Gather with Luther alumni and friends to discuss great books, all without having to leave your house!
The Luther College Virtual Book Club is a chance for readers from all backgrounds to gather online and discuss great books. Led by Luther alumni and faculty emeriti, the book club holds four to six sessions each academic year, and typically gathers on Tuesday evenings from 5-6:30 p.m. Central Time over Zoom. There is no cost to participate, but space is limited so we encourage you to sign up early!
Registration will open on a rolling basis, typically a month before a session is slated to begin. View the new offerings below for the 2026-27 academic year.
“Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home” by Nora Krug
Tuesdays, August 18, 25, Sept 1
5-6:30 p.m. Central Time
The book club’s first book for the 2026-2027 year is the Paideia summer read, Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home. An illustrated and hand-lettered visual memoir on a German family’s memory of World War II, Belonging wrestles with the idea of Heimat, the German word for the place that first forms us, where the sensibilities and identity of one generation pass on to the next. In this highly inventive visual memoir—equal parts graphic novel, family scrapbook, and investigative narrative—Nora Krug draws on letters, archival material, flea market finds, and photographs to attempt to understand what it means to belong. A wholly original record of a German woman’s struggle with the weight of catastrophic history, Belonging is also a reflection on the responsibility that we all have as inheritors of our countries’ pasts.
*There will be an option to watch the livestream of Krug addressing the Luther community during Convocation on Thursday, September 3 at 9:40 a.m.
“The Bell in the Lake” by Lars Mytting
Tuesdays, September 8, 15, 22, 29
5-6:30 p.m. Central Time
From Goodreads: The engrossing epic novel—a #1 bestseller in Norway-of a young woman whose fate plays out against her village’s mystical church bells
As long as people could remember, the stave church’s bells had rung over the isolated village of Butangen, Norway. Cast in memory of conjoined twins, the bells are said to ring on their own in times of danger. In 1879, young pastor Kai Schweigaard moves to the village, where young Astrid Hekne yearns for a modern life. She sees a way out on the arm of the new pastor, who needs a tie to the community to cull favor for his plan for the old stave church, with its pagan deity effigies and supernatural bells. When the pastor makes a deal that brings an outsider, a sophisticated German architect, into their world, the village and Astrid are caught between past and future, as dark forces come into play.
“Table for Two” by Amor Towles
Tuesdays, November 3, 10, 17
5-6:30 p.m. Central Time
If you love stylish, character driven historical fiction with witty prose, Table for Two is just waiting to be discussed! It features six short stories set in NYC mostly around the turn of the Millennial and a novella featuring Evelyn from his novel Rules of Civility. The title arose from a conviction that our lives can often change materially due to a single conversation or a chance encounter. And it’s the power of conversation or chance encounter or a sudden decision to force a personal or historical reckoning.
“Klara and the Sun” by Kazuo Ishiguro
Tuesdays, January 5, 12, 19, 26
5-6:30 p.m. Central Time
Here is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: what does it mean to love? Themes include: AI, bioethics, love, dystopian society.
“Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President ” by Candace Millard
Tuesdays February 2, 9,16, 23
5-6:30 p.m. Central Time
The New York Times-bestselling account of James Garfield’s meteoric rise and tragic assassination, from Candice Millard, author of The River of Doubt
Forced into the presidency, James Garfield was a passionate reformer, civil rights advocate, and devoted father. Just four months after taking office, he was shot by an unhinged office-seeker, plunging a fractured nation into a bitter struggle for power. Destiny of the Republic is a meticulously researched, intimate history that explores Garfield’s life, the unsanitary medical treatment that doomed him, and the surprising political and medical reforms that defined his lasting legacy.
“Dante’s Inferno” by Dante Alighieri
Tuesdays April 6, 13, 20, 27, May 4
5-6:30 p.m. Central Time
From Amazon:  As important and classic as the day it was written over 600 years ago. Dante’s Inferno is one of the best and enduring works of Western Civilization. The immortal drama of a journey through Hell. Belonging in the immortal company of Homer, Virgil, Milton, and Shakespeare, Dante Alighieri’s poetic masterpiece is a moving human drama, an unforgettable visionary journey through the infinite torment of Hell, a supreme expression of the Middle Ages, a glorification of the ways of God, and a magnificent protest at the ways in which men have thwarted the divine plan. One of the few literary works which has enjoyed a fame that was both immediate and enduring, The Inferno’s power has not been lessened or obscured after six centuries. It confronts the most universal values—good and evil, free will and predestination—while remaining intensely personal and ferociously political, for it was born out of the anguish of a man who saw human life blighted by the injustice and corruption of his times.
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
As the Twig Is Bent: A Memoir by Wallace B. Grange
China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston
Circe by Madeline Miller
Demon Copperfield by Barbara Kingsolver
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
Growing Up Decorah: A Short Story by Peter Ylvisaker
Heritage of Darkness by Kathleen Ernst
How to Be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi
Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
James by Percival Everett
No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Norwegian By Night by Derek B. Miller
The Overstory: a Novel by Richard Powers
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
Purple Hibiscus: A Novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Shotgun Lovesongs: A Novel by Nickolas Butler
State of Wonder: A Novel by Ann Patchett
Thank you to the Virtual Book Club Committee Suzanne (Knoll) Hales ’65, Jackie (Boe) Karras ’76, Alan Lerstrom, Michele Minske ’84, John Reha ’77, Ellen (Hanusa) Wilke ’84, and Steve Wilke ’84 for helping to plan and host this popular activity.
Contact Information
Advancement Office
Loyalty Hall
Luther College
700 College Drive
Decorah, Iowa 52101
Phone: 563-387-1861
Fax: 563-387-1322