JMRL and Virginia Humanities are pleased to announce that Rachel Beanland’s Florence Adler Swims Forever, winner of the 2020 National Jewish Book Award for Debut Fiction, is the 2024 Same Page Community Read selection.
About Same Page Community Read:
Each year, JMRL invites all book lovers to participate in the Same Page Community Read throughout March, providing residents with the opportunity to read and discuss a single book within their community by an author appearing at the Virginia Festival of the Book.
Same Page Community Read will be coming to a JMRL branch near you starting March 1. Pick up a free paperback copy of Florence Adler Swims Forever at a branch kickoff event or while supplies last. Then participate in book discussion groups and a whole host of Same Page programs and activities for all ages throughout the month.
Featured Programs
meet the author: an evening with rachel beanland
In partnership with the Virginia Festival of the Book, JMRL presents An Evening with Rachel Beanland on Wednesday, March 20, 5:30PM, at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center. Beanland will discuss Florence Adler Swims Forever (2020), in conversation with Katherine Herndon, Executive Director, James River Writers.
This in-person event is free and open to the public. However, seating is limited and registration required. Book sales and signing will follow.
About the book:
Book Discussion Guide | From the Publisher | Author website
Florence Adler Swims Forever (2020), a family saga set in Atlantic City during the summer of 1934, is “a breathtaking portrait of just how far we will go to in order to protect our loved ones and an uplifting portrayal of how the human spirit can endure—and even thrive—after tragedy” (Simon & Schuster).
About the author:
Rachel Beanland is a graduate of the University of South Carolina and earned her MFA in creative writing from Virginia Commonwealth University. She lives with her husband and three children in Richmond, Virginia. She has taught creative writing at the College of William & Mary and Virginia Commonwealth University and is the 2023–2024 Writer in Residence at the University of Richmond.
Same Page Community Read is generously funded by the Friends of JMRL, supported by the Art and Jane Hess Fund of the Library Endowment and Virginia Festival of the Book, a program of Virginia Humanities.
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[…] we’ll be reading in March 2025 until next year, we are excited to have recently found out the Same Page Community Read title for this March, Florence Adler Swims […]