Laurentian Book Club

Participation is free! 

The Laurentian Book Club connects through a private forum where all participants can discuss the current book and network with each other.  Joining is completely free, you just have to get a copy of the book to enjoy. Don't forget to checkout your local library for a copy of each book! The Book Club will read one book every two months so that you'll have plenty of time for each book.

To login, or sign-up and create an online profile, please visit: https://www.pbc.guru/stlawu/ 

Current Book:

October 1 - December 1, 2025
A Pair of Wings by Carole Hopson

Book Synopsis: 
 
An airline captain crafts a riveting, adventurous novel inspired by the remarkable true life of pioneer aviatrix Bessie Coleman, a Black woman who learned to fly at the dawn of aviation and found freedom in the air

A few years after the Wright brothers’ first flight, Bessie was working the Texas cotton fields with her family when an airplane flew over their heads. It buzzed so low she thought she could catch it in her hands. Bessie was fearless. She knew there was freedom in those wings.

The daughter of a woman born into slavery, Bessie answers the call of the Great Migration. She moves to Chicago, where she wins the backing of two wealthy, powerful Black men—Robert Abbott, creator and publisher of the Chicago Defender, and Jesse Binga, the founder of Chicago’s first Black bank. Abbott becomes her mentor, while Binga becomes her lover. Her true first love, though, remains flying.

But in 1920, no one in the United States will train a Black woman to fly. So, twenty-eight-year-old Bessie learns to speak French and sets off for Europe. Two years ahead of Amelia Earhart, Bessie earns her pilot's license, and later she learns death-defying stunts from French and German dogfighting combat pilots.

While she finds no prejudice in the air, Bessie wrestles with other challenges on the ground. A plane crash nearly kills her, her brothers seem to be crumbling under the weight of Jim Crow, and, while grappling with tough truths about Binga, Bessie begins to wonder if the freedom she finds in the sky means she must otherwise fly solo.

With tenderness and mastery, Carole Hopson imagines the breathtaking moxie Bessie Coleman harnessed in order to lift herself out of poverty and become known as “Queen Bess.”

(Synopsis Source: goodreads.com)

Next Book:

January - March, 2026
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

Questions?

Please contact our book club moderators, Stacie, stacie@pbc.guru, or Jared, jared@pbc.guru and they will be happy to help!