UMRA Book Club I

The UMRA Book Club has been meeting regularly since March of 2011. We meet at 2 p.m. on the third Friday of every month at the 1666 Coffman Building on Larpenteur Avenue near the St. Paul Campus. Presently we are meeting online via Zoom.

We are eclectic readers, our books being from all time periods, fiction and nonfiction, and from various genres. We plan our book schedule for the coming year at our December meeting. 

See all 
UMRA events.

Contact Pat Tollefson for more information ([email protected]). A list of all the books we have read is available from Pat as well. 

The UMRA Book Club I is full at the present with a short waiting list. Contact us to get on the wait list. Or see Book Club II.

For Book Notes in addition to those from Book Club I (below), see the Book Notes page.

Upcoming Events


How Stella Learned to Talk
Event date:

Laura Ericksen will lead the discussion of How Stella Learned to Talk by Christina Hunger, a true story by a speech-language pathologist who taught her dog, Stella, to communicate using buttons associated with different words.


The Bookbinder
Event date:

Kathy Cramer will lead the discussion of The Bookbinder by Pip Williams, a book set in 1914 Oxford chronicling the life of Peggy who works in the University bindery, but craves a life beyond binding books but to being a scholar herself.

Book Notes


Scoop, by Evelyn Waugh-book cover
Event date:
Named “one of the 1,000 novels everyone should read” by the Guardian newspaper, Evelyn Waugh’s satirical portrayal of foreign correspondents and British journalism in the 19th century drew mixed reviews from members of UMRA’s Book Club I.

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law, book cover
Event date:
Author Mary Roach has gone around the world to collect stories of animal behavior that has come into conflict with humans and to describe the measures that humans have taken to reach compromises to allow the animals and humans to live in harmony. She is a superb researcher and has a witty way of writing.