Brunch & Books: The Eights

Are you a Needle who reads for pleasure and wants to connect with others to discuss books and build friendships? Join us for our monthly book club exploring various genres, mostly fiction. This month's book is The Eights by Joanna Miller (2026, 400 pages). Available via Libby (Fulton County Library System) and Palace (Fulton and Sequoyah systems). Four young women. Four very different lives. One unshakeable friendship. Following the unlikely friendship of four women in the first female class at Oxford, their unshakable bond in the face of male contempt, and their coming of age in a world forever changed by World War I. In 1920, in the wake of World War I and for the first time in its one-thousand-year history, Oxford University officially admits female students. Bursting with dreams, four young women move into Corridor 8. Beatrice, Dora, Marianne, and Otto—collectively known as The Eights—come from all walks of life, each searching for an unknown future while holding tight to their secrets. A brash socialite too smart for her own good. A beautiful sister arriving in place of her lost soldier brother. A too-tall daughter desperate to escape her famous suffragette mother. A timid scholarship student with the biggest secret of all. Their unlikely friendship will change them in ways they could never have imagined. Among the historic spires and hallowed halls, and in the dark shadow of the Great War, the four women must rely on one another to survive a turbulent world where misogyny is rife, influenza is still a threat, and the ghosts of our great loves don’t always remain dead.