Bruce Holsinger

I'm taking a deep dive into two very different, yet equally compelling books that our members have recently read, debated and dissected.

Up first, we'll be exploring the high-stakes moral dilemmas of Bruce Holsinger's gripping novel, Culpability.

Then we'll switch gears and sink into the quiet, deeply atmospheric world of family secrets and belonging in Sarah Moss's ripeness.

Both books tackle big questions about responsibility, agency and choices, making them two of the richest reads that we've had on our book club list.

So grab your drink of choice, make yourself comfortable and let's jump right into it.

Let's kick things off with Bruce Holsinger.

So before becoming a best-selling contemporary novelist, Holsinger established himself as a distinguished scholar and professor of medieval literature.

Readers might already know him from his historical thrillers or his massive book club hit The Gifted School, which went on to win the Colorado Book Award.

The first book is fiction.

It's called Culpability by Bruce Holsinger.

Culpability was published in...

Oh, and of course, I should have that pulled up, but I don't like a bad podcaster... published last year in July.

So let me do a summary and then we'll kind of go into our deep dive.

I am going to use my Claude widget and I'll tell you a little bit more about my Claude widget when we get to that part.

So the fictional book is called Culpability by Bruce Holsinger.

And here's a bit of the premise.

Yes, this one is terrifying.

In August 2025, they optioned Bruce Holsinger's novel Culpability, which was originally an Oprah's Book Club pick.

Culpability represents the perfect marriage of an emotional family drama and a deeply provocative near-future tech thriller.

What's the setup?

We'll also look at The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, a best-selling epistolary novel, to look at how can you maintain pacing, build emotional momentum, and create a compelling plot when your story unfolds entirely through letters and correspondence.

And then in Culpability by Bruce Holsinger, we'll examine the challenges of writing morally gray characters.

How do you create a cast where everyone believes that they're making the right choices and readers get hints at all kinds of different motivations, and this family goes completely knives out and no one walks away completely innocent, but readers still can't put it down? We'll also explore reverse chronological order again in 24 Seconds From Now by Jason Reynolds.

This one's a YA, and this time it's through the lens of character growth.