May Meeting Reads

June Friday Favorites List

 

Our new list, hot off the presses.  A bit late, since Carol has been on vacation and the start of the summer is a busy time at the library!  But here it is finally.  In other news, the Friday Favorites book group has decided to continue meeting through the summer this year.  Our July meeting will be on July 11th at 11am (that's a lot of 11s).  We hope to see you there!

Friday Favorites - February meeting

Hi readers,
We celebrated the 2nd anniversary of our book sharing group on Friday, Feb. 7th.  It's hard to believe that we've been meeting that long, but it has been a fun 2 years talking about books and reading.  Our list this month is here, and I hope that you will join us next month and tell us about your favorite books, new or old!  We meet on the first Friday of each month at 11am.

 

Friday Favorites September 6th list

What People Are Reading Now— 
Recommendations from our Sept. 2013 book group meeting

 

FICTION

~ Crazy Rich Asians, by Kevin Kwan

~ Death comes to Pemberley, by P. D. James

~ Joyland, by Stephen King

~ Palisades Park, by Alan Brennert

~ The Round House, by Louise Erdrich

~ The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller

NON-FICTION

~ Kinsey and Me, by Sue Grafton

~ Long Walk to Freedom, by Nelson Mandela

~ The Richard Burton Diaries, by Richard Burton

Our next meeting will be Friday, October 4th at 11am.  We hope you can join us and tell us about the book you're reading!

Friday Favorites June 7th meeting

What People Are Reading Now—

 Recommendations from our  June 2013 Friday Favorites Book Group meeting
 

 

FICTION

~The Beauty of Humanity Movement, by Camilla Gibb

~ Call me Zelda, by Erika Robuck

~A Different Sun, by Elaine Neil Orr

~ Fever, by Mary Beth Keane

~ Little Bee, by Chris Cleave

~ The Things that Keep us Here, by Carla Buckley

~Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, Therese Fowler

NON-FICTION

~ What my mother gave me : thirty-one women on the gifts that mattered most, by Elizabeth Benedict

~You Had me at Woof, by Julie Klam

We will be taking a break during the summer months, July and August.  Have a great summer everyone and we hope to see you at our first meeting of the fall on September 6th!

Friday Favorites May meeting

What People Are Reading Now

Recommendations from our  May 2013 Friday Favorites Book Group meeting

FICTION 

~ Blindness, by Jose Saramago

~ Habits of the House, by Fay Weldon

~ The Imposter Bride,by Nancy Richler

~ Telling the Bees, by Peggy Hesketh

~ The Painted Girls, by Cathy Marie Buchanan

NON-FICTION

~ Bossypants, by Tina Fey

~ The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot

~ My Ideal Bookshelf, by Jane Mount

~ Tiny Beautiful Things, by Cheryl Strayed

Next meeting: Friday, June 7th @ 11am

Friday Favorites-April 2013 meeting

What People Are Reading Now

Recommendations from our  April  2013 Friday Favorites Book Group meeting

———————————————————-———-

FICTION 

~ The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein

~ Flight Behavior, by Barbara Kingsolver

~ God’s Mountain, by Erri De Luca

~ The Midwife of Hope River, by Patricia Harman

~ See Now Then, by Jamaica Kincaid

~The 13 Clocks, by James Thurber

~White Dog Fell from the Sky, by Eleanor Morse

NON-FICTION

~ How to Live : a Search for Wisdom from Old People (while they are still

on this earth), by Henry Alford

~ Island Practice : cobblestone rash,underground Tom, and other adventures of a Nantucket doctor,

by Pam Belluck

~My Beloved World, by Sonia Sotomayor

Our next meeting will be Friday, May 3rd at 11am.  See you there!

Friday Favorites -- March meeting recommendations

Hi all,

We had another productive exchange of great reading ideas on March 1st.  The invitation is always there for those of you who have not already attended one of our book sharing group meetings.  For more information about the group, look at earlier posts on this blog, and for a complete list of the books that have been recommended so far, you can look at the sidebar.  

Happy reading, and then come to our next meeting, on Friday April 5 @ 11am and tell us about what you read!

What People Are Reading Now—Recommendations from our  March 2013 Friday Favorites Book Group meeting
———————————————————-———-

FICTION 

~Art In America, Ron McLarty

~ A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Mark Twain

~The Cove, Ron Rash

~The House I Loved, Tatiana de Rosnay

~Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins

~Light on Snow, Anita Shreve

~Lost Memory of Skin, Russell Banks

~Lucia, Lucia, Adriana Trigiani

~Perla, Carolina De Robertis

~Pilate’s Wife, Antoinette May

~Plautus in the Convent,

Conrad Ferdinand

~Schroder, Amity Gaige

~The Suspect, Robert Crais

~The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, C. Alan Bradley

~The Uninvited Guests, Sadie Jones

NON-FICTION

~The Swerve, Stephen Greenblatt

Book Club Fieldtrip

On Monday, August 3 the George Hail Book Club (Books on Main) went on a field trip to the Adams National Historical Park in Quincy, MA. The park tells the story of four generations of the Adams family (from 1720 to 1927) - including the birthplaces of the 2nd President, John Adams and his son, John Quincy Adams, who served as the 6th president of the United States.

This trip was prompted by the book, Assassination Vacation by SarahVowell, which the book club read in June. After reading about the historic sites associated with the first 3 Presidents to be assassinated (Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley), the book group members were inspired to visit the Adams homes in nearby Quincy.

I'm pleased to report that we all had a wonderful time touring the sites, talking to the the guide at the Church of the Presidents, and perusing the multitude of books available at the visitor's center.


The first stop on our tour was the Birthplace of John Adams. He was born in this house in 1735 to Deacon John Adams and his wife Susanna Boylston. The house itself was built ca. 1681.

John Adams Birthplace

John Adams lived in the house above until the death of his father in 1761. At that time he moved into the Belcher house (below) which his father had purchased in 1744. The Belcher house is situated a mere 75 yards from John Adams birthplace at it was here that he brought his bride, Abigail Adams, in 1764. It was also here that John and Abigail's first son, John Quincy Adams, was born in 1767.

=Belcher House, birthplace of John Quincy Adams

In 1788, John and Abigail Adams purchased the Vassall-Borland Estate and renamed it Peace field. It was here that four generations of the Adams family found refuge from public life. In 1946, Peace field was donated to the people of the United States under the stewardship of the National Park Service. This donation was made by the Memorial Society, consisting of members of the Adams Family. Because the house was donated by the Adams family, it remains as it was when the Adams family lived there. All the artifacts in the house are original to it and they all belonged to members of the Adams family - going all the way back to John and Abigail Adams. Fascinating!

Peace field

While the house itself was fascinating, the members of the book club were most impressed and excited by the The Stone Library that was built in 1870 by Charles Francis Adams, the son of John Quincy. Imagine having your own library building in your yard! Pure heaven. The Stone Library consists of 12,000 volumes collected by four generations of the Adams family. Unfortunately, photos were not allowed inside the library, but believe me when I say it was gorgeous and stately.

The Stone Library

No trip to a library by a group of bookworms would be complete with a picture of said bookworms in front of the library. Here we are in front of The Stone Library. Don't we all look excited?

Karen, Barbara, Jean, Jane and Me

The last site we visited was The Church of the Presidents. This church was built to replace the Hancock Meeting House, where John and Abigail Adams worshipped. John Quincy Adams and his wife Louisa did worship in The Church of the Presidents and John Quincy's funeral was held here. The church is also the burial place of John and John Quincy Adams and their wives Abigail Adams and Louisa Catherine Adams.

The Church of the Presidents

Needless to say we had a wonderful day. It was such a success there is some talk about the possibility of planning future field trip. Are you interested? We are always happy to welcome new members to Books on Main. Please join us. You don't want to miss out on all the fun, do you? Our next meeting is August 26 at 6:30 pm. Hope to see you there!