David Nicholson's The Garretts of Columbia selected as a 2024 Great Group Reads pick by the Women's National Book Association

November 11, 2024 | by uscpress

In October, the Women’s National Book Association selected The Garretts of Columbia by David Nicholson as a 2024 Great Group Reads pick. Launched in 2009, the Great Group Reads program promotes books and a love of reading by sharing its list of top 20 titles during National Reading Group Month.

In The Garretts of Columbia, David Nicholson tells a multigenerational story of Black hope and resilience. Carefully researched and beautifully written, The Garretts of Columbia engages readers with stories of a family whose members believed in the possibility of America. Nicholson relates the sacrifices, defeats, and arming victories of a cohort of stalwart men and women who embraced education, fought for their country, and asserted their dignity in the face of a society that denied their humanity and discounted their abilities. The letters of Anna Maria “Mama” Threewitts Garrett, along with other archival sources and family stories passed down through generations, provide the framework that allows Nicholson to trace his family’s deep history, and with it a representative tale about Black life in segregated Columbia, South Carolina, from the years after the Civil War to World War II.

David Nicholson is a former editor and book reviewer for the Washington Post Book World and author of Flying Home: Seven Stories of the Secret City. He attended Haverford College before graduating from the University of the District of Columbia. Nicholson has worked as a reporter in San Francisco; Milwaukee; and Dayton, Ohio. He lives in Vienna, Virginia, with his wife and son.

View the full 2024 Great Group Reads list.