Friday, October 11, 2024 12am to 11:55pm
About this Event
Online via PBC Guru
Join your fellow GW alumni for one or both of our October - December virtual book clubs focused on the topics of professional development and lifelong learning. This learning and networking opportunity is completely free for all alumni. You just have to get a copy of the book(s) and log into the private forum where all participants can discuss the current book and converse with each other.
The upcoming book clubs will run from October 11 – December 13. The book clubs are hosted by our trusted partner PBC Guru‚ a book club management company.
I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times by Mónica Guzmán
We think we have the answers‚ but we need to be asking a lot more questions.
Partisanship is up‚ trust is down‚ and our social media feeds make us sure we’re right and everyone else is ignorant (or worse). But avoiding and attacking one another is breaking... everything.
Journalist Mónica Guzmán is the loving liberal daughter of Mexican immigrants who voted—twice—for Donald Trump. When the country could no longer see straight across the political divide‚ Mónica set out to find what was blinding us‚ and discovered the most eye-opening tool we’re not using: our own curiosity.
In this timely‚ personal guide‚ Mónica‚ the chief storyteller for the national cross-partisan depolarization organization Braver Angels‚ takes you to the real front lines of a crisis that threatens to grind America to a halt—broken conversations among confounded people. She shows you how to overcome the fear and assumptions that surround us to finally do what only seems impossible: understand and even learn from people in your life whose whole worldview is not just different from yours‚ but opposed.
Drawing from conversations she’s had‚ organized‚ or witnessed everywhere from the echo chambers on social media to the wheat fields in Oregon to raw‚ unfiltered fights with her family on election night‚ Mónica shows how you can put your natural sense of wonder to work for you immediately‚ finding the answers you need by talking with people—rather than about them—and asking the questions you want across the divides you want‚ curiously.
In these pages‚ you’ll learn:
Whether you’re left‚ right‚ center‚ or sick of the labels: If you’re ready to fight back against the confusion‚ heartbreak‚ and madness of our dangerously divided times—in your own life‚ at least—Mónica’s got the tools and fresh‚ surprising insights to prove that seeing where people are coming from isn’t just possible. It’s easier than you think.
A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine‚ sparking a tragic mystery that haunts the survivors‚ unravels a community‚ and remains unsolved for nearly fifty years.
July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later‚ four-year-old Ruthie‚ the family’s youngest child‚ vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother‚ Joe‚ sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come.
In Maine‚ a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant‚ her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older‚ Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition‚ she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.
For readers of The Vanishing Half and Woman of Light‚ this showstopping debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction is a riveting novel about the search for truth‚ the shadow of trauma‚ and the persistence of love across time.
