Welcome to Book Club
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 reccomendation? 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
Join Book club
Participation is free and exclusive to NSCC students, alumni and employees. Like students and employees, alumni can access Novanet Libraries through their alumni benefits.
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.
Please note: You must be a book club member to attend a meeting. If you're not a member, complete the Join Book Club form first, then register for the meeting.
Register for the Book Club meeting
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 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.