You don’t realize just how MUCH you enjoy something until it’s taken away. I’m speaking of BOOK CLUB! This is our 2nd meeting post pandemic. I have to say, I relish these women and our meetings!
We met at Diane’s (thanks button!) lovely home! As people filtered in we gathered our nibbles and libations and began. Author Bio HERE is first – then we delve into book club questions. The complete and entire THRILL of book club for me – is that you NEVER know where the path of conversations will lead you!
FOR ME personall (Kimy) – I knew of the Great Depression – however I learned so much from the book re: dust storms, the FDR plans in place, the movement to California for work. The way people TREATED these poor farmers and workers was completely horrible.
Exceprt from AMAZON on the book:
“The Four Winds seems eerily prescient in 2021 . . . Its message is galvanizing and hopeful: We are a nation of scrappy survivors. We’ve been in dire straits before; we will be again. Hold your people close.”―The New York Times
“A spectacular tour de force that shines a spotlight on the indispensable but often overlooked role of Greatest Generation women.”―People
“Through one woman’s survival during the harsh and haunting Dust Bowl, master storyteller, Kristin Hannah, reminds us that the human heart and our Earth are as tough, yet as fragile, as a change in the wind.” ―Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing
From the number-one bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone comes a powerful American epic about love and heroism and hope, set during the Great Depression, a time when the country was in crisis and at war with itself, when millions were out of work and even the land seemed to have turned against them.
“My land tells its story if you listen. The story of our family.”
Texas, 1921. A time of abundance. The Great War is over, the bounty of the land is plentiful, and America is on the brink of a new and optimistic era. But for Elsa Wolcott, deemed too old to marry in a time when marriage is a woman’s only option, the future seems bleak. Until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli and decides to change the direction of her life. With her reputation in ruin, there is only one respectable choice: marriage to a man she barely knows.
By 1934, the world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as crops fail and water dries up and the earth cracks open. Dust storms roll relentlessly across the plains. Everything on the Martinelli farm is dying, including Elsa’s tenuous marriage; each day is a desperate battle against nature and a fight to keep her children alive.
In this uncertain and perilous time, Elsa―like so many of her neighbors―must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California, in search of a better life for her family.
The Four Winds is a rich, sweeping novel that stunningly brings to life the Great Depression and the people who lived through it―the harsh realities that divided us as a nation and the enduring battle between the haves and the have-nots. A testament to hope, resilience, and the strength of the human spirit to survive adversity, The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.
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We have some GREAT books coming up for the rest of 2021 – make sure you follow our blog so that you don’t miss a book! Authors are hopeful to be present! Ahem!
To books, friends and the wine that brings out the BEST conversations! — Kimy Kennedy #kimyquote #birminghamliterarysociety
Birmingham Literary Society 