They are the silos that feed the mind, nourishing and energizing it.” – Elbert Hubbard
Join the Roycroft Campus as we follow in the footsteps of Elbert Hubbard and immerse ourselves in the love of literature. Throughout the year we will read contemporary bestsellers, historical non-fiction, and perhaps even a little Hubbard himself culminating in a discussion at the Roycroft Power House.
2018 Book Titles
JANUARY 2018
BOOK DISCUSSION - Wednesday, January 10th at 7:00pm
The Wonder - By Emma Donoghue
Tourists flock to the cabin of eleven-year-old Anna O'Donnell, who is said to be living without food, and a journalist is sent to cover the sensation. Lib Wright, a veteran of Florence Nightingale's Crimean campaign, is hired to keep watch over the girl. As Anna's life ebbs away, Lib finds herself responsible not just for the care of a child but for that child's very survival. Haunting and magnetic, The Wonder is a searing examination of doubt, faith, and what nourishes us, body and soul. Written with all the propulsive tension that made Donoghue’s Room a huge bestseller, it works beautifully on many levels -- an intimate tale of two strangers who transform each other's lives, a powerful psychological thriller, and a spellbinding story of love pitted against evil.
MARCH 2018
BOOK DISCUSSION - Wednesday, March 7th at 7:00pm
The Electrifying Fall of Rainbow City: Spectacle and Assassination at the 1901 World's Fair - By Margaret Creighton
In 1901, Buffalo, New York, the eighth biggest city in America, wanted to launch the new century with the Pan American Exposition. It would showcase the Western hemisphere and bring millions of people to western New York. With Niagara Falls as a drawing card and with stunning colors and electric lights, promoters believed it would be bigger, better, and literally more brilliant than Chicago's White City of 1893. Weaving together narratives of both notorious and forgotten figures, Margaret Creighton unveils the fair's big tragedy and its lesser-known scandals. From a deranged laborer who stalked and shot President William McKinley to a sixty-year-old woman who rode a barrel over Niagara Falls, to two astonishing acts, a little person and an elephant who turned the tables on their duplicitous manager, Creighton reveals the myriad power struggles that would personify modern America. The Buffalo fair announced the new century, but in ways nobody expected.
MAY 2018
BOOK DISCUSSION - Wednesday, May 9th at 7:00pm
The Handmaid's Tale - By Margaret Atwood
The story is told through the eyes of Offred, one of the unfortunate Handmaids under the new social order. In condensed but eloquent prose, by turns cool-eyed, tender, despairing, passionate, and wry, she reveals to us the dark corners behind the establishment’s calm facade, as certain tendencies now in existence are carried to their logical conclusions. The Handmaid's Tale is funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing. It is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and a tour de force. It is Margaret Atwood at her best.
June 2018
BOOK DISCUSSION - Wednesday, June 20th at 7:00pm
The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry - By Gabrielle Zevin
A. J. Fikry’s life is not at all what he expected it to be. He lives alone, his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history, and now his prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, has been stolen. But when a mysterious package appears at the bookstore, its unexpected arrival gives Fikry the chance to make his life over--and see everything anew.
SEPTEMBER 2018
BOOK DISCUSSION - Wednesday, September 12th at 7:00pm
Killers of the Flower Moon - By David Grann
In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. As the death toll climbed to more than twenty-four, the FBI took up the case. It was one of the organization’s first major homicide investigations and the bureau badly bungled the case. Author David Grann revisits a shocking series of crimes in which dozens of people were murdered in cold blood. Based on years of research and startling new evidence, the book is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, as each step in the investigation reveals a series of sinister secrets and reversals. But more than that, it is a searing indictment of the callousness and prejudice toward American Indians that allowed the murderers to operate with impunity for so long.
NOVEMBER 2018
BOOK DISCUSSION - Wednesday, November 14th at 7:00pm
What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women and the Food That Tells Their Stories - By Laura Shaparo
Everyone eats, and food touches on every aspect of our lives—social and cultural, personal and political. Yet most biographers pay little attention to people’s attitudes toward food, as if the great and notable never bothered to think about what was on the plate in front of them. Once we ask how somebody relates to food, we find a whole world of different and provocative ways to understand her. Food stories can be as intimate and revealing as stories of love, work, or coming-of-age. Each of the six women in this entertaining group portrait was famous in her time, and most are still famous in ours; but until now, nobody has told their lives from the point of view of the kitchen and the table. They include Dorothy Wordsworth, whose food story transforms our picture of the life she shared with her famous poet brother; Rosa Lewis, the Edwardian-era Cockney caterer who cooked her way up the social ladder; Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady and rigorous protector of the worst cook in White House history; Eva Braun, Hitler’s mistress, who challenges our warm associations of food, family, and table; Barbara Pym, whose witty books upend a host of stereotypes about postwar British cuisine; and Helen Gurley Brown, the editor of Cosmopolitan, whose commitment to “having it all” meant having almost nothing on the plate except a supersized portion of diet gelatin.
Past Books
2017
Commonwealth - By Ann Patchett
Underground Airlines - By Ben Winters
The Book of Speculation - By Erika Swyler
Leaving Before the Rains Come - By Alexandra Fuller
Grandma Gatewood's Walk - By Ben Montgomery
The Lady in Gold - Anne-Marie O'Conner
2016
All the Light We Can Not See - By Anthony Doerr
West with the Night - By Beryl Markham
Shop Class as Soul Craft - By Matthew B. Crawford
The Alchemist - By Paulo Coelho
Station Eleven - By Emily St. John Mandel
A Fierce Radiance - By Lauren Belfer
2015
Two in the Far North - By Margaret Murie
The Secret History of Wonder Woman - By Jill Lepore
Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy - By Diana Preston
Legendary Locals of East Aurora - By Rob Goller
Let the Great World Spin - By Colum McCann
2014
And the Mountains Echoed - By Khaled Hosseini
The Red Badge of Courage - By Stephen Crane
In the Garden of Beasts - By Erik Larson
Thomas Jefferson:The Art of Power - By Jon Meacham and Little Journeys:Thomas Jefferson - By Elbert Hubbard