Join Charity Nebbe and your fellow book lovers on Talk of Iowa for a live, on-air book club. Discuss the themes, characters and big-picture questions raised by the titles on our reading list. Then, continue the conversation between shows by joining the Talk of Iowa Book Club Facebook group.

2025 Reading List

This year's list (get it here!) includes some old books, some new, and one retelling of an American classic. Get a copy of these books, find a comfortable chair and read — or re-read — right along with us!

James

By Percival Everett

This retelling of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn comes from the point of view of Jim, an enslaved man on the run. This would be an ambitious undertaking for any writer. And it gets more ambitious as the story progresses. James is brilliant, angry, scared — and the stakes are much higher for him than for Huck, something that could get lost when told from the perspective of an adolescent on an adventure. The familiar story takes on a different feeling, but still honors — and is in conversation with — Twain’s classic.

Revisit these characters and join the conversation on February 11.

ExVangelicals: Loving, Living and Leaving the White Evangelical Church

By Sarah McCammon

We’ve all witnessed the political power of the white Evangelical church in America in recent years. But for those of us on the outside the Evangelical culture, it can be difficult to fully grasp the strength of this community. Sarah McCammon is uniquely positioned to pull back the curtain on white Evangelicals in America. She grew up in the church and, as a political correspondent for NPR, has covered and examined the political movement. This book is a blend of memoir and journalism that takes us inside the Evangelical community, helps us understand the cultural forces that have made it a political powerhouse, and gives us insight into a growing movement away from the church through McCammon’s story and the stories of many other “Exvangelicals.”

Read Sarah's book and welcome this former IPR host back on April 15.

Warrior Girl Unearthed

By Angeline Boulley

Perry Firekeeper-Birch is a high school student who wants nothing more than to enjoy a lazy summer before her senior year. She is not ambitious and driven like her twin sister, Pauline. Then a minor fender bender changes the trajectory of her summer and, ultimately, her life. She needs to earn money to fix her jeep and is pressured into signing up for a summer internship program organized through the local tribal government.

Perry, like the author, is an enrolled member of the Sault Sainte Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. Her summer internship ignites a new interest in and connection with her ancestors. It also ignites deep anger and indignation as she discovers that many of her tribe’s ancestral remains and belongings have been stolen. And they're still being held by institutions and private collectors in spite of laws designed to return them to their people. This YA novel is a follow-up to Boulley’s best-selling debut Firekeeper’s Daughter and is just as exciting, suspenseful and educational as its predecessor.

Listen in — and join in — to the discussion on June 10.

Their Eyes Were Watching God

By Zora Neale Hurston

This 1937 novel looks back on the life and relationships of Janie, a Black woman living in Florida. Janie defies some of the stringent social norms of the time, but she always feels like a real person. She makes mistakes and faces intense trauma, but she also finds love and independence.

When Janie tells the story of her life, she doesn’t seem apologetic. She’s her own person, which is hard for anyone at any time, let alone a Black woman in the American South in the 1930s. It’s also just a beautifully written story. Zadie Smith wrote an essay about this book in her collection Changing My Mind, “Zora Neale Hurston — capable of expressing human vulnerability as well as its strength, lyrical without sentiment, romantic yet rigorous and one of the few truly eloquent writers of sex — is as exceptional among Black women writers as Tolstoy is among white (male writers).”

Read this story and join Talk of Iowa on Aug. 12 to discuss it.

Waiting for Mr. Kim

By Carol Roh Spaulding

“Waiting For Mr. Kim” is a collection of short stories that spans 70 years. The first story is told from the perspective of a mother who has just arrived in the United States from Korea, where she’s building a life with a husband she barely knows. The stories that follow are connected and told from the perspectives of several different family members through four generations, exploring the tension between what it means to be both Asian and American. This collection won the Flannery Oconnor Award for short fiction and is written by Carol Roh Spaulding, who is also a professor of English at Drake University.

Check out the collection and join the conversation on Oct. 14.

Nothing to See Here

By Kevin Wilson

This is a story about Lillian — she's 28, lives with her mom, hates her job, and thinks a lot about the unmet potential from when she was a high-achieving kid. Out of the blue, an old friend who is very wealthy, is now married to a senator, and wants Lillian to be the governess of her two step-kids — but these step-kids happen to spontaneously combust. Wilson’s novel is very funny, even though it goes to some dark places, and is ultimately a heartwarming (heart combusting?) story.

Join the book club discussion on Dec. 9.