JOIN IN FOR FEBRUARY BOOK CLUB MEETING 

We plan to meet next at 5:30 PM at Giuseppi's (in Shelter Cove) on Wednesday, February 26, 2025. (Please note this is a change from our regular meeting day, which is normally the 3rd Tuesday of the month.)

If you plan to come to this meeting, please click on the event in our event calendar and register.  By registering you help us in coordinating with the restaurant and also enable us to contact you via email in case of any last-minute changes due to unforeseen circumstances that may come up.

On the 26th, we will discuss White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy by Schaller & Waldman.

A searing portrait and damning takedown of America's proudest citizens -- who are also the least likely to defend its core principles.  

White rural voters hold the greatest electoral sway of any demographic group in the US, yet rural communities suffer from poor healthcare access, failing infrastructure, and severe manufacturing and farming job losses. Rural voters believe our nation has betrayed them, and to some degree, they're right. In White Rural Rage, Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman explore why rural Whites have failed to reap the benefits from their outsized political power and why, as a result, they are the most likely group to abandon democratic norms and traditions. Their rage -- stoked daily by Republican politicians and the conservative media -- now poses an existential threat to the US.

Schaller and Waldman provocatively critique both the structures that permit rural Whites' disproportionate influence over American governance and the prospects for creating a pluralist, inclusive democracy that delivers policy solutions that benefit rural communities. They conclude with a political reimagining that offers a better future for both rural people and the rest of America.

Looking Ahead to March

In March, we will discuss:

Patriot: A Memoir by Alexander Navalny

Alexei Navalny began writing Patriot shortly after his near-fatal poisoning in 2020. It is the full story of his life: his youth, his call to activism, his marriage and family, his commitment to challenging a world super-power determined to silence him, and his total conviction that change cannot be resisted—and will come.

In vivid, page-turning detail, including never-before-seen correspondence from prison, Navalny recounts, among other things, his political career, the many attempts on his life, and the lives of the people closest to him, and the relentless campaign he and his team waged against an increasingly dictatorial regime.

Written with the passion, wit, candor, and bravery for which he was justly acclaimed, Patriot is Navalny’s final letter to the world: a moving account of his last years spent in the most brutal prison on earth; a reminder of why the principles of individual freedom matter so deeply; and a rousing call to continue the work for which he sacrificed his life.

Looking Further Ahead to April

In April, we will discuss:

Midnight in Moscow: A Memoir from the Front Lines of Russia's War with the West, by John Sullivan 

A memoir of service by the most recent U.S. ambassador to Moscow who was on the diplomatic front lines when Putin invaded Ukraine, Sullivan offers a memoir of his last post, as well as a broader argument about how our relationship with Russia has deteriorated over the past three years and where it’s going.

His arrival in Moscow coincided exactly with a dramatic series of escalations by the Kremlin. He saw firsthand how the Russian leadership repeatedly lied about their intentions to invade Ukraine in the weeks leading up to the attack—while also devoting substantial numbers of personnel and vast resources to undermining the U.S. diplomatic presence in Russia. But it was not until Vladimir Putin gave the order to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 25, 2022 that Sullivan had to admit that Russia was not just at war with itself, it was also at war, in a very real sense, with the United States, and with everything that it represents.

Russian leaders’ treachery and naked hostility, he says, is definitive proof that there can be no negotiation with Putin’s regime or with the Russians at large until their government is thoroughly transformed. A unique perspective on a pivotal moment in world history, Midnight in Moscow also draws shocking historical parallels to explain why we need to stand up to Moscow—and how far we should be prepared to go in that confrontation.

Reminder

Please forward your recommendations for future reads to Elliot at 4esiegel@gmail.com.