All About the PBS Book Club
Back in May, my neighborhood book club chose a book from the PBS Book Club in a Box Program.
I’d never heard of the PBS Book Club, but it’s such a great program (and free!) that I wanted to share more details about it here.
Here’s how the PBS Book Club works – the program pairs a book with one of PBS’ documentaries and provides you with a copy of the book and the DVD of the documentary, plus a list of discussion questions, a recipe and some extra goodies like bookmarks.
There are currently four book/documentary combos available:
- Book: The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal
Film: Beehive Spirits - Book: A Zion Canyon Reader, edited by Nathan Waite and Reid Nielson
Film: Call of the Canyon: Zion National Park - Book: Finders Keepers by Craig Childs
Film: Battle Over Bears Ears - Book: The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui
Film: Finding Home: Utah’s Refugee Story
(I assume that they periodically rotate the titles, but I haven’t been watching the PBS Book Club program long enough to know for sure).
You can request one box every twelve months if you’re not a PBS member and if you ARE a PBS member you can request more frequently.
The PBS Book Club is, as the title implies, intended for book clubs (3 or more people), not individuals, although it runs on the honor system.
Our book club did the box about The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui. It’s a graphic memoir that illustrates the author’s family’s escape from Vietnam in the 1970’s and the struggles they faced as immigrants. It’s a phenomenal book and after we read it, I ended up adding it to the 2022 Summer Reading Guide.
If you’re interested in participating, you can fill out the request form on PBS’ website here. Boxes ship at the beginning of each month so when you are deciding on books with your book club, you can plan accordingly.
These boxes are currently only available to Utah residents (if you are not a Utah resident, you can request PDF copies of the discussion questions via email). The documentaries can be streamed online from PBS, so you can still have access to those, and simply request the book from your local library. So even if you’re not in Utah, you can still utilize a good portion of the program.
If you live in a different state and there is a similar program available where you live, I would love to hear about it in the comments!
