Now in its eighth year, the Coronado Community READ is designed to unite the community through the shared reading of a single book. The program encourages discussion and participation in planned community-building events around the theme of the title, selected by you, the readers.
The Coronado Community READ Selection Committee, comprised of Coronado Public Library staff, community partners, and local book club members, considered all nominated titles and applied the established criteria to narrow the field down to 10 and then to five titles.
If you are an avid book reader, now is your chance to vote to select the 2024 Coronado Community READ from among these five titles (in no particular order).
- Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
- Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea
- The Rescue by T. Jefferson Parker
- Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
 | Lessons in Chemistry: a Novel Bonnie Garmus Set in 1960s California, this blockbuster debut is the hilarious, idiosyncratic and uplifting story of a female scientist whose career is constantly derailed by the idea that a woman’s place is in the home, only to find herself starring as the host of America’s most beloved TV cooking show. Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the 1960s and despite the fact that she is a scientist, her peers are very unscientific when it comes to equality. The only good thing to happen to her on the road to professional fulfillment is a run-in with her super-star colleague Calvin Evans (well, she stole his beakers.) The only man who ever treated her — and her ideas — as equal, Calvin is already a legend and Nobel nominee. He’s also awkward, kind and tenacious. Theirs is true chemistry. But as events are never as predictable as chemical reactions, three years later Elizabeth Zott is an unwed, single mother (did we mention it’s the early ’60s??) and the star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s singular approach to cooking (‘take one pint of H2O and add a pinch of sodium chloride’) and independent example are proving revolutionary. Because Elizabeth isn’t just teaching women how to cook, she’s teaching them how to change the status quo. Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist. |
 | Into the Beautiful North: a Novel Luis Alberto Urrea This powerful novel from a bestselling and Pulitzer Prize winning author tells the story of a young woman’s journey — both emotionally and physically — as she travels north to America. Nineteen-year-old Nayeli works at a taco shop in her Mexican village and dreams about her father, who journeyed to the US to find work. Recently, it has dawned on her that he isn’t the only man who has left town. In fact, there are almost no men in the village — they’ve all gone north. While watching The Magnificent Seven, Nayeli decides to go north herself and recruit seven men — her own “Siete Magnificos” — to repopulate her hometown and protect it from the bandidos who plan on taking it over. |
 | The Rescue: a Novel T. Jefferson Parker The Rescue is a gripping thriller that explores the strength of the human-animal bond and how far we will go to protect what we love by three-time Edgar Award winner and New York Times bestselling author T. Jefferson Parker. While reporting on a Tijuana animal shelter, journalist Bettina Blazak falls in love with one of her story’s subjects — an adorable Mexican street dog who is being treated for a mysterious gunshot wound. Bettina impulsively adopts the dog, who she names Felix after the veterinarian who saved him. In investigating Felix’s past, Bettina discovers that his life is nothing like what she assumed. For one thing, he’s not a Mexican street dog at all. A former DEA drug-sniffing dog, Felix has led a very colorful, dangerous, and profitable life. With Bettina’s story going viral, some interesting people are looking for Felix, making him a target, again. Bettina soon finds herself drawn into a deadly criminal underworld from which she and her beloved dog may not return. |
 | Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants Robin Wall Kimmerer Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings — asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass — offer us gifts and lessons, even if we’ve forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return. |
 | Remarkably Bright Creatures: a Novel Shelby Van Pelt After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago. Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine, but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors — until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova. |
