Looking for a good summer read? Pick up a copy of “Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America” by Beth Macy. Paper Girl is both a memoir and an exploration of community change, offering an analysis of some of the most pressing issues in American life today.

Prompted by a family member’s illness, Macy, a well-known journalist and author of “Dopesick,” returns to her hometown of Urbana, Ohio. She is shocked by the conditions she finds and decides to further explore the changes brought about by disinvestment and the loss of the local newspaper. By sharing her own story of attending college on a Pell Grant, she tracks the structural decline of opportunity and examines how the lack of a community news source has contributed to America’s misinformation crisis. Through this lens, Macy illuminates critical challenges facing education and community in modern America.

You can pick up a copy in person at the CIE Coffee Club on April 17 or by contacting Tracy Welch at twelch@nmc.edu.

There will be multiple opportunities to discuss the book during the Fall 2026 semester.