The Sioux City Reads 2024 title is Take What You Need by Idra Novey!

The Sioux City Reads program, a community-based reading initiative where a book chosen by Sioux Cityans becomes the basis for a series of programs, discussions, and events; returns with a new title for 2024: Take What You Need by Idra Novey.

Take What You Need traces the parallel lives of Jean and her beloved but estranged stepdaughter, Leah, who’s sought a clean break from her rural childhood. In Leah’s urban life with her young family, she reveals how much she misses her stepmother’s hard-won insights and joyful lack of inhibition. When Jean dies, Leah must return to sort through what’s been left behind. What Leah discovers is staggering: Jean has filled her ramshackle house with giant sculptures she’s welded from scraps of the area’s industrial history. There’s also a young man now living in the house who played an unknown role in Jean’s last years and in her art.

This book chosen by Sioux Cityans for 2024, was named One of the Best Fiction for Spring 2023 by the Wall Street Journal and named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by Oprah Daily, Vulture, Today.com, Elle, and Lit Hub.

“A heart-rending book, but also a beautiful celebration of ‘the glorious pleasure of erecting something new,’ be it a work of art or a human connection.”—The Wall Street Journal

Check out Take What You Need and get the scoop on upcoming Sioux City Reads events at SiouxCityLibrary.org/siouxcityreads. You can also visit the Library’s Facebook page, or sign-up for the Library’s e-newsletter to get all the latest updates.