Odyssey Events

Tuesday Morning Booktalks, Fall 2026: A benefit for Odyssey

Join fellow booklovers and award-winning UW English professor Emily Auerbach for a lively discussion of a novel by a Georgia author. It has a focus on a search for identity and love in the face of trauma and racism in the American South. Classes meet on Tuesday in the South Madison Community Room at 2300 S. Park St. (free and accessible parking) from 10-11:30 AM, with coffee and snacks served starting at 9:30 AM. The session is free but with the hope participants will donate to the life-changing UW Odyssey Project.

Tuesday, October 27: Tayari Jones, Kin

This 2026 blockbuster novel traces two motherless girls, “cradle friends” since birth, searching for family in the face of adversity. Born in Mississippi, the girls traverse the South in the 1950s and 1960s, struggling to become women without mothers to guide them. Vernice’s path takes her to Spelman College in Atlanta, while Annie’s search for her mother sends her to Memphis. The New York Times hailed Kin as “a lush, beautiful novel about found family.” Like The Color Purple from nearly a half-century earlier, Kin features the narrative voices of two women (in this case, close enough to be sisters) and asks its readers to redefine family.

REGISTRATION LINK: If you plan to attend Tuesday Morning Booktalks this spring, please register below (even though free) so we know how much food to order and how many handouts to make.

Questions about Tuesday Morning Booktalks? Contact Professor Emily Auerbach at emily.auerbach@wisc.edu.