Moke Hill READS Book Club

May 6, 2017 by contributor

NEXT MEETING:  Tuesday June 6 — 7 PM, Moke Hill Library/Archives

BOOK:  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.

July 11, 2017 Hillbilly Elegy, by J.D. Vance.  This is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white, working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, is being reported on with growing frequency and alarm. J. D. Vance, former Marine and Yale Law School graduate, tells the story searingly from the inside, revealing what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.

August 1, 2017  Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood, by Trevor Noah. Trevor Noah –Jon Stewart’s successor on The Daily Show –began life in South Africa with a criminal act: he was born to a white Swiss-German father and a black Xhosa mother when such a union was punishable by imprisonment. To protect the family, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life. Liberated by the end of South Africa’s oppressive white rule, Trevor and his remarkable mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.

Moke Hill Reads Book Club:  First Tuesday of every month. No commitment, No attendance taken, No restrictions, No membership, No dues. For everyone interested in good books and discussions about them. Sponsored by the Mokelumne Hill Friends of the Library. Send your email address or watch for announcements on mokehill.org and other news sources. Contact Janet Dock:  janetdock@me.com