Bicentennial Urban Hellscape Book Club

Celebrate America 250 by looking back at 1976! Explore books about and from the bicentennial era.

The US Bicentennial of 1976 came and went with a bare minimum of celebration. The country was in no such mood. It was a post-Vietnam, post-Civil Rights, post-Watergate, post-Great Society world with the great urban centers in a state of undeniable decay and inflation eroding the confidence of the middle class. One failure after another just waiting for the new President Jimmy Carter to provide the proper word, “malaise”. American culture, however, had never been as vibrant as in the mid 1970’s. The fear, pessimism and squalor of the 70’s provided fertile ground for new directions in American film, music, literature and popular culture.  
 
The Bicentennial Urban Hellscape Book Club will meet bimonthly at the Raven Grill (3125 Mt. Pleasant St NW).  Limited copies of the monthly selection will available for check out at the Mt Pleasant Library Circulation Desk. Email thomas.gross@dc.gov for more information.
 
Monday, April 27 – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick 
Monday, June 22 – Speedboat by Renate Adler 
Monday, August 24 – Choose on your own JD – White Album, Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
Monday, October 26 – Pryor Convictions by Richard Pryor