Category Archives: Book Club

April Book Group Information

The AAUW Book Group will be held on Thursday, April 3, at 12:30 pm to discuss An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris. Margie West will be our hostess, and Meg Goodrich will lead the discussion. That will wrap up our reading for 2024-2025 and we will meet in May to determine book selections for 2025-2026. Please don’t hesitate to contact Karen Rudisill if you interested in joining us!

Robert Harris returns to the thrilling historical fiction he has so brilliantly made his own. This is the story of the infamous Dreyfus affair told as a chillingly dark, hard-edged novel of conspiracy and espionage.

Paris in 1895. Alfred Dreyfus, a young Jewish officer, has just been convicted of treason, sentenced to life imprisonment at Devil’s Island, and stripped of his rank in front of a baying crowd of twenty-thousand. Among the witnesses to his humiliation is Georges Picquart, the ambitious, intellectual, recently promoted head of the counterespionage agency that “proved” Dreyfus had passed secrets to the Germans. At first, Picquart firmly believes in Dreyfus’s guilt. But it is not long after Dreyfus is delivered to his desolate prison that Picquart stumbles on information that leads him to suspect that there is still a spy at large in the French military. As evidence of the most malignant deceit mounts and spirals inexorably toward the uppermost levels of government, Picquart is compelled to question not only the case against Dreyfus but also his most deeply held beliefs about his country, and about himself.

Bringing to life the scandal that mesmerized the world at the turn of the twentieth century, Robert Harris tells a tale of uncanny timeliness––a witch hunt, secret tribunals, out-of-control intelligence agencies, the fate of a whistle-blower–richly dramatized with the singular storytelling mastery that has marked all of his internationally best-selling novels.

For March, our chosen book is Leaving: A Novel  by Roxana Robinson. We will meet for discussion at 12:30pm on Thursday, March 6 at the home of Meg Goodrich. Our discussion leader will be Karlyn Rapport.

A New Yorker Best Book of the Year • One of the Los Angeles Times 15 Best Books of the Year • A Chicago Public Library Must-Read of 2024 • A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2024

What risks would you be willing to take to fall in love again?

If you are not already a member of our Book Club and would like to attend in person or via ZOOM, contact us!

February Book Club

For February, our chosen book is Five Days That Shocked the World: Eyewitness Accounts from Europe at the End of World War I. We will meet for discussion at 12:30pm on Thursday, February 6 at the home of Karlyn Rapport.

In the momentous days from April 28 to May 2, 1945, the world witnessed the death of two Fascist dictators and the fall of Berlin. Mussolini’s capture and execution by Italian partisans, the suicide of Adolf Hitler, and the fall of the German capital signaled the end of the four-year war in the European Theater. In Five Days That Shocked the World, Nicholas Best thrills readers with the first-person accounts of those who lived through this dramatic time.

If you are not already a member of our Book Club and would like to attend in person or via ZOOM, contact us!

Book Club Discussion in January

Book Club Discussion for January

Our next book discussion will be at 12:30pm on Thursday, January 9 at the Women’s Federated Clubhouse in Marquette. Carol Capuccio will lead our discussion of The Teacher Wars by Dana Goldstein.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A groundbreaking history of 175 years of American education that brings the lessons of the past to bear on the dilemmas we face today—and brilliantly illuminates the path forward for public schools.

“[A] lively account.” —New York Times Book Review

In The Teacher Wars, a rich, lively, and unprecedented history of public school teaching, Dana Goldstein reveals that teachers have been embattled for nearly two centuries. She uncovers the surprising roots of hot button issues, from teacher tenure to charter schools, and finds that recent popular ideas to improve schools—instituting merit pay, evaluating teachers by student test scores, ranking and firing veteran teachers, and recruiting “elite” graduates to teach—are all approaches that have been tried in the past without producing widespread change.

If you are not already a member of our Book Club and would like to attend in person or via ZOOM, contact us!

Book Club for December

Our next book discussion will be at 12:30pm on Thursday, December 5 at the Clubhouse. Susan Shaver will lead the discussion of The Violin Conspiracy by Brendon Slocumb.

The riveYellow background with a violin that has section of blue, fuchsia, orange and light greenting story of a young Black musician who discovers that his old family fiddle is actually a priceless Stradivarius: when it’s stolen on the eve of the world’s most prestigious classical music competition, he risks everything to get it back.

Growing up Black in rural North Carolina, Ray McMillian’s life is already mapped out. But Ray has a gift and a dream—he’s determined to become a world-class professional violinist, and nothing will stand in his way. Not his mother, who wants him to stop making such a racket; not the fact that he can’t afford a violin suitable to his talents; not even the racism inherent in the world of classical music.

When he discovers that his beat-up, family fiddle is actually a priceless Stradivarius, all his dreams suddenly seem within reach, and together, Ray and his violin take the world by storm. But on the eve of the renowned and cutthroat Tchaikovsky Competition—the Olympics of classical music—the violin is stolen, a ransom note for five million dollars left in its place. Without it, Ray feels like he’s lost a piece of himself. As the competition approaches, Ray must not only reclaim his precious violin, but prove to himself—and the world—that no matter the outcome, there has always been a truly great musician within him.  https://www.brendanslocumb.com/the-violin-conspiracy

If you are not already a member of our Book Club and would like to attend in person or via Zoom, contact us!