Pride and Joy Book Club: Middle Spoon by Alejandro Varela

The Pride and Joy Book Club meets at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh - Main in Oakland on Wednesday, October 21, to discuss Middle Spoon by Alejandro Varela. It's a hybrid session, so you can join in person at the library or follow along virtually if you can't make it across town.

Pride and Joy is a book club devoted to reading LGBTQ+ titles, and this particular meeting is part of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh's Latin and Hispanic Heritage Month 2026 programming. The book on the table is Middle Spoon, written by Alejandro Varela. If you've been following the club, you know the drill: read the book, show up, and spend an hour talking it through with other readers. It's a low-stakes way to get through a book and hear how other people read it, and since it's tied into the library's Heritage Month schedule, it fits right into the broader city-wide celebration of Latin and Hispanic culture this October.

If you're heading in person, the meeting is in the Director's Office Conference Room on the first floor of the Main branch, at 4400 Forbes Avenue in Oakland. The virtual option means you can still be part of the conversation from home, which is a nice out if your Wednesday evening is already packed. The discussion runs from 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM, so it's a tight hour—enough to get into the meat of the book without taking up your whole night.