The Iron Book Discussion Group will read Celeste Ng’s latest novel, Our Missing Hearts, as part of their next meeting in June 2024.
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BOOK DESCRIPTION: Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. His mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet, left without a trace when he was nine years old. He doesn’t know what happened to her—only that her books have been banned—and he resents that she cared more about her work than about him.
Then one day Bird receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, and soon he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of heroic librarians, and finally to New York City, where he will learn the truth about what happened to his mother and what the future holds for them both.
Our Missing Hearts is an old story made new, of the ways supposedly civilized communities can ignore the most searing injustice. It’s about the lessons and legacies we pass on to our children and the power of art to create change.
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Copies of Our Missing Hearts can be picked up from the Book Discussion Shelf on our first floor, and it’s available digitally as an ebook (through Overdrive/Libby) and an audiobook (through Overdrive/Libby).
An in-person discussion of Our Missing Hearts will be held at the library on Tuesday, June 11, at 7:00 PM. No registration is required to attend.
And an online discussion of the book will be held via Zoom on June 13, at 3:00 PM. If you’d like to attend the online discussion, please register through our Event Calendar. Participants will receive an email with the login information for Zoom after registering.
Published on May 17, 2024.
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