The HLAA-TC Book Club meets every month throughout the year on the fourth Tuesday of the month (unless otherwise stated). We alternate between reading fiction and nonfiction books each month and our selections often deal with hearing loss, deafness or disability. We are meeting virtually on Zoom and have had several authors and special guests join us to discuss the books. We meet in the evenings on Zoom (with computer/AI captions). For more information about the book club, please email Laura Hagemann (HLAA-TC Social Media Specialist) at social@hlaatc.org
Our Book Club and several other HLAA Book Clubs were featured in the Fall/Winter 2024 issue of Hearing Life magazine (the HLAA magazine). Read that article here.February 2026: Tuesday, February 24, 2026 5pm Western/7pm Central/ 8pm Eastern on Zoom: “Being Seen: One DeafBlind woman’s fight to end ableism” By Elsa Sjunneson (it is in the BARD/library for the blind as number: DB 105634). Synopsis: In this memoir, award-winning author Elsa Sjunneson, who identifies as Deafblind, discusses growing up and living in an ableist world. Sjunneson, also a professor and activist, explores how the misrepresentation of disability in books, movies, and TV harms both the disabled community and everyone else. Strong language, some violence, and some descriptions of sex. 2021. (ZOOM REGISTER HERE).
FUTURE BOOKS:March 2026: Tuesday, March 24, 2026 5pm Western/7pm Central/ 8pm Eastern on Zoom: “Still Life” By Joy Fielding. (BARD #DB 69338). Synopsis: “A car slams into interior designer Casey Marshall, nearly killing her. Regaining consciousness in the hospital, Casey realizes she can hear people talking but can’t see, move, or communicate. She overhears police voice suspicions that the accident was attempted murder–and Casey begins to fear for her life. 2009.” (ZOOM REGISTRATION LINK TO COME).
April 2026: Tuesday, April 28, 2026 5pm Western/7pm Central/ 8pm Eastern on Zoom: “Losing Music” by John Cotter. (BARD # DB 118270). Synopsis: “I was in the car the first time music seemed strange: the instruments less distinct, the vocals less crisp.” John Cotter was thirty years old when he first began to notice a ringing in his ears. Soon the ringing became a roar inside his head. Next came partial deafness, then dizziness and vertigo that rendered him unable to walk, work, sleep, or even communicate. When he is first told that his debilitating condition is likely Ménière’s Disease but that there is “no reliable test, no reliable treatment, and no consensus on its cause,” Cotter quits teaching, stops writing, and commences upon a series of visits to doctors and treatment centers.” (ZOOM REGISTRATION LINK TO COME).
May 2026: Tuesday, May 26, 2026 5pm Western/7pm Central/ 8pm Eastern on Zoom: “All the Light We Cannot See” By Anthony Doerr. (BARD: DB 79182). Synopsis: When Paris is invaded by the Nazis, Marie-Laure LeBlanc’s father evacuates her to St. Malo to stay with her great-uncle. Blind since the age of six, Marie-Laure must learn the town by the scale model her father has left. Then, the Germans arrive. Bestseller. 2014.” (ZOOM REGISTRATION LINK TO COME).
June 2026: Tuesday, June 23, 2026 5pm Western/7pm Central/ 8pm Eastern on Zoom: The Invention of Miracles: language, power and Alexander Graham Bell’s quest to end Deafness.” By Katie Booth. (BARD: DB 108369). Synopsis: “We think of Alexander Graham Bell as the inventor of the telephone, but that’s not how he saw his own career. As the son of a deaf woman and, later, husband to another, his goal in life from adolescence was to teach deaf students to speak. Even his tinkering sprang from his teaching work; the telephone had its origins as a speech reading machine. The book takes a new look at an American icon, revealing the astonishing true genesis of the telephone and its connection to another, far more disturbing legacy of Bell’s: his efforts to suppress American Sign Language. Weaving together a dazzling tale of innovation with a moving love story, the book offers a heartbreaking account of how a champion can become an adversary and an enthralling depiction of the deaf community’s fight to reclaim a once-forbidden language. 2021.” (ZOOM REGISTRATION LINK TO COME).
July 2026: Tuesday, July 28, 2026 5pm Western/7pm Central/ 8pm Eastern on Zoom: “When the Cranes Fly South” By Lisa Ridzén. (BARD: DB 132157). Synopsis: “Bo lives a quiet existence in his small rural village in the north of Sweden. He is elderly and his days are punctuated by visits from his care team and his son. Fortunately, he still has his rich memories, phone calls with his best friend Ture, and his beloved dog Sixten for company. Only now his son is insisting the dog must be taken away. The very same son that Bo is wanting to mend his relationship with before his time is up. The threat of losing Sixten stirs up a whirlwind of emotions and makes Bo determined to resist and find his voice. When the Cranes Fly South is a profoundly moving and life-affirming novel about one man’s desire to preserve his autonomy, the multitude of stories contained within a life, and the big things for which we have no words.” (ZOOM REGISTRATION LINK TO COME).
August 2026: Tuesday, August 25, 2026 5pm Western/7pm Central/ 8pm Eastern on Zoom: “Ordinary Daylight: Portrait of an Artist Going Blind” by Andrew Potok. (BARD: DB 16674). Synopsis: “Potok, scion of the Maximilian furs family as well as a painter of note, describes with humor his attempts to delay the effects of retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited, progressive, eye disease. Potok relates with comic effect his supposed “cure” with bee-sting therapy in London, and shares his concerns for his marriage and for his daughter, who also bears the genetic defect.” (ZOOM REGISTRATION LINK TO COME).
September 2026: Tuesday, September 22, 2026 5pm Western/7pm Central/ 8pm Eastern on Zoom: “Between Georgia” by Joshilyn Jackson. (BARD: DB 62771). Synopsis: “Sign-language interpreter Nonny was born to a teenaged Crabtree girl but raised by a deaf/blind Frett woman in a small Georgia town. A family feud brings Nonny home, where she makes peace with her family and changes her lifestyle. 2006.” (ZOOM REGISTRATION LINK TO COME).
October 2026: Tuesday, October 27, 2026 5pm Western/7pm Central/ 8pm Eastern on Zoom: “The Imprisoned Guest: Samuel Howe and Laura Bridgman, the original deaf-blind girl” By Elisabeth Gitter. (BARD: DB 51840). Synopsis: “The life of Laura Bridgman, deaf and blind from age two, who became one of the most famous women of the mid-nineteenth century. Explores her education with Samuel Howe at Boston’s Perkins Institution for the Blind; views her achievements in the context of American social, cultural, and intellectual history. 2001.” (ZOOM REGISTRATION LINK TO COME).
November 2026: Tuesday, November 24, 2026 5pm Western/7pm Central/ 8pm Eastern on Zoom:“The Stand” By Stephen King. (BARD: DB 12942). Synopsis: “’Superflu,’ an experimental virus that can kill every conceivable type of antibody the human organism can muster against it, hits the United States and the world, rapidly wiping out the whole of civilization–except for the one-half of one percent who are immune. Spine-chilling moral fantasy.” (ZOOM REGISTRATION LINK TO COME).
December 2026: Book Club on Break.
Past Read Books:
April 2021: Book (novel): “Deaf Sentence” by David Lodge
May 2021: Book (memoir): “Life After Deaf” by Noel Holston (with special guest Noel Holston)
July 2021: Book (novel): “Not a Sound” by Heather Gudenkauf (with special guest Heather Gudenkauf)
August 2021: Book (memoir): “Shouting Won’t Help” by Katherine Bouton (with special guest Katherine Bouton)
October 2021: Book (novel): “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” by Carson McCullers
November 2021: Book (memoir) “Invisible” by Ruth Silver (with special guests Joan Schneider and Dani Kaslow from Center for DeafBlind Persons (the organization Ruth Silver founded)
December 2021: Book (novel): “The Art of Hearing Heartbeats” by Jan-Philipp Sendcker
January 2022: Book club on break- no book selection
February 2022: Book (Memoir): Signs of Survival: A Memoir of the Holocaust.” by Renee Hartman with Joshua M. Greene (Children’s Nonfiction/Memoir) March 2022: Book (novel) “The Listening Eye” by Patricia Wentworth (mystery) April 2022: Book (memoir): “Burn Down the Ground: A Memoir” by Kambri Crews (Nonfiction/Memoir) (With special guest Kambri Crews). Read the blog post about this book here. May 2022: Book (novel):“Deafening” by Frances Itani June/July 2022: ”Alice: Princess Andrew of Greece” by Hugo Vickers (nonfiction/biography)- In LOC and NLS DB064788 WITH SPECIAL GUEST AUTHOR HUGO VICKERS. August 2022: ”A Maiden’s Grave” by Jeffrey Deaver (Fiction/Mystery) In NLS not in LOC. September 2022: “The Radical Lives of Helen Keller (The History of Disability, 1)” by Kim E. Nielsen (nonfiction)- In LOC and NLS (DB05798). Meeting with special guest author & professor Kim E. Nielsen. October 2022: “The Quality of Silence” by Rosamund Lupton (fiction/novel) In LOC and NLS (DBC16541) Meeting on Tuesday, October 25th at THE SPECIAL TIME OF 1:00 PM. November 2022: “A loss for words: The story of deafness in a family” by Lou Ann Walker (nonfiction). In LOC and NLS (DB029327) (with special guest author Lou Ann Walker) December 2022: “Rules for Visiting” by Jessica Francis Kane (Fiction). In LOC and NLS (DB295255) January 2023: “I’ll Scream Later” by Marlee Matlin (nonfiction/memoir) FEBRUARY 2023: “I never promised you a rose garden” by Joanne Greenberg (Fiction) BARD/NLS: Yes, Braille: BR 18074, BARD: DB 12303 WITH SPECIAL GUEST AUTHOR JOANNE GREENBERG March 2023: “Chasing Space: an astronaut’s story of grit, grace and second chances” by Leland Melvin (nonfiction/memoir) BARD/NLS: Yes: Braille BR 22112 and BARD: DB 89168 April 2023: “True Biz” by Sara Novic (Fiction). BARD/NLS: Yes, BARD only: DB 107579 May and June 2023: “What’s that pig outdoors: Memoir of Deafness” by Henry Kisor (nonfiction/memoir) BARD/NLS: Yes, Braille: BR 08392; BARD: DB 31492. July 2023: “Blind Rage: Letters to Helen Keller” by Georgina Kleege(nonfiction/memoir) BARD/NLS: Yes, Braille: BR 16939, BARD: DB 63900. With special guest Georgina Kleege. August 2023: “The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn” by Colin Dexter (fiction/mystery). BARD/NLS: BARD only: DB 108526
September 2023: “Not Fade Away: A Memoir of Senses Lost and Found” by Rebecca Alexander.(nonfiction/memoir). BARD/NLS: Yes, Braille: BR 20582; BARD: DB 80043. With SPECIAL GUEST author Rebecca Alexander.
October 2023: “Murder on Lexington Avenue: A Gaslight Mystery” by Victoria Thompson (Fiction/Mystery). BARD/NLS: Yes, BR 24532 in process; BARD: DB 81245 November/December 2023: “Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law” by Haben Girme (Nonfiction/memoir). January 2024: “Keeping Lucy: A Novel” by T. Greenwood (Fiction) BARD/NLS: BARD only: DB 96120 February 2024: “The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales” by Oliver Sacks. BARD: DB 23901. FEBRUARY BOOK CLUB: Tuesday, FEBRUARY 27, 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.March 2024: ”The Silent House” By Nell Pattison (fiction) BARD/NLS: DB 111629. Tuesday, March 26th, 7:00pm – 8:30pm (CST)
APRIL 2024: “My Maggie” by Richard King (nonfiction) BARD/NLS: Yes, both Braille: BR 1772 BARD: DB 66445 Tuesday, APRIL 23, 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. (CST)
MAY 2024: “The Sign for Home” by Blair Fell (fiction) BARD/NLS: Braille BR 24152; BARD: DB 11605. Tuesday, MAY 28, 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. (Central Time)
JUNE 2024: “But You Look So Normal: Lost and Found in a Hearing World” by Claudia Marseille [book not in BARD but author will be attending and audiobook was released when the book was]. WITH SPECIAL GUEST AUTHOR CLAUDIA MARSEILLE. Tuesday, JUNE 25, 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. Amazon Book Summary: By age four, Claudia Marseille had hardly uttered a word. When her parents finally had her hearing tested and learned she had a severe hearing loss, they chose to mainstream her, hoping this would offer her the most “normal” childhood possible. With the help of a primitive hearing aid, Claudia worked hard to learn to hear, lipread, and speak even as she tried to hide her disability in order to fit in. As a result, she was often misunderstood, lonely, and isolated—fitting into neither the hearing world nor the Deaf culture.JULY 2024: “The Dolphin House” by Audrey Schulman BARD/NLS: DB 110165. WITH SPECIAL GUEST AUTHOR AUDREY SCHULMAN. Tuesday, JULY 23, 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. Amazon Book Summary: Based on the true story of the 1965 “dolphin house” experiment, this spellbinding novel captures the tenor of the social experiments of the 1960s in award-winning author Audrey Schulman’s tightly paced and evocative style.
AUGUST 2024: “Reflections from a different journey : what adults with disabilities wish all parents knew / edited by Stanley D. Klein and John D. Kemp ; foreword by Marlee Matlin; BARD: DB 58425. Tuesday, AUGUST 27, 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. Amazon Book Summary: [This book] presents 40 stories by successful adults who grew up with disabilities. They provide insights into what it is like to persevere in the face of community prejudices, and what it takes for families and children with disabilities to work together toward fulfillment. SEPTEMBER 2024: “The unheard: a memoir of deafness and Africa” by Josh Swiller (nonfiction/memoir) WITH GUEST AUTHOR JOSH SWILLER. BARD/NLS: BARD only: DB 67060. Tuesday, SEPTEMBER 24, 7:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. Amazon Book Summary: A young man’s quest to reconcile his deafness in an unforgiving world leads to a remarkable sojourn in a remote African village that pulsates with beauty and violence. OCTOBER 2024: “Resurrection Bay” By Emma Viskic BARD/NLS: DB 110305. WITH SPECIAL GUEST AUTHOR EMMA VISKIC. Tuesday, OCTOBER 22, 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. Amazon Book Summary: Caleb Zelic’s childhood friend has been brutally murdered—fingers broken, throat slit—at his home in Melbourne. Tortured by guilt, Caleb vows to track down the killer. But he’s profoundly deaf; missed words and misread lips can lead to confusion, and trouble. NOVEMBER 2024: “Deaf Republic” by Ilya Kaminsky (Poems). Ilya Kaminsky’s astonishing parable in poems asks us, What is silence? BARD/NLS: Yes, Braille: BR 22694, BARD: DB 94920. Tuesday, NOVEMBER 26, 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. Amazon Book Summary: Ilya Kaminsky’s astonishing parable in poems asks us, What is silence? DECEMBER 2024: Book Club on Break for December 2024. JANUARY 2025: (This book was origInally scheduled for December 2024 and we moved it to January.) “Sitting pretty: the view from my ordinary, resilient, disabled body” by Rebekah Taussig (nonfiction), BARD: DB 101063. Tuesday, January 28th, 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. Central Time. Amazon Book Summary: A memoir-in-essays from disability advocate and creator of the Instagram account @sitting_pretty Rebekah Taussig, processing a lifetime of memories to paint a beautiful, nuanced portrait of a body that looks and moves differently than most. Growing up as a paralyzed girl during the 90s and early 2000s, Rebekah Taussig only saw disability depicted as something monstrous (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), inspirational (Helen Keller), or angelic (Forrest Gump). None of this felt right; and as she got older… FEBRUARY 2025: “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store” by James McBride (fiction), BARD: DB 115655. Tuesday, February 25th, 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. Central Time. Amazon Book Summary: “In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.” MARCH 2025: Tuesday, MARCH 25, 5:00 pm Western/ 7:00 pm Central/ 8:00 pm Eastern Time. “The Boys of Riverside: A deaf football team and a quest for glory” (nonfiction) by Thomas Fuller, BARD DB124042 NOW WELCOMING SPECIAL GUEST, AUTHOR THOMAS FULLER! Amazon Book Synopsis: “The … story of an all-deaf high school football team’s triumphant climb from underdog to undefeated, their inspirational brotherhood, a … portrait of deafness in America, and the indefatigable head coach who spearheaded the team.” Published in 2024. Book Change: APRIL 2025: Tuesday, APRIL 22,5:00 pm Western/ 7:00 pm Central/ 8:00 pm Eastern Time. “Silent Night” (Fiction) by Nell Pattison, BARD: DB 112022 Book Synopsis: What happened while they were sleeping? A school for the deaf takes an overnight trip to the snowy woods. Five teenagers go to sleep, but only four wake up. Leon is missing, and a teacher’s body is found in the forest…. Sign language interpreter Paige Northwood is brought in to help with interrogations.” Published 2024. Book 2 of a series we started in March 2024 (Book 1 is The Silent House, previously read by this book club in March 2024). MAY 2025: Thursday, MAY 29,5:00 pm Western/ 7:00 pm Central/ 8:00 pm Eastern Time. “Soundtrack of Silence: love loss, and a playlist for life.” Now Welcoming Special Guest Author Matt Hay! By Matt Hay with Steve Eubanks, BARD: DB 118794. Synopsis: “As a child, Matt Hay didn’t know his hearing wasn’t the way everyone else processed sound-and like a lot of kids who do workarounds to fit in, even the school nurse didn’t catch his condition at the annual hearing and vision checks. But as a prospective college student who couldn’t pass the entrance requirements for West Point, Hay’s condition, generated by a tumor, was unavoidable: his hearing was going, and fast. Soundtrack of Silence was his determined compensation for his condition: a typical Midwestern kid growing up in the 1980s, whose life events were pegged to pop music, Hay planned to commit his favorite songs to memory, a mental playbook not only of the bands he loved, but a way to tap his most resonant memories. And the track he needed to cement most clearly?” Published in 2024. JUNE 2025: Tuesday, JUNE 24, 5:00 pm Western/ 7:00 pm Central/ 8:00 pm Eastern Time. Lady Tan’s Circle of Women: A Novel” (fiction) by Lisa See, Now Welcoming Special Guest Author Lisa See! BARD: DB 115160 Zoom Meeting. Synopsis: About “a woman physician in 15th-century China. According to Confucius, “an educated woman is a worthless woman,” but Tan Yunxian—born into an elite family, yet haunted by death, separations, and loneliness—is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine>..” Note: not about hearing loss or disability but does feature a minority group doing incredible things in the face of adversity. Published in 2024. JULY 2025: Tuesday, JULY 22,5:00 pm Western/ 7:00 pm Central/ 8:00 pm Eastern Time. (Central Time) Zoom Meeting: “In Silence: growing up hearing in a deaf world” (Nonfiction) By Ruth Sidranski, BARD: DB 32598. Synopsis: “As a hearing child of deaf parents, Ruth Sidransky learned signing as her first language. Only when she entered school did she master speech. She was placed in a class for children with intellectual disabilities until her parents intervened. The richness of her experiences, surrounded by a loving family in a close-knit neighborhood in New York, helped to ease her transfer to the hearing world.” Published in 1990. AUGUST 2025: Tuesday, AUGUST 26, 5:00 pm Western/ 7:00 pm Central/ 8:00 pm Eastern Time. By Julia “Julie”Metternich Olson and Colleen Julia Cline. Zoom Meeting: SPECIAL PROGRAM: A Conversation with Two Family members who wrote a book for young readers explaining hearing loss (a grandmother and granddaughter): “Can she HEAR this Cat’s Meow” By Julia Metternich Olson and Colleen Julia Cline (Book not on BARD). Read Additional Book: “Hurt Go Happy” by Ginny Rorby (Young Adult Fiction) BARD: DB 64465, Synopsis: “Thirteen-year-old Joey Willis is used to being left out of conversations. Though she’s been deaf since the age of six, Joey’s mother has never allowed her to learn sign language. She strains to read the lips of those around her.” 2006 SEPTEMBER 2025: Tuesday, SEPTEMBER 23,5:00 pm Western/ 7:00 pm Central/ 8:00 pm Eastern Time. Zoom Meeting: “No excuses: Growing up deaf and achieving my Superbowl Dreams.” (Nonfiction) By Derrick Coleman with Marcus Brotherton, DB 005896. Synopsis: “The author describes his early life as a deaf person, and describes his rookie year, when the Seattle Seahawks went to the Superbowl in 2014.” Published in 2015. OCTOBER 2025: DIFFERENT DAY- Wednesday, OCTOBER 29th at 5:00 pm Western/ 7:00 pm Central/ 8:00 pm Eastern Time. Zoom Meeting “This Tender Land” (Fiction) by William Kent Krueger, DB 102149 Synopsis: “Odie, his older brother Albert, their best friend Mose, and little Emmy escape from the Lincoln School and the harsh superintendent. They use a canoe to travel down the Mississippi River, intent on finding a new place for themselves, and cross paths with other drifters.” Published in 2019. NOVEMBER 2025: DIFFERENT WEEK: Tuesday, NOVEMBER 18, 5:00 pm Western/ 7:00 p.m. Central/ 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Zoom Meeting: Special Program: Two Authors in Conversation: “But You Look So Normal: Lost and Found in a Hearing World” (Nonfiction) By Claudia Marseille BARD DB: 122941 AND “The Butterfly Cage” By Rachel Zemach (Claudia’s book in BARD & previously read by this book club, Rachel’s book not yet in BARD). JANUARY 2026: Tuesday, January 27, 2026 5pm Western/7pm Central/ 8pm Eastern on Zoom: “How Lucky” By Will Leitch (fiction) DB 111108, Synopsis: “Daniel leads a rich life in the university town of Athens, Georgia. He’s got a couple close friends, a steady paycheck working for a regional airline, and of course, for a few glorious days each Fall, college football tailgates. He considers himself to be a mostly lucky guy—despite the fact that he’s suffered from a debilitating disease since he was a small child, one that has left him unable to speak or to move without a wheelchair.” Published in 2021.