Book Destinations

 Fun story about book towns around the world.

https://www.fodors.com/news/photos/the-best-destinations-for-book-lovers

Bookstores, Bookstores

Whenever we are traveling, I hunt out local independent bookstores.  That's probably why I have so many unread books on my bookshelves.  I usually try to find a book by a local author or one about the country/state I'm in.  
I'm including two links to stories about bookstores that I recently came across.  Perhaps when we meet for our virtual book club, we could all share a favorite bookstore name or experience.  And perhaps we should plan another future anniversary trip around bookstores!  There's one in Portugal I'd love to see!

 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/06/travel/an-international-bookstore-guide.html

 https://www.afar.com/magazine/the-best-independent-bookstores-around-the-world?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=041320%20GovermentPackage&utm_term=Daily%20Wander%20%28Have%20opened%20newsletter%20before%29

Mary

 

James Daunt buys Barnes and Noble’s

Barnes and Noble's new boss is James Daunt, who rescued the UK's Waterstones

It will be interesting to see what happens!

https://boingboing.net/2019/08/09/a-chain-of-indies.html

Recommended Reading

What a great variety of books!  I know that I haven’t done them justice.  Most are books we purchased in London and read since we’ve been home.  All are recommended.

I will also put this list on our blog so you can refer to it when you’re looking for a good book.

We own most of these books, so if you’re interested in reading one, check with the reporter.

Patty, Mary Beth, Ginny, if you have something you want to add, let us know.

Jean 

9 Lessons in Brexit by Ivan Rogers (good analysis from an anti  Brexit journalist-sees warning signs ahead)

Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths (English archeologist mystery series)

Jane 

Empty Chairs by Anne Keller (Madison author recommended by Ginny.  Not widely available. Children from a North Carolina family face challenges of poverty as they search for future happiness)

Sara

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson (your grandmother’s chick lit) early Persephone  book

The Drifter by Nick Petrie (first of a series which takes place in Milwaukee)

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb (nonfiction therapist talks to a therapist)

Marge  

The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle  (early Sherlock Holmes)

The Bully Pulpit  by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and muckraking  journalism of the times)

Jackie

The Sack of Bath  by Adam Ferguson (non fiction Persephone Books; the destruction of Georgian architecture in Bath from early 1960s through early 1970s and what we can learn from it)

Margaret 

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson (connected stories about a young girl and her grandmother one summer on an island off of Finland)

Mary 

CelestialBodies by Jokha Alharthi (international Man Booker winner; sisters living in Oman and their lives as the country slowly changes)

The Shielding of Mrs Forbes by Alan Bennett (comedy about trying to protect a mother whose son might be gay.) 

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingste (mystery about children seized from their southern home and not returned)

Destinations for Bookworms

A fun article that could give us ideas for future book club travels.
 https://www.fodors.com/news/photos/11-travel-destinations-bookworms-need-to-go-to-before-they-die
Mary

Milwaukee on C-Span

This will include a segment airing on Book TV-today, Saturday!  It will also be available on the c-span website c-span.org/series/?citiesTour
https://www.jsonline.com/story/entertainment/television-radio/2019/05/16/c-span-dives-into-milwaukees-history-cultural-life-weekend/3686138002/

More award winners-Pulitzer’s announced this week

The Overstory

By Richard Powers

National Book Award winner Richard Powers’s twelfth novel is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of—and paean to—the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, The Overstory unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours—vast, slow, interconnected, 

resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

And 

Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom

By David W. Blight

The definitive, dramatic biography of the most important African American of the nineteenth century: Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave who became the greatest orator of his day and one of the leading abolitionists and writers of the era.

As a young man Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) escaped from slavery in Baltimore, Maryland. He was fortunate to have been taught to read by his slave owner mistress, and he would go on to become one of the major literary figures of his time. He wrote three versions of his autobiography over the course of his lifetime and published his own newspaper. His very existence gave the lie to slave owners: with dignity and great intelligence he bore witness to the brutality of slavery.