2019 BOOK CLUB SELECTIONS
JANUARY – THE CROPS LOOK GOOD by Sara DeLuca
When Margaret Williamson left her family's rural Wisconsin farm to work in Minneapolis in 1923, her mother, Olava, wrote regularly with updates about daily activities: laundry, bread baking, plowing, planting, and harvesting the crops. Sometimes she enclosed a note from seven- year- old Helen, who reported on school and shenanigans and how she longed to see Margaret again.
So begins decades of stories about a family at once singular— with personal joys and challenges— and broadly representative of the countless small farms that dotted the midwestern landscape in the early twentieth century. As Margaret's niece Sara DeLuca weaves together family tales gleaned from letters and conversations, we learn of births and deaths, of innovations like the automobile, radio, and telephone that drew rural communities together, and of national and international events that brought home stone- hard truths. Depression- era farmers struggled to keep their land and feed their livestock; many failed. During wartime, this family made do just like everyone else.
The tale that emerges is one of fierce devotion to family and work, of a changing landscape as smaller farms became part of conglomerates, and of the comforting daily rhythms of life shared with those who know us best.
FEBRUARY – WONDER by R. J. Palacio
MARCH – YOU ARE A BADASS: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness by Jen Sincero
APRIL – A PIECE OF THE WORLD by Christina Baker Kline
MAY – LUCY BARTON by Elizabeth Strout
JUNE – THE DINNER by Herman Koch
JULY- HOUSE GIRL by Tara Conklin
AUGUST – RADIUM GIRLS by Kate Moore
SEPTEMBER – HILLBILLY ELEGY by J. D. Vance
OCTOBER AND NOVEMBER TO BE DETERMINED