Moke Hill READS Book Club

Mar 21, 2017 by contributor

NEXT MEETING:  Tuesday April 4 — 7 PM, Moke Hill Library/Archives

 

April 4, 2017 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.   Henrietta Lacks, a poor black tobacco farmer, whose cells were taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, and more. ”Henrietta’s cells” have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown. This phenomenal New York Times bestseller tells a riveting story of the collision between ethics, race, medicine and scientific discovery.

 

May 2, 2017 America’s First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie Patsy Jefferson knows that her father loves his family dearly and that his devotion to his country runs deeper still. As Thomas Jefferson’s oldest daughter, she becomes his helpmate, protector, and constant companion in the wake of her mother’s death, traveling with him when he becomes American minister to France. From Paris to Virginia and on to the White House, Patsy must decide, as scandal, tragedy, and poverty threaten her family, how much she will sacrifice to protect her father’s reputation, in the process defining not just his political legacy, but that of the nation he founded.

 

June 6, 2017 The Wright Brothers by David McCullough

The Age of Flight began on December 17, 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Wilbur and Orville Wright’s “Wright Flyer” became the first powered, heavier-than-air machine to achieve controlled, sustained flight with a pilot aboard. How did they do it? And why? David McCullough tells the extraordinary and truly American story of two brothers who changed the world. He draws on extensive Wright family papers to profile not only the brothers but their sister, Katharine, without whom things might well have gone differently for them.