Welcome to Small Town Readers 

Reminders, News and Updates:

Small Town Readers' next meeting is this month, May 31, 2009 -- three o'clock, 3988 Post Road. 

We're reading Ron Rash's Serena this month, available from Amazon.com or Half.com, as well the usual bookstores that we bibliophiles are known to haunt.   

Amazon.com Review:

The year is 1929, and newlyweds George and Serena Pemberton travel from Boston to the North Carolina mountains where they plan to create a timber empire. Although George has already lived in the camp long enough to father an illegitimate child, Serena is new to the mountains--but she soon shows herself to be the equal of any man, overseeing crews, hunting rattle-snakes, even saving her husband's life in the wilderness. Together this lord and lady of the woodlands ruthlessly kill or vanquish all who fall out of favor. Yet when Serena learns that she will never bear a child, she sets out to murder the son George fathered without her. Mother and child begin a struggle for their lives, and when Serena suspects George is protecting his illegitimate family, the Pembertons' intense, passionate marriage starts to unravel as the story moves toward its shocking reckoning.

Rash's masterful balance of violence and beauty yields a riveting novel that, at its core, tells of love both honored and betrayed.

• Members--and future members as well--are invited to take a look at our website, developed with pbworks -- please note name change and new web address.  It is as easy as it looks to read, edit, and "the administrator" [a.k.a., creator] invites ALL members to contribute and to make it interesting and worthwhile for everyone.  There is no end to the mistakes I can make when I set about computer creativity, so PLEASE, help make this page something we can share with new members as well as a page unique to our group. 

• There will be cheese, grapes, crackers, and tea, as always at our meeting.  Any additions you'd like to make are welcome, but not necessary.

See you all soon! 

STR Origin:

A little while ago, while I was wandering down the Yellow Brick Road, looking for that pesky girl and her dog,

an idea popped into my pointy hat . . .

Ahhhh!  The wonder and delight of fiction--that's what Small Town Readers -- STR -- is all about!  The true origin of this book group came when a couple of us started kicking the idea of a book group around a couple of years ago.  Sometimes living in a county full of red clay roads is fabulous; on the plus side, there's plenty of quiet time to read (or watch the life cycle of a blackberry bush), but there's often no one with whom to discuss books. A venue like http://www.goodreads.com/ is helpful, especially for finding a recommendation for an author or novel or to see what everyone else is reading, while some of us are grading esssays,  but even for bookworms, reading reviews is just not as satisfying as bouncing ideas around among intelligent, inventive people, and not nearly as much fun; thus, STR was born. 

Purpose &  Guidelines

Our goal is to read intelligent, contemporary fiction that has something to say about life, human nature, or the human condition, then meet to share our thoughts, ideas, insights, and various perspectives. Through a casual but deliberate discussion, led by different members, we hope to enrich our minds and broaden our friendships.  We have agreed to disagree during discussions, aware that not all our tastes or opinions are the same.  Nevertheless, while we may respectfully disagree, we do invite and consider opinions differing from our own, leaving our minds open, to  consider, perhaps later.  Members of STR suggest books of approximately 300 pages, plus or minus, that appeal to the intelligence of all members as well as their varied interests.  As much as we would like to devote more time to thoughtful reading, time is a precious commodity often in short supply and the lack of which sometimes limits our reading selections.  Small Town Readers currently meets the last Sunday of every other month at three o'clock at 3988 Post Road.