We're excited to announce that this year’s Sonoma County Reads selection will be Kindred, by Octavia Butler.

Once again, the title selected for our community-wide shared reading endeavor matches the Work of Literary Merit selected by Santa Rosa Junior College, which greatly expands the range and variety of programming around the book and its themes. This year’s countywide series of events will kick off in October 2016, and will continue through December, during which we anticipate a broad series of events and activities appealing to readers through Sonoma County.

First published in 1979, Kindred explores a number of questions about the legacy of slavery in the United States, gender, race, and power, historical memory and trauma, and the meaning of freedom through a fascinating combination of time travel story and slave narrative.

Octavia Butler was the author of many novels, including Dawn, Wild Seed, and Parable of the Sower. She was the recipient of many awards including the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award and the prestigious MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant.  

We're really excited to be a part of the partnership that will bring events, programming, book groups, and more around the important themes in this book to our community! More information to come!