I had yet another lovely evening last night at my 10+year old book club. Great food, lots of wine and good friends. We talked about lots of books that we might read in the future but decided to link our reading for our upcoming two meetings that will be out of town.
In September we head to St. Simons Island to stay at a member's beach house. We are reading Eugenia Price's Lighthouse: First Novel in the St. Simons Trilogy and talked about reading a book about American Beach on Fernandina Island so I am reading American Beach: A Saga of Race, Wealth, and Memory by Russ Rymer
In October we are heading to the N. Georgia mountains in the foothills of the Appalachians to stay at a lodge owned and operated by two of our members. We aren't sure what we are going to read but two contenders were Strange Fruit by Lillian Smith and a biography Lillian Smith, a Southerner Confronting the South: A Biography (Southern Biography) by Anne C. Loveland These both sound a bit heavy and possibly heartbreaking but very worthwhile. We joked about reading Deliverance by James Dickey. I also found this novel, Oral History by Lee Smith , and this non-fiction book, Our Southern Highlanders: A Narrative of Adventure in the Southern Appalachians and a Study of Life Among the Mountaineers
I'm sure there are many other options to gain a better understanding of the areas we are visiting. I got this idea after seeing the Recommended Reading section of Road Scholar programs.
Do you read about where you are headed on your travels?
Now that's what I call a book club! I have recently joined a book club that reads international fiction (set in developing countries) and some members have travelled a lot internationally but not me.
ReplyDeleteI'd be very interested in knowing what your group is reading! We haven't traveled as a group until this past spring when we went overnight to the mountains. Lots of people have traveled a lot internationally but I've only gone a little bit. We also have a pool party meeting and a holiday party so I guess we do have a lot of fun.
DeleteYes, we do read books sometimes in advance of travel. 'Path Between The Seas' by David McCullough prior to our Panama Canal cruise, and currently 'Lonesome Dove' by Larry McMurtry prior to our 2014 trip to the N Plains. It really deepens our travel experiences when we do so.
ReplyDeleteYour upcoming trips sound wonderful! What a tremendous book club to be involved with!
It is a lovely group that has been going for a long time yet accepts new members readily. I hadn't heard about the Panama Canal book and will look into reading it. What great trips you take!
DeleteI envy you your book club. I've wanted to join a book club for years, but could never find other guys who were interested. Do only women read books? (I did go to a book group sponsored by our library for a while, but even that was almost all women -- there was me and one other guy.) As to your question, my answer is sometimes. Read "Cape Wind" about the effort to install windmills in Nantucket Sound when B and I vacationed on Cape Cod.
ReplyDeleteHave you thought about starting your own book club? Ours started because one woman wanted more friends and she invited about 4 of us to start. Then we invited other people and it went from there.
DeleteThanks for another interesting reading suggestion!