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Alumni Relations

Welcome to Book Club

Two women seated in a library, talking to each other while one woman holds a book.

Connect through stories, ideas, and conversations, wherever you are.

NSCC Alumni's Book Club is an online reading community for NSCC students, employees and alumni. Whether you’re a casual reader or a dedicated book lover, it’s a space to share, learn and grow.

Our reading list features a mix of books by NSCC alumni and local authors, with titles that spark conversation and offer fresh perspectives. Have a book recommendation? Email .

How it works

  • Discover a new book every 3-4 months
  • Meet online via Microsoft Teams
  • Join 60-minute discussions, with guest appearances from authors when possible

Become a Book Club member

This online Book Club is exclusively for NSCC students, alumni and employees. Participation is flexible. As a member, you can choose which meetings to attend based on your schedule and reading interests.

Alumni can continue to access Novanet Libraries after graduation through their alumni benefits.

Join the Book Club in two easy steps

1. Become a Book Club member
Register for Book Club if you're not already a member

2. Register for the meeting
RSVP for the upcoming meeting you'd like to attend. Please note, you must be a registered Book Club member before registering for a meeting.

Now reading

Our current book pick is The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters. This award-winning novel explores family, identity and belonging through the lasting impact of a decades-old disappearance. It tells a powerful story of the search for truth, the shadow of trauma and the enduring strength of love.

Join us online on Monday, November 9, from 7-8 p.m. (AST). Amanda Peters will join us for part of the meeting to share insights into the novel and answer your questions.

About the author

Amanda Peters is a writer of Mi’kmaq and settler ancestry and a member of Glooscap First Nation. Her debut novel, The Berry Pickers, was the winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, the Barnes and Noble Discover Prize, the Dartmouth Book Award and the Crime Writers of Canada Best Crime First Novel Award, and was shortlisted for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award and the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.
She lives and writes in the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia, where she is an associate professor in the department of English and theatre at Acadia University. The Birthing Tree is her second novel.

The cover of "The Berry Pickers". It's the main focus, with a blur background.

The Berry Pickers

July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, is seen sitting on her favourite rock at the edge of a field before mysteriously vanishing. Her six-year-old brother, Joe, who was the last person to see Ruthie, is devastated by his sister’s disappearance, and her loss ripples through his life for years to come.

In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as an only child in an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, while her mother is overprotective of Norma, who is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem to be too real to be her imagination. As she grows older, Norma senses there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she pursues her family’s secret for decades.

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