One City. One Book.
Lots of Ways to Bring Neighbors Together
What if everyone in Wauwatosa read the same book at the same time?
That’s the idea behind Tosa’s All-City Read, a common reading program designed to bring neighbors together and build a sense of camaraderie and community while promoting literacy at all ages. We hope you’ll join in the fun!
"The city that opens the same book closes it in greater harmony.” – Mary McGrory
The Book
Culpability
When the Cassidy-Shaws’ autonomous minivan collides with an oncoming car, seventeen-year-old Charlie is in the driver’s seat, with his father, Noah, riding shotgun. In the back seat, tweens Alice and Izzy are on their phones, while their mother, Lorelei, a world leader in the field of artificial intelligence, is absorbed in her work. Yet each family member harbors a secret that implicates them in the accident.
During a weeklong recuperation on the Chesapeake Bay, the family confronts the excruciating moral dilemmas triggered by the crash. Noah tries to hold the family together as a seemingly routine police investigation jeopardizes Charlie’s future. Alice and Izzy turn strangely furtive. And Lorelei’s odd behavior tugs at Noah’s suspicions that there is a darker truth behind the incident—suspicions heightened by the sudden intrusion of Daniel Monet, a tech mogul whose mysterious history with Lorelei hints at betrayal. When Charlie falls for Monet’s teenaged daughter, the stakes are raised even higher in this propulsive family drama that is also a fascinating exploration of the moral responsibility and ethical consequences of AI.
Culpability explores a world newly shaped by chatbots, autonomous cars, drones, and other nonhuman forces in ways that are thrilling, challenging, and unimaginably provocative.
The Author
Bruce Holsinger
Bruce Holsinger is the author of Culpability, the 116th selection of Oprah’s Book Club and hailed by Oprah Winfrey as “a must-read for all generations.” His four previous novels include The Gifted School, The Displacements, the inaugural title in the United Nations Read for Action Book Club; and The Invention of Fire and A Burnable Book, historical novels set in medieval London. He’s also written many works of nonfiction, most recently On Parchment: Animals, Archives, and the Making of Culture from Herodotus to the Digital Age. His essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and many other publications, and he has been profiled on NPR’s Weekend Edition, Here & Now, and Marketplace. He is the editor of the quarterly journal New Literary History as well as a frequent instructor at WriterHouse, a nonprofit in Charlottesville. He teaches English at the University of Virginia and is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship.
How to Participate
Copies of our Tosa’s All-City Read selection are available at the Tosa Library and for sale at Boswell Books and other bookstores. Once you’ve read the book, there are lots of ways to participate:
- Join or start a book discussion in your neighborhood association. The DIY Book Club page includes printable handouts with information to help generate conversation.
- Attend one of the public book discussions listed on our Events Page.
- Take part in our fun events and activities. Come by yourself or bring your friends and neighbors!
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For sponsorship details, contact info@TosasAllCityRead.com
