The Center for Collaborative History is pleased to host its inaugural summer book club. Much like summer reads or "beach reads" this club is decidedly less scholarly in nature, and more about community. We will select one book to read over the summer, and will host the book club meeting to discuss the book we have all read.

To participate:

1. Purchase a copy of the book from your local bookseller. Labyrinth Books has copies available at their store and are offering a 15% discount to club members.
2. Register using the link below to attend the book club meeting. In-person registration is currently restricted to PU ID holders. All others are invited to register via Zoom. 
3. Read and take notes and come prepared to discuss the book!

Registration

Register for In-Person Attendance (Restricted to PU ID holders)

Register for Zoom attendance

Violeta: A Novel by Isabel Allende

Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family with five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth.

Through her father’s prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known. Her family loses everything and is forced to retreat to a wild and beautiful but remote part of the country. There, she will come of age, and her first suitor will come calling.

She tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting times of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Her life is shaped by some of the most important events of history: the fight for women’s rights, the rise and fall of tyrants, and ultimately not one, but two pandemics.

Through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination, and sense of humor carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional.

Available in Hardcover, Large Print Paperback, ebook, and audiobook from Ballantine Books.

Isabel Allende won worldwide acclaim in 1982 with the publication of her first novel, The House of the Spirits. Since then, she has authored twenty-six bestselling and critically acclaimed books. In 2014, President Barack Obama awarded Allende the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and in 2018 she received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation.