First Readers Book Club
June Book Club
Join us on Tuesday, June 14 for a discussion at First Christian Church at 10:00 AM
This month the featured book is News of the World by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray.
Books are available in the office.
Everyone is welcome.
It is 1870 and Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his rootless, solitary existence.
In Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johanna’s parents and sister; sparing the little girl, they raised her as one of their own. Recently rescued by the U.S. Army, the ten-year-old has once again been torn away from the only home she knows.
Their 400-mile journey south through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain proves difficult and at times dangerous. Johanna has forgotten the English language, tries to escape at every opportunity, throws away her shoes, and refuses to act “civilized.” Yet as the miles pass, the two lonely survivors tentatively begin to trust each other, forging a bond that marks the difference between life and death in this treacherous land.
Arriving in San Antonio, the reunion is neither happy nor welcome. The captain must hand Johanna over to an aunt and uncle she does not remember—strangers who regard her as an unwanted burden. A respectable man, Captain Kidd is faced with a terrible choice: abandon the girl to her fate or become—in the eyes of the law—a kidnapper himself. Exquisitely rendered and morally complex, News of the World is a brilliant work of historical fiction that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust.
In Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johanna’s parents and sister; sparing the little girl, they raised her as one of their own. Recently rescued by the U.S. Army, the ten-year-old has once again been torn away from the only home she knows.
Their 400-mile journey south through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain proves difficult and at times dangerous. Johanna has forgotten the English language, tries to escape at every opportunity, throws away her shoes, and refuses to act “civilized.” Yet as the miles pass, the two lonely survivors tentatively begin to trust each other, forging a bond that marks the difference between life and death in this treacherous land.
Arriving in San Antonio, the reunion is neither happy nor welcome. The captain must hand Johanna over to an aunt and uncle she does not remember—strangers who regard her as an unwanted burden. A respectable man, Captain Kidd is faced with a terrible choice: abandon the girl to her fate or become—in the eyes of the law—a kidnapper himself. Exquisitely rendered and morally complex, News of the World is a brilliant work of historical fiction that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust.
The book club meets each month on the second Tuesday from 10:00 AM – 11:30.
Books for the year
Here is the list of books we will be reading for the rest of the year:
September 14 This Tender Land
By William Kent Krueger
October 12 Book Woman of Troublesome Creek
By Kim Michele Richardson
November 9 Cup of Holiday Fear
By Ellie Alexander
December 14 The Book of Lost Friends
By Lisa Wingate
January 11 The Four Winds
By Kristin Hannah
February 8 The Only Woman in the Room
By Marie Benedict
March 8 Underground Railroad
By Colson Whitehead
April 12 Clementine
By Marie Benedict
May 10 The Personal Librarian
Heather Terrell and
Victoria Christopher Murray
June 14 News of the World
Paulette Jiles
July 12 Commonwealth
Ann Patchett
September 14 This Tender Land
By William Kent Krueger
October 12 Book Woman of Troublesome Creek
By Kim Michele Richardson
November 9 Cup of Holiday Fear
By Ellie Alexander
December 14 The Book of Lost Friends
By Lisa Wingate
January 11 The Four Winds
By Kristin Hannah
February 8 The Only Woman in the Room
By Marie Benedict
March 8 Underground Railroad
By Colson Whitehead
April 12 Clementine
By Marie Benedict
May 10 The Personal Librarian
Heather Terrell and
Victoria Christopher Murray
June 14 News of the World
Paulette Jiles
July 12 Commonwealth
Ann Patchett
