I’ve heard great things about book clubs from friends, so I thought I would experiment with hosting one online to discuss recent books about guns and gun culture.
We just successfully completed a four-meeting discussion of Gun Country by Andrew McKevitt, culminating in a Q&A with the author in the final session.
Things went so well that we are going to hold a second series of meetings on Jonathan Metzl’s recently published What We’ve Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms (find links to purchase below).
Reading and Discussion Schedule
I have tried to break the book up into 3 logical parts to go along with our three meeting dates (6:00-7:00pm Eastern Time):
- Thursday, April 4: Read Introduction, Part 1 (“The Seventeenth Count”), and part of Part 2 (“The Insanity of the System”) (pp. 1-87)
- Thursday, April 18: Read the rest of Part 2 (“The Instanity of the System” (pp. 88-212)
- Thursday, May 2: Read Part 3 (“The Scene of the Crime”) and Part 4 (“The Reckoning”) (pp. 215-303)
I am hoping we can arrange to have Professor Metzl join us for a fourth session of Q&A with the author as Professor McKevitt did.
Participate
The Light Over Heat Virtual Book Club runs as a Zoom webinar in which 12 panelists have full speaking privileges to discuss the book. Other registrants participate as viewers with written chat capability. I can say that in the first sessions, the chat was extremely active and informative. (To encourage candor, meetings will not be recorded.)
If you’re interested in attending the Light Over Heat Virtual Book Club as a viewer, please register using this Zoom Webinar link: https://wakeforest-university.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_jmhtxIKMQ8eOSXOYlhAkmw
Only registered attendees can join the meeting.
About the Author and Book
Jonathan Metzl is an acclaimed physician and sociologist who speaks, teaches, and writes on a range of topics including mental illness and gun violence, race and whiteness in America, health and healthcare, and diversity and structural competency in higher education.
What We’ve Become is a New York Times Editor’s Choice Pick.
“We’ve arrived at this critical moment, when we seem willingly to bear the lost lives of many thousands so that a minority of our citizens may buy, carry, sell, trade, exhibit, gift and shoot lethal weaponry… [Metzl] acknowledges the crosshatch of laws that keep guns flowing across state borders. He casts a wide net.”
—Rachel Louise Snyder, New York Times Book Review
Buy the Book
The book is available through all major retail channels as a print book, e-book, and audiobook. You can help support the cost of my work and/or local bookstores by using the following affiliate links to buy the book: