians Dennis and Elizabeth for a monthly conversation around a life-changing nonfiction book.  Each month we’ll select a book that will change your perspective, give you new strategies for handling life’s challenges, or deepen your understanding of a topic.

Some of the books have been recommended by local community leaders who told us which books inspired them in their lives and work. Other selections are our favorites or are popular with you, our patrons (based on length of holds lists or number of checkouts), or have otherwise won acclaim.

This month we will be reading Seek You: a Journey Through American Loneliness by Kristen Radtke. 

"When Kristen Radtke was in her twenties, she learned that, as her father was growing up, he would crawl onto his roof in rural Wisconsin and send signals out on his ham radio. Those CQ calls were his attempt to reach somebody--anybody--who would respond. In Seek You, Radtke uses this image as her jumping off point into a piercing exploration of loneliness and the ways in which we attempt to feel closer to one another. She looks at the very real current crisis of loneliness through the lenses of gender, violence, technology, and art. Ranging from the invention of the laugh-track to Instagram to Harry Harlow's experiments in which infant monkeys were given inanimate surrogate mothers, Radtke uncovers all she can about how we engage with friends, family, and strangers alike, and what happens--to us and to them--when we disengage. With her distinctive, emotionally charged drawings and unflinchingly sharp prose, Kristen Radtke masterfully reframes some of our most vulnerable and sublime moments"-- provided by publisher.

Limited copies of the book will be available at the Central Library Pickup Window starting February 15.