CHB Book Club

Irene Redfield is living an affluent, enviable life with her husband and children in the thriving African American enclave of Harlem in the 1920s. That is, until she runs into her childhood friend, Clare Kendry. Since they last saw each other, Clare, who is similarly light-skinned, has been “passing” for a white woman, married to a racist man who does not know about his wife’s real identity, which she has chosen to hide from the rest of the world.

From the beet fields of North Dakota to the National Forest campgrounds of California to Amazon’s CamperForce program in Texas, employers have discovered a new, low-cost labor pool, made up largely of transient older Americans. Finding that social security comes up short, often underwater on mortgages, these invisible casualties of the Great Recession have taken to the road by the tens of thousands in late-model RVs, travel trailers, and vans, forming a growing community of nomads: migrant laborers who call themselves “workampers.”

How weird is nostalgia? It's a universal feeling that we all feel and that we can all describe, but for each of us our experience of it is totally unique. It's probably the most sorrowful yet exuberant, banal yet dangerous experience that we all share and on Thursday the 25th we're going to dig into it and discuss the rollercoaster that is the concept of nostalgia with David Berry's On Nostalgia!

To join our discussion or to recieve notifications of future book club events email john@cavalierhousebooks.com

Will you be joining us on August 29th to discuss The Song of Achilles? Sophie is hosting book club this month and she is certain that once you pick this one up you will not be able to put it down! Madeline Miller's novel is one that truly broke her heart and she has returned to it time and again since her initial read!