Hi everyone, I’m finding it interesting in this strange, pandemic year that we area living in; that being home bound so much, one can still be super busy. I’m just not getting to typing up in-depth notes to the last two book club meetings and have thought that perhaps in-depth notes are not needed – I do tend to throw in everything but the kitchen sink when I write – brevity is hard for me! But just perhaps, readers of this blog only really want a brief description of the past reading selections; so briefly, in October and November our reading selections were, respectively, Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson and The Splendid And The Vile by Erik Larson.
Just Mercy was written by lawyer and civil rights activist Bryan Stevenson, and chronicles his career as a lawyer beginning when he was a young graduate, making his first visit to a prisoner in prison in Alabama and having an epiphany; that many prisoners were unfairly and illegally treated and had no legal representation. Stephenson realized that he could both connect with them in person, which they needed, and work to get them fair sentences or get them released if they were unjustly convicted of a crime.
Stephenson founded the Equal Justice Initiative to work on alleviating injustices in the legal system in the south; and he discusses many people in the book who are discriminated against by the legal system, particularly those living in poverty, including African Americans, women and the mentally ill.
Stephenson uses one prisoner as a prime illustration of the injustices of the legal system; his name is Walter McMillian. McMillian is a black man who was convicted of murdering a white woman by the local police. The police, who were having a hard time solving the murder, were desperate to turn press and government heat off themselves and used McMillan as a scapegoat. McMillan was tried and convicted of the murder, despite the fact that he couldn’t have committed the crime as he was as a barbeque surrounded by many eyewitnesses at the time the murder occurred. And despite what would seem to be an open and shut case of injustice – it took Stephenson years to get McMillian’s conviction overturned.
The book club attendees all concurred Just Mercy was an enlightening read focusing on injustices in the U.S. legal system – and that we as a nation have to do better.
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The November reading selection The Splendid And The Vile written by Erik Larson, chronicles the life of Winston Churchill, his family and select individuals involved the British government and war effort in that pivotal year of 1940. Ninety forty was Churchill’s first year as Prime Minster, the year Germany invaded France, France surrendered to the Germans, thousands of British and French soldiers made a hasty departure from Dunkirk, France to England, the German Luftwaffe repeatedly bombed England and Churchill did his best to encourage the isolationist U.S., represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to join in the war effort.
The book is a terrific read because, although many, many books have been written about Churchill, this one gives us a fly on the wall perspective via firsthand accounts from Churchill himself, his wife Clementine, his youngest daughter Mary, other members of the British government and others individuals showing us what life was like for people living in Britain in 1940. Mary Churchill, the future Lady Mary Soames, describes what it was like as a young person, of the upper social classes, to dine out and go dancing and then walk home in the wee hours of the morning through blackout darkened streets. And Churchill’s private secretary John Coville, described a Luftwaffe bombing of London in great detail, with the follow long and eloquent quote for his private journal “The Night was cloudless and starry, with the moon rising over Westminster. Nothing could have been more beautiful and the searchlights interlaced at certain points on the horizon the star-like flashes in the sky where shells were bursting the light of distant fires, all added to the scene. It was magnificent and terrible: the spasmodic drone of enemy aircraft overhead; the thunder of gunfire, sometimes close sometimes in the distance; the illumination, like that of electric trains in peace-time as the guns fire; and the myriad stars, real and artificial, in the firmament. Never was there such a contrast of natural splendor and human vileness. “
The book club members all agreed the Larson book was a very accessible one with readers getting to know the individuals whose firsthand accounts fill the pages of the book. The Splendid and the Vile, it was agreed, was a very interesting read, and highly recommended for history fans, albeit a bit long for a book club at 546 pages over 101 chapters.
The book club members agreed that in the future, we’ll keep our book club reading selections under 500 pages if at all possible!
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Our next book club gathering will be via Zoom on Friday, December 11, 2020.
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The SSCL Adult Book Club Reading List: December 2020 – May 2021
Book club meetings are on the second Friday of each month at 3:00 p.m. and patrons can register via the calendar page on the library’s website found here https://www.ssclibrary.org/activities/
December 2020: A Time For Mercy by John Grisham (465 pages)
January 2021: The Cold Millions by Jess Walter (352 pages)
February 2021: One by One by Ruth Ware (383 pages)
March 2021: Homeland Elegies: A Novel by Ayad Akhtar (369 pages)
April 2021: The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett (352 pages)
May 2021: The Boy in the Field by Margot Livesey (268 pages)
Have a great day,
Linda
SSCL Book Club for Adults 