Community Book Club: James by Percival Everett

Are you looking to connect with others? Do you love reading all kinds of books? If you answered yes, the Community Book Club is for you! The January book is James by Percival Everett.

James is a powerful story of family, home, and freedom. When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan.

Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim’s agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature. Everett has flipped the script on an American classic as Huck Finn steps to the side and Jim—James—takes center stage.

The Community Book Club will meet via Zoom on Thursday, January 8, and January 22, 2026, from 6–7:30 p.m.

To register, please send an email to abunton1@illinoistech.edu, and you will receive the meeting credentials.