Vandal Book Club
Join U of I alumni and friends of U of I for an online book club covering professional development and personal growth topics related to careers and leadership. The book club connects through a private forum where people can discuss the current book and network with each other. Joining the book club is completely free for alumni and friends, you just have to get a copy of the book to enjoy.
Questions? Read our FAQ page or contact us at alumni@uidaho.edu.
Book 6: The Underground Railroad
July – August 2018
Cora is a young slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood — where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him. In Colson Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering, like Gulliver, strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the terrors of the antebellum era, he weaves in the saga of our nation, from the brutal abduction of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is both the gripping tale of one woman's will to escape the horrors of bondage — and a powerful meditation on the history we all share.
Stay tuned for upcoming books!
Past Books
