Proposed by Jeanne, we discussed Rough Sleepers at Jeanne & Bill’s on April 19, 2024. As a group we were impressed with Dr. Jim. Carolyn recalls that it was enlightening to her – especially the difference between “the homeless” and the “rough sleepers.” She remembers saying that working with Dr. Jim O’Connell would be crazy…
On Saturday, September 23, 2023 the Larkes hosted our discussion of The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel, which was proposed by Dick Malmquist. Carolyn recalls that we questioned the motives of the author in developing a “friendship” with the hermit. Was the author gathering information for a book all along? We talked of…
We convened at Dick Malmquist’s house on Saturday, July 8, 2023. Renee proposed this book by Toni Morrison. It’s the second Toni Morrison book we’ve read as a group (the other: A Mercy). Renee is an unabashed Toni fan. Many of us found the book riveting and lyrical. It’s long for us: 318 pages. We…
As far as I recall, this book was proposed by Carolyn Housman, when the club met at her home in Rockland, but what matter is that, 14 months later? We read it, we liked it (which, I suppose is true of most of our selections but never guaranteed). In any event, we met on Saturday,…
Discussed September 13, 2020 A national bestseller when it first appeared in 1963, The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation and gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement. At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin’s early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is…
Discussed November 22, 2020 You are about to travel to Edgecombe St. Mary, a small village in the English countryside filled with rolling hills, thatched cottages, and a cast of characters both hilariously original and as familiar as the members of your own family. Among them is Major Ernest Pettigrew (retired), the unlikely hero of…
Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this…
From the beet fields of North Dakota to the campgrounds of California to Amazon’s CamperForce program in Texas, employers have discovered a new, low-cost labor pool, made up largely of transient older adults. These invisible casualties of the Great Recession have taken to the road by the tens of thousands in RVs and modified vans,…
Susan Orlean—the beloved New Yorker staff writer and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Library Book—gathers a lifetime of musings, meditations, and in-depth profiles about animals. “How we interact with animals has preoccupied philosophers, poets, and naturalists for ages,” writes Susan Orlean. Since the age of six, when Orlean wrote and illustrated…
Faced with the sale of the century-old family summer house on Cape Cod where he had spent forty-two summers, George Howe Colt recounts returning for one last stay with his wife and children in this stunning memoir that was a National Book Award Finalist and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Author…
