About this Event
Wanna read more in 2026 and need some accountability partners at your favorite bookstore? We got you. We also have a community of readers who would love to meet you. Join us! Let's read more!
WHO & WHAT: Rep Club and YOU! Join us monthly or pop in once. Our reads will span genres and themes, and we'll be led by Rep Club bookseller extraordinaires Bri & Hannah!
October read:by Toni Morrison
Get it at Rep Club (duh) for 10% off with code: BOOKCLUB10
WHEN: Sunday, Nov 22 from 10:00-11:30am (doors open at 9:30)
WHERE: In-Person at Reparations Club (3054 S. Victoria Ave. LA, CA 90016)
HOW: Suggested $5 ticket (this is non-refundable and goes toward snacks)
ABOUT THE BOOK
A BEAUTIFUL, ARRESTING STORY ABOUT RACE AND THE RELATIONSHIPS THAT SHAPE US THROUGH LIFE BY THE LEGENDARY TONI MORRISON, IN A STAND-ALONE KNOPF HARDCOVER FOR THE FIRST TIME, WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ZADIE SMITH.
In this 1983 short story--the only short story Morrison ever wrote--we meet Twyla and Roberta, who have known each other since they were eight years old and spent four months together as roommates in St. Bonaventure shelter. Inseparable then, they lose touch as they grow older, only later to find each other again at a diner, a grocery store, and again at a protest. Seemingly at opposite ends of every problem, and at each other's throats each time they meet, the two women still cannot deny the deep bond their shared experience has forged between them.
Another work of genius by this masterly writer, Recitatif keeps Twyla's and Roberta's races ambiguous throughout the story. Morrison herself described Recitatif, a story which will keep readers thinking and discussing for years to come, as an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial. We know that one is white and one is Black, but which is which? And who is right about the race of the woman the girls tormented at the orphanage?
A remarkable look into what keeps us together and what keeps us apart, and how perceptions are made tangible by reality, Recitatif is a gift to readers in these changing times.
TONI MORRISON is the author of eleven novels and three essay collections. She received the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and in 1993 she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. She died in 2019.
Event venue & nearby stays
Reparations Club, 3054 South Victoria Avenue, Los Angeles, United States
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