Instituto Cervantes Book Club
2020-10-06, 2020-10-20 | NM
10-11:30 am
The Instituto Cervantes Book Club meets twice a month to talk about that month’s selected book.
Book for October: Un mar violeta oscuro, Ayanta Barilli.
Pre-registration for the Instituto Cervantes Book Club is required.
More information.

NHCC Book Club
2020-10-22 | NM
5:30 pm
The NHCC Book Club meets once a month to talk about that month’s selected book.
Book for October: Into the Beautiful North, Luis Alberto Urrea.
To join the NHCC Book Club, register here. NHCC Book Club members who purchase their books through Bookworks get a 10% discount on that title.

Instituto Cervantes Book Club
2020-11-03, 2020-11-17 | NM
10-11:30 am
The Instituto Cervantes Book Club meets twice a month to talk about that month’s selected book.
Book for November: Ni siquiera los muertos, Juan Gómez Bárcena
Pre-registration for the Instituto Cervantes Book Club is required.
More information.

NHCC Book Club
2020-11-19 | NM
5:30 pm
The NHCC Book Club meets once a month to talk about that month’s selected book.
Book for November: Lost City Radio, Daniel Alarcon.
To join the NHCC Book Club, register here. NHCC Book Club members who purchase their books through Bookworks get a 10% discount on that title.

Instituto Cervantes Book Club
2020-12-01, 2020-12-15 | NM
10-11:30 am
The Instituto Cervantes Book Club meets twice a month to talk about that month’s selected book.
Book for December: A flor de piel by Javier Moro
Pre-registration for the Instituto Cervantes Book Club is required.
More information.

NHCC Book Club
2020-12-15 | NM
5:30 pm
The NHCC Book Club meets once a month to talk about that month’s selected book.
Book for December: Sabrina and Corina: Stories, Kali Fajardo-Anstine.
To join the NHCC Book Club, register here. NHCC Book Club members who purchase their books through Bookworks get a 10% discount on that title.

NHCC Book Club: Murmur of Bees—Sofia Segovia
2021-01-28 | NM
5:30 pm (MST)
Live via Zoom.
To join, contact cassandra.osterloh@state.nm.us
“Set against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution and the devastating influenza of 1918, The Murmur of Bees captures both the fate of a country in flux and the destiny of one family that has put their love, faith, and future in the unbelievable.” – Goodreads.
Free and open to the public

NHCC Book Club: Atop the Windmill: I Could See Forever—Maria Dolores Gonzales
2021-02-25 | NM
5:30 pm (MST)
Live via Zoom
To join, contact cassandra.osterloh@state.nm.us
“In this memoir a series of vignettes features Dolores, the fourth-born daughter in a family of five girls, growing up in rural, northeastern New Mexico. Atop the Windmill appeals to both adult and young readers who have an interest in the rich Nuevomexicano linguistic and cultural heritage of New Mexico.”—Bilingual Strategies.

Free and open to the public

NHCC Book Club: Mexican Gothic—Silvia Moreno-Garcia
2021-03-25 | NM
5:30 pm (MST)
Live via Zoom
To join, contact cassandra.osterloh@state.nm.us
“Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic is a thoroughly enjoyable, thought-provoking novel. The main character, Noémi, receives a strange letter from her cousin, Catalina, who begs for help. She claims her new husband Virgil Doyle is poisoning her, that ‘fleshless things’ and ghosts trouble her, that ‘they will not let me go.’ Noémi — self-assured, chic and stubborn — leaves the glamor of 1950s Mexico City for the countryside, still depressed after a mining bust and fecund with secrets, to determine whether Catalina needs rescue.” – Jessica P. Wick, NPR.

Free and open to the public

NHCC Book Club: Everyone Knows You Go Home—Natalia Sylvester
2021-04-22 | NM
5:30 pm (MST)
Live via Zoom
To join, contact cassandra.osterloh@state.nm.us
Winner of an International Latino Book Award. “The first time Isabel meets her father-in-law, Omar, he’s already dead—an apparition appearing uninvited on her wedding day. Her husband, Martin, still unforgiving for having been abandoned by his father years ago, confesses that he never knew the old man had died. Omar asks Isabel for the impossible: persuade Omar’s family—especially his wife, Elda—to let him redeem himself.” – Goodreads.
Free community event

NHCC Book Club: Children of the Land: A Memoir—Marcelo Hernandez-Castillo
2021-05-27 | NM
5:30 pm (MST)
Live via Zoom
To join, contact cassandra.osterloh@state.nm.us
“Honest and unsparing, this book offers a detailed look at the dehumanizing immigration system that shattered the author’s family while offering a glimpse into his own deeply conflicted sense of what it means to live the so-called American dream. A heartfelt and haunting memoir just right for the current political and social climate.” -Kirkus Reviews.
Free community event

NHCC Book Club: Afterlife—Julia Alvarez
2021-06-24 | Live via Zoom or in-person
5:30 pm (MDT)
Live via Zoom
To join, contact cassandra.osterloh@state.nm.us
“Antonia Vega, the immigrant writer at the center of Afterlife, has had the rug pulled out from under her. She has just retired from the college where she taught English when her beloved husband, Sam, suddenly dies. And then more jolts: her bighearted but unstable sister disappears, and Antonia returns home one evening to find a pregnant, undocumented teenager on her doorstep. Antonia has always sought direction in the literature she loves—lines from her favorite authors play in her head like a soundtrack—but now she finds that the world demands more of her than words.” – Goodreads.
Free community event

NHCC Book Club: Queen of America
2021-07-22 | Live via Zoom or in-person
5:30 pm (MST)
Live via Zoom
To join, contact cassandra.osterloh@state.nm.us
“Beginning where Luis Alberto Urrea’s bestselling The Hummingbird’s Daughter left off, Queen of America finds young Teresita Urrea, beloved healer and “Saint of Cabora,” with her father in 1892 Arizona. But, besieged by pilgrims in desperate need of her healing powers, and pursued by assassins, she has no choice but to flee the borderlands and embark on an extraordinary journey into the heart of turn-of-the-century America.
Teresita’s passage will take her to New York, San Francisco, and St. Louis, where she will encounter European royalty, Cuban poets, beauty queens, anxious immigrants and grand tycoons — and, among them, a man who will force Teresita to finally ask herself the ultimate question: is a saint allowed to fall in love?” – Goodreads.
Free community event

Virtual Book Reading and Discussion: Elizabeth Gonzalez James, Mona at Sea
2021-08-18 | Live via Zoom or in-person
6 pm (MST)
Live Via Zoom. Register HERE
Mona is a Millennial perfectionist who fails upwards in the midst of the 2008 economic crisis. Despite her potential, and her top-of-her-class college degree, Mona finds herself unemployed, living with her parents, and adrift in life and love. Mona’s the sort who says exactly the right thing at absolutely the wrong moments, seeing the world through a cynic’s eyes. In the financial and social malaise of the early 2000s, Mona walks a knife’s edge as she faces down unemployment, underemployment, the complexities of adult relationships, and the downward spiral of her parents’ shattering marriage. The more Mona craves perfection and order, the more she is forced to see that it is never attainable. Mona’s journey asks the question: When we find what gives our life meaning, will we be ready for it?
Free community event
Book: $15.95

Presented by Bookworks and History and Literary Arts Program/NHCC.

Virtual Book Reading and Discussion: Hakim Bellamy, Commissions y Corridos
2021-08-25 | Live via Zoom or in-person
6 pm (MST)
Live Via Zoom. Register HERE
Hakim Bellamy’s latest collection rings with the same power and grace as the people he lauds within its pages, including Nikki Giovanni and Martin Luther King Jr. He celebrates Albuquerque and New Mexico, taking the good with the bad, and reminds Bur-queños that any day when you wake up along the Río Grande is a good day. As Bellamy celebrates the power of creativity and community within the city and the nation, he also demands that we face our society’s faults, especially those of racism, racial profiling, and law-enforcement violence. The poems collected here insist that with the power to do right, people also have a responsibility to themselves, their loved ones, and complete strangers to be better and strive harder. Undoubtedly Bellamy is leading this charge, lighting the way for anyone ready to listen.
Free community event
Book: $18.95

Presented by Bookworks, History and Literary Arts Program/NHCC and UNM Press.

NHCC Book Club: The Resurrection of Fulgencio Ramirez
2021-08-26 | Live via Zoom or in-person
5:30 pm (MST)
Live via Zoom
To join, contact cassandra.osterloh@state.nm.us
“In the 1950s, tensions remain high in the border town of La Frontera. Penny loafers and sneakers clash with boots and huaraches. Bowling shirts and leather jackets compete with guayaberas. Convertibles fend with motorcycles. Yet amidst the discord, young love blooms at first sight between Fulgencio Ramirez, the son of impoverished immigrants, and Carolina Mendelssohn, the local pharmacist’s daughter. But as they’ll soon find out, their bonds will be undone by a force more powerful than they could have known.

Thirty years after their first fateful encounter, Fulgencio Ramirez, RPh, is conducting his daily ritual of reading the local obituaries in his cramped pharmacy office. After nearly a quarter of a century of waiting, Fulgencio sees the news he’s been hoping for: his nemesis, the husband of Carolina Mendelssohn, has died.
A work of magical realism, The Resurrection of Fulgencio Ramirez weaves together the past and present as Fulgencio strives to succeed in America, break a mystical family curse, and win back Carolina’s love after their doomed youthful romance. Through enchanting language and meditations about the porous nature of borders–cultural, geographic, and otherworldly–The Resurrection of Fulgencio Ramirez offers a vision of how the past has divided us, and how the future could unite us. ” – Goodreads.
Free community event

NHCC Book Club: The Five Wounds
2021-09-23 | Live via Zoom or in-person
5:30 pm (MST)
Live via Zoom
To join, contact cassandra.osterloh@state.nm.us
“From an award-winning storyteller comes a stunning debut novel about a New Mexican family’s extraordinary year of love and sacrifice.
The Five Wounds is a miraculous debut novel from a writer whose stories have been hailed as “legitimate masterpieces” (New York Times). Kirstin Valdez Quade conjures characters that will linger long after the final page, bringing to life their struggles to parent children they may not be equipped to save.” – Goodreads
Free community event

Virtual Book Reading and Discussion: Jessica Helen Lopez, The Blood Poems
2021-10-24 | Live via Zoom or in-person
3 pm (MST)
Live Via Zoom. Register HERE
The Blood Poems is one part bloodletting, one part healing, and one part sensuous celebration as Jessica Helen Lopez lays out what it means to be a strong brown woman, a single mother, and the kickass bard that the twenty-first century needs. Lopez openly faces a damaging childhood, sex, divorce, and racial injustice in these poems. She proves that love is as complicated as lovemaking — messy and lusty, raucous and powerful, capable of amazing highs and abysmal lows. She proves that when a woman learns to love herself, she will live a fierce and full life and teach her daughters to do the same.
Free community event
For more information, please, contact Dr. Patricia Marie Perea by emailing her at Patricia.perea@state.nm.us
Book: $18.95

Presented by Bookworks, History and Literary Arts Program/NHCC and UNM Press.

NHCC Book Club: The Taste of Sugar
2021-10-28 | Live via Zoom or in-person
5:30 pm (MDT)
Live via Zoom
To join, contact Dr. Patricia Marie Perea by emailing her at Patricia.perea@state.nm.us
“It is 1898, and groups of starving Puerto Ricans, los hambrientos, roam the parched countryside and dusty towns begging for food. Under the yoke of Spanish oppression, the Caribbean island is forced to prepare to wage war with the United States. Up in the mountainous coffee region of Utuado, Vicente Vega and Valentina Sanchez labor to keep their small farm from the creditors. When the Spanish-American War and the great San Ciriaco Hurricane of 1899 bring devastating upheaval, the young couple is lured, along with thousands of other puertorriqueños, to the sugar plantations of Hawaii—another US territory—where they are confronted by the hollowness of America’s promises of prosperity. Writing in the tradition of great Latin American storytelling, Marisel Vera’s The Taste of Sugar is an unforgettable novel of love and endurance, and a timeless portrait of the reasons we leave home.” – Goodreads
Free community event

NHCC Book Club: The Wind That Lays Waste
2021-11-18 | Live via Zoom or in-person
5:30 pm (MST)
Live via Zoom
To join, contact Dr. Patricia Marie Perea by emailing her at Patricia.perea@state.nm.us
“The Wind That Lays Waste begins in the great pause before a storm. Reverend Pearson is evangelizing across the Argentinian countryside with Leni, his teenage daughter, when their car breaks down. This act of God or fate leads them to the workshop and home of an aging mechanic called Gringo Brauer and a young boy named Tapioca.

As a long day passes, curiosity and intrigue transform into an unexpected intimacy between four people: one man who believes deeply in God, morality, and his own righteousness, and another whose life experiences have only entrenched his moral relativism and mild apathy; a quietly earnest and idealistic mechanic’s assistant, and a restless, skeptical preacher’s daughter. As tensions between these characters ebb and flow, beliefs are questioned and allegiances are tested, until finally the growing storm breaks over the plains.

Selva Almada’s exquisitely crafted debut, with its limpid and confident prose, is profound and poetic, a tactile experience of the mountain, the sun, the squat trees, the broken cars, the sweat-stained shirts, and the destroyed lives. The Wind That Lays Waste is a philosophical, beautiful, and powerfully distinctive novel that marks the arrival in English of an author whose talent and poise are undeniable. ” -Goodreads
For more information, please, contact Dr. Patricia Marie Perea by emailing her at Patricia.perea@state.nm.us
Free community event

NHCC Book Club: Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America
2021-12-16 | Live via Zoom or in-person
5:30 pm (MST)
Live via Zoom
To join, contact Dr. Patricia Marie Perea by emailing her at Patricia.perea@state.nm.us
“In Once I Was You, Maria shares her intimate experience growing up Mexican American on the south side of Chicago and documenting the existential wasteland of immigration detention camps for news outlets that often challenged her work. In these pages, she offers a personal and eye-opening account of how the rhetoric around immigration has not only long informed American attitudes toward outsiders, but also enabled willful negligence and profiteering at the expense of our country’s most vulnerable populations—charging us with the broken system we have today.

This honest and heartrending memoir paints a vivid portrait of how we got here and what it means to be a survivor, a feminist, a citizen, and a journalist who owns her voice while striving for the truth. Once I Was You is an urgent call to fellow Americans to open their eyes to the immigration crisis and understand that it affects us all.” – Goodreads
Free community event
The NHCC Book Club is sponsored by AARP.

Día de Familia: Pinturas, Palabras, y Paletas
2022-06-11 | Domenici Education Building, 1701 4th Street SW, Albuquerque, NM, 87102
11:00 am–3:00 pm
Día de Familia: Pinturas, Palabras y Paletas!
Bilingual children’s book reading by Dr. Tafolla, a storywalk, and fun activities.
Join us for a lively family day featuring celebrated children’s author Dr. Carmen Tafolla, who will read from her children’s books. Participate in a bilingual storywalk, paint watercolor paletas, and make a book for writing your own story. Pete V. Dominici Education Building
Free, registration recommended
This program generously supported through a Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico Healthy Kids, Healthy Families grant.

Entre Palabras Online Book Club
2023-01-24 | Live via Zoom
5:30 pm
Join us for the first installment of our Entre Palabras Online Book Club, featuring the New Mexico classic Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya.
NHCC’s Entre Palabras Online Book Club explores diverse themes and topics within the Hispanic/Latine diaspora including identity, place, borders, nationality, race, gender, and language. The book club highlights pieces centered on New Mexico and the Southwest as well as Hispanic/Latine/Latin American works from both the United States and a variety of countries throughout the Hispanic world.
Únase al primer evento de nuestro club de libros en línea “Entre Palabras” con el clásico nuevomexicano Bendíceme Última por Rudolfo Anaya.
El club de libros en línea “Entre Palabras” del NHCC explora diversos temas del diaspora hispane/latine, como identidad, lugar, fronteras, nacionalidad, raza, género, e idioma. El club de libros destaca obras centradas en Nuevo México y el Suroeste y también obras hispanes, latines, y latine americanes de los Estados Unidos y de una variedad de países del mundo hispano.
Please make a reservation HERE and we will send you the ZOOM link before the scheduled Book Club.

Selected books offer a dynamic mix of history, fiction, novels, and poetry. Most book selections are bilingual or available in both English and Spanish. The book club is open to mature English and/or Spanish readers everywhere and is held the fourth Tuesday of the month online in a discussion format with occasional guest speakers.
Free Community Event. Please register here or or call the NHCC Welcome Center at 505-724-4771 for assistance.
Los libros seleccionados ofrecen una mezcla dinámica de historia, ficción, novelas, y poesía. La mayoría de los libros seleccionados son bilingües o son disponibles en inglés y español. El club de libros está abierto a lectores maduros de inglés y/o español en todas partes y nos reunimos el cuarto martes del mes en línea en formato conversación con oradores invitados de vez en cuando.
Evento comunitario gratuito. Registración en www.nhccnm.org/events o llame al NHCC Welcome Center al 505-724-4771.

Early Childhood Bilingual Storytime: Si Quisqueya Fuera Un Color
2023-02-21 | NHCC-Newsletter-August-26–September-7
10:00 am
Get ready for our next Bilingual Storytime, featuring the children’s book Si Quisqueya Fuera Un Color. Join us on Tuesday, Feb. 21 as we listen to the story and explore colors and movement!
Free community event. For children ages 3 to 5 and caregivers. Please register here or call the NHCC Welcome Center at 505-724-4771 for assistance.
This program is generously supported by Bank of Albuquerque.

Entre Palabras Online Book Club: The Poet X
2023-02-28 | Live via Zoom
The Online Book Club for The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo has been cancelled. We will be rescheduling for a later date and will post the new date as soon as possible. Thanks for your continued support of the NHCC and HLA Program.
5:30 pm MST
NHCC’s Entre Palabras Online Book Club explores diverse themes and topics within the Hispanic/Latine diaspora including identity, place, borders, nationality, race, gender, and language. The book club highlights pieces centered on New Mexico and the Southwest as well as Hispanic/Latine/Latin American works from both the United States and a variety of countries throughout the Hispanic world.
El club de libros en línea “Entre Palabras” del NHCC explora diversos temas del diaspora hispane/latine, como identidad, lugar, fronteras, nacionalidad, raza, género, e idioma. El club de libros destaca obras centradas en Nuevo México y el Suroeste y también obras hispanes, latines, y latine americanes de los Estados Unidos y de una variedad de países del mundo hispano.

Please make a reservation here and we will send you the ZOOM link before the scheduled Book Club.
Selected books offer a dynamic mix of history, fiction, novels, and poetry. Most book selections are bilingual or available in both English and Spanish. The book club is open to mature English and/or Spanish readers everywhere and is held the fourth Tuesday of the month online in a discussion format with occasional guest speakers.
Free Community Event. Please register here or or call the NHCC Welcome Center at 505-724-4771 for assistance.
Los libros seleccionados ofrecen una mezcla dinámica de historia, ficción, novelas, y poesía. La mayoría de los libros seleccionados son bilingües o son disponibles en inglés y español. El club de libros está abierto a lectores maduros de inglés y/o español en todas partes y nos reunimos el cuarto martes del mes en línea en formato conversación con oradores invitados de vez en cuando.
Evento comunitario gratuito. Registración en www.nhccnm.org/events o llame al NHCC Welcome Center al 505-724-4771.

Early Childhood Bilingual Storytime: Vámonos
2023-03-21 | NM
10:00 am
Get ready for our next Early Childhood Bilingual Storytime, featuring the children’s book Vámonos, by Cynthia Weill. Listen to the story and create art with wheels!
Free community event. For children ages 3 to 5 and caregivers. Please register here or call the NHCC Welcome Center at 505-724-4771 for assistance.
This program is generously supported by Bank of Albuquerque.

¡Evento Gratuito! Explorar las Artes: Hora Bilingüe de Cuentos Preescolares
El martes, 21 de marzo, 2023
10:00 am | Biblioteca de NHCC
¡Escuchen el cuento Vámonos por Cynthia Weill y hagan arte con ruedas!
Para niños de 3 a 5 años de edad y sus cuidadores

Alicia Gaspar de Alba: Book Reading
2023-03-23 | NHCC-Newsletter-August-11-–-24
5:00 pm: Pre-event reception
6:00 pm: Reading begins
Join us for the first event in the NHCC’s El Arte de la Palabra series, featuring author Alicia Gaspar de Alba. The award-winning author will be reading from her collection of short stories and essays, Crimes of the Tongue.
Free Community Event, generously supported by AARP New Mexico. Please register here or call the NHCC Welcome Center at 505-724-4771 for assistance.

Alicia Gaspar De Alba is a Professor of Chicana/o and Central American studies, English, and gender studies at UCLA, where she has worked since 1994. She has published 12 books, including novels, collections of fiction and poetry, and academic books. Her 13th book is coming out later this spring. She has won several awards for her writing, including the Lambda Literary Foundation Award for Best Lesbian Mystery in 2005 for Desert Blood, which also won the Latino Book Award for Best Mystery in English in 2006 and Best Mystery in Spanish in 2009. Her first novel, Sor Juana’s Second Dream, won the Latino Hall of Fame Award for Best Historical Novel in 2000. Her forthcoming book, Crimes of the Tongue: Essays and Stories, will be published by Arte Publico Press. On Saturday, she will be offering an oral storytelling workshop based on techniques from The Moth, which she teaches in her bilingual creative writing class, The Mariposa Hour.
