SFU READS
SFU Reads is a virtual book club created to connect SFU alumni with a reading community that fosters lifelong learning as we read and discuss a wide range of books, with a focus on personal and professional development, SFU authors, non-fiction and more. Check out our current book below!
About the book club:
There is no cost to join. Just pick up the book at your local library, download a digital copy or purchase a print version. All you need is the book and some reading time to join. The discussions in our online forum are available 24/7 – regardless of where you currently reside.
READING PERIOD: January 5 - February 23
Suggested reading schedule
- On January 5th, visit Before the Book in our forum and begin reading Daughters of the Deer
- By January 19th, finish reading through Chapter 6
- By January 26th, finish reading through Chapter 17
- By February 2nd, finish reading through Chapter 23
- By February 16th, finish reading through Chapter 37
- By February 23rd, finish reading the book and join our After the Book forum discussion
About the book: In this haunting and groundbreaking historical novel, Danielle Daniel imagines the lives of women in the Algonquin territories of the 1600s, a story inspired by her family’s ancestral link to a young girl who was murdered by French settlers.
1657. Marie, a gifted healer of the Deer Clan, does not want to marry the green-eyed soldier from France who has asked for her hand. But her people are threatened by disease and starvation and need help against the Iroquois and their English allies if they are to survive. When her chief begs her to accept the white man’s proposal, she cannot refuse him, and sheds her deerskin tunic for a borrowed blue wedding dress to become Pierre’s bride.
1675. Jeanne, Marie’s oldest child, is seventeen, neither white nor Algonquin, caught between worlds. Caught by her own desires, too. Her heart belongs to a girl named Josephine, but soon her father will have to find her a husband or be forced to pay a hefty fine to the French crown. Among her mother’s people, Jeanne would have been considered blessed, her two-spirited nature a sign of special wisdom. To the settlers of New France, and even to her own father, Jeanne is unnatural, sinful—a woman to be shunned, beaten, and much worse.
With the poignant, unforgettable story of Marie and Jeanne, Danielle Daniel reaches back through the centuries to touch the very origin of the long history of violence against Indigenous women and the deliberate, equally violent disruption of First Nations cultures.
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Privacy statement
SFU uses PBC Guru, a third-party service provider hosted outside of Canada (specifically in the USA), in order to provide the Online Book Club as a service to SFU alumni. Your use of the Online Book Club is voluntary.
In order to confirm your eligibility and provide you access to PBC Guru, PBC Guru will collect your name, e-mail address, the year you graduated from SFU, the program of study in which you graduated, and a password.
PBC Guru may ask you for additional personal information, such as personal preferences to allow you to customize your user session profile, or to subscribe you to notifications, etc. It is your choice whether or not to provide this additional information, and you are solely responsible for ensuring you have read and understood PBC Guru’s privacy policy in regards to any information you have chosen to provide them.
PBC Guru may share some of the information you provide with SFU, such as your name and email address; and general categories or topics of books you are interested in. SFU collects this information under the authority of section 26(c) of BC’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA).
SFU may use your contact information to update its donor and alumni mailing lists, which are used by SFU to inform donors and alumni about University news, events and initiatives, including fundraising.
By using this service, you acknowledge that you have read and understood the above privacy statement and that you consent to the storage and access of your personal information, as described above, outside of Canada solely for those purposes.
Should you have any questions or concerns regarding the information collected and used, or the privacy and security of your personal information, please contact us alumni@sfu.ca.
Our partners
About PBC Guru
PBC Guru manages professional book clubs for companies, libraries and alumni associations. They will moderate our book club to help make this program a great experience for all participants. If you have any questions, please email them info@pbc.guru or visit their website at http://www.pbc.guru
SFU book club bursary
Our goal is for all SFU community members have access to this initiative. If you would like to access one of a limited number of books through our no questions asked bursary program, please email alumni@sfu.ca