U Wine Bar

September 02, 2026

7:30 pm - 9:00 pm

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Join us to read the newly released novel Cool Machine by Colson Whitehead (author of The Nickel Boys)

This event series includes two events: 

• Wednesday September 2nd: meet and receive your hardcover copy of Cool Machine. Enjoy a glass of wine and good conversation as we talk about diving into this book. Then we will read quietly together for an hour and begin the book together as a group.
• Wednesday September 23rd: reconvene to have a traditional book club discussion about reading Cool Machine. We'll craft  and drink wine in addition to our discussion.

Your ticket includes: 

• a new hardcover copy of Cool Machine (if you choose the GA w/ book ticket)

• admission to two 90-minute events at U Wine Bar hosted by Sam of SBC

• two glasses of wine or N/A beverage of choice (one at each event)

• craft supplies for our crafting project on night 2

• a group of book lovers to read with and get to know, including a WhatsApp group

FAQ:
What if I don't drink? No worries, U Wine has lots of great N/A options that you are welcome to have as your free beverage instead!

What if I already have the book or want to read it on my e-reader? Choose a general admission ticket: no book and lower price, everything else is the same!

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More about Cool Machine:

(currently 4.32 on Goodreads!)

1981. New York City is beginning to emerge from financial ruin and decline, energized by rampant real estate development and a Wall Street unchained by Reagan-era predatory capitalism. Up in Harlem, successful business owner/master fence Ray Carney has just been named Sterling Furniture’s Dealer of the Month. When the banks won’t give his beloved wife Elizabeth a loan for her new travel agency, however, Carney gambles on one last heist, and finds himself entangled with a legendary criminal mastermind.

1983. To some, Carney’s friend and partner in crime Pepper is a stone-cold sociopath. To others, a top thief with questionable people skills. Either way, he’s feeling his age in his troubled gut and his aching bones. When he takes on a bodyguard gig as a favor to Elizabeth, he’s plunged into the alien territory of the East Village art and club scene. Luckily for him, whether you’re uptown or down, everyone speaks the same language of violence—Pepper is a native speaker.

1986. Carney has always been haunted by his inability to save his cousin Freddie. Now, twenty years after Freddie’s death, he has a chance to rescue Freddie’s son from the violent forces of the city. But coming out of retirement and teaming up with Pepper again will mean risking the safety and security he’s spent decades building for his family, with only one shot to get it right.

With his usual pitch-perfect prose Whitehead paints a portrait of a city in transition, where shimmering skyscrapers rise to the heavens as displaced people huddle in abandoned tunnels below. In a dazzling display of protean imagination, Cool Machine roves all over the city, from Windows on the World to the Meadowlands, to show that in New York, and in the lives of Whitehead’s vivid characters, it’s what’s below the surface that reveals the truth.

***this is part of a trilogy but was written to be read as a standalone

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