Paul Knopick
The Just Good Readin’ Book Club, Robson Ranch’s oldest, will discuss Michelle Shocklee’s Under the Tulip Tree on Monday, Sept. 14 in the clubhouse, one Monday after Labor Day. All are invited.
A 16-year-old, Rena, dreams of being a writer, dreams dashed when the stock market crashes in 1929 and her family falls apart. Eager for any writing job, Rena accepts a position interviewing former slaves for the Federal Writers’ Project. She meets Frankie Washington, a 101-year-old woman, with a tragic past that includes ancestors who owned slaves.
It is a nuanced and relevant tale of faith, injustice and reconciliation.
On Monday, Oct. 5, the Club will discuss Shelley Read’s Go as a River, a national bestseller, a favorite of book clubs, and called a “global sensation” with more than one million copies sold.
It is a tragic but uplifting novel of love and loss, family and survival and, most importantly, hope. How do you find courage, resilience, friendship and home in the face of hardship and loss?
Set in the Colorado highlands, it teaches to live your life as a river, gathering and flowing, even in the face of an unwanted dam.
On Monday Nov. 2, Robson Ranch’s Club will discuss A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell, who, it turned out, was a woman of great importance, an American spy who played a role in winning World War II.
A New York Times bestseller, selling well over a million copies, and chosen as the best book of the year, it is a compelling true story of a masterful spy and a reminder of what can be accomplished by a few brave people.
In 1942, the German Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: “She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her.”
The target was Virginia Hall, who became the first Allied woman deployed behind enemy lines and—despite her prosthetic leg—helped to revolutionize secret warfare.
She established vast spy networks throughout France, called weapons and explosives down from the skies, and became a linchpin for the Resistance. She led a victorious guerilla campaign, liberating swathes of France from the Nazis after D-Day.
This is an astounding and inspiring story of heroism, spycraft, resistance and personal triumph over shocking adversity.