Amnesty Book Club

1. Amnesty’s Book Club has more than 13,000 members across Canada and around the world. You can join and attend online events, join a local Book Club Chapter, and/or start your own Chapter. You can also share the Amnesty book selections with your own local book club or group of reading friends.
2. Once you’ve read and discussed the books, consider how you can defend human rights. Each Discussion Guide features ideas for taking action and learning more about the themes and campaigns featured in the book.
3. After you’ve finished discussing the book and taking action, tell us about it. By sharing your experience, you will inspire more good deeds across the country and around the world!

Everyone can join! Amnesty Book Club can take many different forms and sizes. Here are a few examples of where you might find members to make up your Amnesty Book Club Chapter:

• Existing book clubs
• School classrooms
• Sports teams
• Family
• Friends
• Coworkers
• Religious groups
• Civic groups
• Neighbours

Amnesty Book Club is perfect for existing book clubs! By becoming members and taking action to defend human rights, the Amnesty Book Club will add another layer of meaning to your club and make a difference in your community.

There are several different ways to get books for your Amnesty Book Club:

• Talk to your local public or school librarian about requesting enough copies for your group
• Get an online version of the book, if possible
• Ask your local independent bookstore if they would be willing to donate books to your group or offer a bulk order discount.
• Check out used books sold online
• Share a few copies of the book among the members of your group
• Buy one copy and meet to read it aloud. This works beautifully in school classrooms!

We can’t wait to hear about your Amnesty Book Club adventures. Please share your Amnesty Book Club story with us at bookclub@amnesty.ca. Using the information you provide, we will highlight Amnesty Book Club activities on our website, social media and by email.

In addition, you can contact your local newspaper, radio stations, and TV stations to share your Amnesty Book Club experience. They may want to talk to your group—and you may start a chain reaction of human rights action.

Don’t worry if you don’t have time to read the books. That shouldn’t stop you from joining the Amnesty Book Club. We can’t promise there won’t be spoilers revealed during our events or Discussion Guides, but we promise you’ll find them interesting and engaging. Above all, Amnesty Book Club is a community of readers who are passionate about human rights. If it’s not possible to read the whole book, read what you can and attend our free online author event to learn more about the book, enjoy the discussion, and take part in defending human rights.

No, you don’t need to read the books in order. We select six books per year (one book every two months). If our current selections don’t resonate with your local book club, please feel free to pick and choose from the list as you’d like. You can also check out our Book Club archives for an extensive list of previous Book Club selections with their accompanying Discussion Guides and recorded author events.