Let’s Talk About It Book Club to Meet November 14

The final two programs in the Let’s Talk About It book club series are coming up on November 14 and December 1, and both will be held at 6:30 p.m. in the Library’s meeting room. Let’s Talk About is a book club designed for adults who are interested in reading, learning about history and current events, and who enjoy discussing their thoughts and ideas with others.

The overarching theme of this program is civil rights, and each of the five books were chosen to reflect this theme in different ways. On Monday, November 14, Dr. Nyla Khan will present The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich, a fictional story based on real events that occurred in the 1890s. This novel explores racial injustice and its effects on the relationship between Native and white communities in North Dakota in both the past and the present.

Dr. Nyla Ali Khan is a professor at Rose State College, Midwest City, OK and taught as a Visiting Professor at the University of Oklahoma. She received her Ph.D. in English Literature and her Masters in Postcolonial Literature and Theory at the University of Oklahoma. She is the author four books, as well as several articles, book reviews, and editorials. She was named one of the 100 Trailblazers for 2018 by the Oklahoma League of Women Voters, received the President’s Volunteer Service Award & Silver Medal for her national public speaking and her bridge building work at the community and grassroots level in the state of Oklahoma, and was also recently selected as one of The Journal Record’s “50 Making a Difference” for 2019 and “The Journal Record Woman of the Year.”

On Thursday, December 1, Dr. Ken Hada will present Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo, a non-fiction book about the residents of Annawadi, a settlement in Mumbai, India, whose residents face extreme poverty. The book follows the interwoven lives of several people who live in Annawadi as they struggle to survive in various ways amidst religious and economic tensions in a city with massive inequality.

Dr. Ken Hada is a professor in the Department of English and Languages at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma and the director of the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival. He has published several collections of poetry and received the 2022 Oklahoma Book Award, the 2017 SCMLA Poetry Prize, the Western Heritage Award, a finalist for the Spur Award, a six-time finalist for the Oklahoma Book Awards, and the Glenda Carlile Distinguished Service Award from the Oklahoma Center for the Book.

Both of these programs will include a presentation, refreshments, and small group discussions. Pre-registration is encouraged as space is limited. To register, visit the Chickasha Public Library in person, call 405-222-6075, or email library@chickasha.org with your name, phone number, and which dates you would like to attend. Several copies of each of these books are also on display and available to check out from the library.

The Chickasha Public Library received a matching grant from Oklahoma Humanities for this program. Additional funding and refreshments are being provided by the Friends of the Library. Books, services, and other materials for this series are provided by Let’s Talk About It, a project of Oklahoma Humanities. Generous funding and support for this series was provided by the Kirkpatrick Family Fund and Oklahoma City University. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in these programs do not necessarily represent those of Oklahoma Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.