Jackson Free Press

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Mississippi last year in March, one of 30-year-old John Caleb Grenn’s favorite spots—Lemuria Books—shut down. When this happened, Grenn wondered if he could find an online book club to join so that he could stay connected with others, despite the quarantining taking place throughout the city, the state and the world.

Searching for one on Instagram, Grenn, who is currently completing his last few months of residency at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, failed to find what he was pining for. Taking matters in his own hands, Grenn decided to encourage people to support local bookstores and stay social during this tough time by starting his own “Coronavirus Bookclub,”

Through Zoom, Grenn provided a place for booklovers to discuss their latest reads, and several authors from places such as New York, Chicago, California, Jackson, London and India have attended to discuss their books.

The book club meets once a month or every other month. While Grenn anticipated the series only lasting through January of this year, the platform has taken on a life of its own and continues to flourish, with the group meeting once a month or once every other month to discuss books such as “The Mountain Sings” by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai—which is an intimate story told through the close horrors of famine, war and class struggle.

Growing up in Hattiesburg, Miss., when Grenn was 11 years old, he lost his grandmother to cancer. “I didn’t get to know her,” he says. When he was in high school, his little brother was admitted into The Blair E. Batson Hospital for Children, which is now under the Children’s of Mississippi organization. These events ingrained in Grenn a desire to understand what happened to his loved ones and to be part of the change to do something about it. He wanted to become a doctor.

After graduating from the University of Southern Mississippi with a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry, he attended medical school at the University of Mississippi Medical Center to complete his residency studying internal medicine and pediatrics. Grenn will complete his schooling this spring.

So far, Grenn has learned that the medical field allows him the opportunity to meet new people and broaden his worldview, just as the “Coronavirus Bookclub” does. “People are so divided politically and racially,” he notes, adding that being able to find that sense of humanness through his studies and through the book club amid a pandemic has spoken volumes.

“People have literature in them,” Grenn says. “You are able to see how history repeats itself.”

To find more information on Grenn's "Coronavirus Bookclub," find the group's Instagram page @coronavirusbookclub.