Each academic year, a group of people at the university select a book for Illini Union Bookstore’s One Campus One Book program, which is basically a massive book club across campus. Throughout the year there will be lectures, discussion groups, and curriculum developed around said book.
This year the selection is Heads of the Colored People, a collection of short stories by Nafissa Thompson-Spires, former Assistant Professor of English and African-American Studies at the University of Illinois. It made the longlist for the National Book Awards in 2018.
Copies are available for purchase at Illini Union Bookstore, and you can keep tabs on the website and Facebook page for events and discussion topics as they arise.
Here’s where publisher Seth Fein predicted the impending greatness of Thompson-Spires, shortly after the release of Heads of the Colored People, and here is her appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers last fall. One of the stories from the collection is being adapted into a film for Amazon Studios.
Photo from Illini Union Bookstore Facebook page