May Book Club Selections

On Wednesday, May 9th, the Seniors book club will be discussing Blade of Grass by Lewis DeSoto.

In South Africa not long ago, rich, arable land is offered cheaply to anyone willing to take the risk of living on or close to dangerous borders. So it happens that Ben Laurens, an Englishman with a passion for farming, brings new bride Marit to one such border farm with dreams of raising crops and a family on his own land. The dream is short-lived as antiwhite violence erupts and most of the villagers decamp for safer places. Marit, a woman raised in privilege and unaccustomed to manual labor, is determined to remain on the farm with her black maid, Tembi. Their resolve is tested, first by hostile workers and then by suspicious strangers, natural predators, and the elements. Their relationship, which begins as master and slave, evolves through mutual dependence into friendship and, as their difficulties mount, deteriorates again into suspicion and hostility. -- Library Journal

The Monday Evening group is doing the classic East of Eden by John Steinbeck, Oprah's first classic book pick.

This sprawling and often brutal novel, set in the rich farmlands of California's Salinas Valley, follows the intertwined destinies of two families--the Trasks and the Hamiltons--whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. "A strange and original work of art."--New York Times Book Review

First published in 1952, East of Eden is the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence, a masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years. -- publisher