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


Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law, book cover
Event date:

Stephanie Daily will lead the discussion of Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by best-selling author Mary Roach when the UMRA Book Club meets via Zoom at 2 p.m. on Friday, May 17. 

Book Notes


The Scarlet Letter, book cover 2
Event date:
Set in the 1600s in a small town in Puritan New England, 'The Scarlet Letter' by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a story of sin, cowardice, and survival. Members of the UMRA Book Club found the writing to be laborious, riddled with many words no longer in use, and wondered why the novel was on high school reading lists.

The Other Einstein, book cover
Event date:
In 'The Other Einstein,' an historical novel about the life of Albert Einstein’s first wife, Mileva Marić, author Marie Benedict speculates that Marić contributed significantly to the papers and relativity theory that are attributed to Einstein. The book raises several questions.