Village Readers Book Club
Join us as we discuss fiction and non-fiction with a Texas twist.
Questions? Contact Melissa Prycer, Director of Education at 214-413-3671.
Below are our 2011 choices.
March
Slaughter
by Elmer Kelton
Tuesday, March 22 at 6:00 pm
In the 1870s, buffalo hunters moved onto the High Plains of Texas. The Plains Indians watched
hunters slaughter the animals that gave them shelter and clothing, food and weapons. The battles
at and near the ruins of a trading fort, Adobe Walls, became symbolic of the struggles between
hunters and the Comanche. With a firm grasp of Comanche life, Kelton presents The People as
very human and very threatened. Equally clear is the picture of Anglos found on the high plains
in those days--Jeff Layne, a Confederate veteran and now a fugitive; Nigel Smithwick, an English
"second son" and gambler; Arletta, the lone woman among these men.
May
Ringside Seat to a Revolution: An Underground Cultural History of El Paso and Juarez, 1893-1923
by David Dorado Romo
Tuesday May 31 at 6:00 pm
Truly, the best seats in the house for watching the spectacle of the Mexican Revolution were
located along the Rio Grande in El Paso, Texas and its sister city Juárez, Chihuahua. Indeed,
these cities—like the city of Boston, Massachusetts, for the American Revolution—served as the
intellectual crucible for the Mexican Revolution. The heroes and images of this people’s uprising
still populate the border’s cultural landscape like ghosts. David Dorado Romo—a micro-historian,
a man with his feet on both sides of the Rio Grande—gives us new eyes and a re-imagined perspective
to witness these revolutionary years. Through detailed research, archival photographs and great
storytelling, he relates the history of a long-ignored cultural and political renaissance that was
born of the conflict to depose the Díaz Regime and the bloody struggles that followed.
July
An Illuminated Life: Belle da Costa Greene's Journey from Prejudice to Privilege
by Heidi Ardizzone
Tuesday, July 26 at 6:00 pm
The secret life of the sensational woman behind the Morgan masterpieces, who lit up New York society.
What would you give up to achieve your dream? When J. P. Morgan hired Belle da Costa Greene in 1905 to
organize his rare book and manuscript collection, she had only her personality and a few years of
experience to recommend her. Ten years later, she had shaped the famous Pierpont Morgan Library collection
and was a proto-celebrity in New York and the art world, renowned for her self-made expertise, her acerbic
wit, and her flirtatious relationships. Born to a family of free people of color, Greene changed her name
and invented a Portuguese grandmother to enter white society. In her new world, she dined both at the
tables of the highest society and with bohemian artists and activists.
September
The Personal History of Rachel DuPree
by Ann Wiesgarber
Tuesday, September 27 at 6:00 pm
Enamored of Isaac DuPree and desperate for a life beyond that of boardinghouse cook, Rachel accepts a
deal proffered by Isaac: join him in settling 160 acres of land offered by the Homestead Act in the wilds
of South Dakota. Fourteen years later, she looks back over her life, the dreams and longing of a young
woman versus the harsh reality of a wife and mother living in an unforgiving territory. After months of
drought, the land, the animals, and her children are parched and on the brink. She herself is on the brink,
pregnant again and coping with Isaac’s obsession with the land, the cruel demands on their five young children,
and the isolation of being one of the few black families in the territory.
Previous Favorite Reads
- The Time It Never Rained by Elmer Kelton
- Goodbye to a River by John Graves
- Sleuthing the Alamo: Davy Crockett's Last Stand and Other Mysteries of the Texas Revolution by James Crisp
- Hill Country by Janice Woods Windle
- Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz
- Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong by James W. Loewen.
- Revolution in Texas: How a Forgotten Rebellion and Its Bloody Suppression turned Mexicans into Americans by Ben Johnson.
- A Woman of Independent Means by Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey
- Bold Spirit: Helga Estby's Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America by Linda Lawrence Hunt and Sue Armitage
Questions? Contact Melissa Prycer, Director of Education at 214-413-3671.
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