Morning Coffee Book Club

Join the Morning Coffee Book Club (formerly the Afternoon Coffee Book Club) where Scott Biegen, a PSPL Librarian (and English Teacher in a previous life), leads a book club meeting on Zoom.

The group meets the 3rd Wednesday of the month on Zoom from 10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. (PST). To receive meeting information and join the email list for the Morning Coffee Book Club, please email Scott Biegen in advance of the meeting at scott.biegen@palmspringsca.gov

View other selections for the Morning Coffee Book Club.

November 17, 2021

Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

—National Book Award Winner

In this breathtaking book by Pulitzer Prize winner Katherine Boo, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human through the dramatic story of families striving toward a better life in Annawadi, a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport.

As India starts to prosper, the residents of Annawadi are electric with hope. Abdul, an enterprising teenager, sees “a fortune beyond counting” in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Meanwhile Asha, a woman of formidable ambition, has identified a shadier route to the middle class. With a little luck, her beautiful daughter, Annawadi’s “most-everything girl,” might become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest children, like the young thief Kalu, feel themselves inching closer to their dreams. But then Abdul is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power, and economic envy turn brutal.

With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects people to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, based on years of uncompromising reporting, carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century’s hidden worlds—and into the hearts of families impossible to forget. 

Assisted Listening Devices (ALDs) are instruments designed to amplify sounds to make it easier for persons who are hearing‑impaired to enjoy a library program.

Anyone who requires an auxiliary aid or service for effective communication, or a modification of policies or procedures to participate in a program, service, or activity of the City of Palm Springs, should contact the ADA Coordinator, as soon as possible but no later than 48 hours before the scheduled event.