LARB Book Club Discussion: “Entitlement” by Rumaan Alam

Join LARB staff and members in conversation about the latest Book Club pick, Rumaan Alam’s Entitlement! The conversation will take place on October 16 at 6 p.m. PST on Zoom. Register for the discussion here. If you have questions or thoughts about the book you want to address during the discussion, please submit them here before October 15.

All members are invited to join us and purchase a copy of Entitlement at a bookstore near you, or through our partnership with Bookshop.org. Check out the latest membership newsletter for the 10% off discount code with Bookshop.org, or email us! If you are not a member, please upgrade or join to access member-only perks, like the LARB classic tote, a subscription to our signature print magazine, conversations with LARB editors and members, and more. Plus between now and September 14, get 25% off all LARB merch!

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Prepare to be captivated by Rumaan Alam’s Entitlement, a novel diving into a seductive, murky world of wealth and self-discovery. Brooke wants. She isn’t in need, but there are things she wants. A sense of purpose, for instance. She wants to make a difference in the world, to impress her mother along the way, to spend time with friends and secure her independence. Her job assisting an octogenarian billionaire in his quest to give away a vast fortune could help her achieve many of these goals. It may inspire new desires as well: proximity to wealth turns out to be nothing less than transformative. What is money, really, but a kind of belief?

Taut, unsettling, and alive to the seductive distortions of money, Entitlement is a riveting tale for our new gilded age, a story that confidently considers questions about need and worth, race and privilege, philanthropy and generosity, passion and obsession. It is a provocative, propulsive novel about the American imagination.

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Rumaan Alam is the author of the New York Times best-selling novel Leave the World Behind, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and was adapted into a major motion picture, as well as two other novels. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn.