BOOK CLUB | SUNDAY, June 28 | 11 AM–1 PM | FREE
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
Illiterati: Gen X Book Club will meet at FUSION on Sunday, June 28, from 11 AM–1 PM. This month’s book club is on Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller.
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight is Alexandra Fuller's unflinching memoir of growing up white in Africa during the final, violent decades of colonial rule—spanning Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Zambia, and Malawi in the 1970s and 80s. Fuller recounts her unconventional, often dangerous childhood with remarkable candor: a mercurial, hard-drinking mother, a father who farmed land soaked in the blood of civil war, and a family held together by stubbornness and love even as the world around them collapsed.
What makes the book extraordinary is Fuller's refusal to sentimentalize or condemn. She writes about white settler life—its privileges, its blindness, its strange tenderness—with the clear eyes of someone who has had decades to reckon with what she witnessed. The result is a portrait of place and family that is brutal, funny, and deeply human.
Click here for a book review:
Click here for an interview with the author.
There is also a 2024 film adaptation available on Netflix.
Illiterati: Gen X Book Club is a media-positive book group. Audiobookers and Podcasters are welcome too. Prepare yourself for lively, non-disrespectful discussion. BYO snacks and drinks!
This book club is FREE and open to the public!
All are welcome. The club will be discussing books related to Generation X. You're welcome to BYO snacks and drinks. Look in the photos section on Meetup.com for the current reading list. If you have reading suggestions please send them to genxbookclub@gmail.com, and keep in mind:
Authors should be born between 1960 and 1980. Outliers will want good reasons to be included. Any books over 400 pages may be discussed over multiple months.
Folks are welcome to attend even if they haven't finished the book, and audio versions are fair game.
Gen X Book Club is looking for discussion above agreement, but being mean will not be tolerated. Disagreement can be lovely as long as it remains respectful.
ABOUT ILLITERATI: GEN X BOOK CLUB
“Things are weird. The adults are all gone. We've been left to fend for ourselves by the light of an empty fridge.
Gen X was made for this. We got ourselves to the mall food court, looking for each other without appearing to care. Let's read Gen X literature. Let's discuss it as if it's real. As our ultimate rebellious act in a dying world we'll make it so.
Now that we've found a couple of interested slackers we'll crack open Eggers, Wurtzel, Safran Foer. Hewlett & Martin. If all goes well and follows in reasonable order we'll start with early Gen X authors and move to the later. Maybe rinse occasionally with something hopeish from outside the timeline, like Allie Brosh.
But when does it all go well and follow in reasonable order?”