Join a book club – any book club

To the editor,

In 2015, Sustainable Warwick started the Sustainable World Book Club. Looking back on our 11 years of reading, it has been a surprisingly wonderful experience. Some participants have come and gone, but a handful of us have been reading and discussing books together for more than a decade.

One of my cousins has been seen driving around with a bumper sticker from his alma mater, Bethany College. But he cut off the first four letters and thus is promoting “ANY COLLEGE.” In the same spirit, while I feel our book club is outstanding, there are lots of good reasons for joining ANY BOOK CLUB:

Books by nature have a volume of knowledge that is not easily replicated in other formats.Reading books on a club’s reading list often makes us read books we wouldn’t normally have picked out ourselves, which broadens our thinking.Having a monthly deadline helps to pace reading, while having a soft deadline takes the pressure off. Reading a book and sharing responses with others enhances both what one gets from the book and social connections with club members. In this age when so many of us lack strong social connections, a book club can be a valuable resource.All of the local libraries have book clubs and reading circles, and they regularly request extra copies of books through the Ramapo Catskill Library System to support them.

The Sustainable World Book Club meets the second Tuesday of every month via Zoom at 3 p.m. (bookclub@sustainablewarwick.org). To get the Zoom codes, sign up at the Wisner Library Reference Desk. But keep in mind, you could visit ANY LIBRARY and sign up for ANY BOOK CLUB. You (and the other members of the club) will be happy you did.

Regards,
Michael Helme
Warwick, NY

Sustainable World Book Club’s 15 must-reads: Recommendations on the occasion of the book club’s tenth anniversary

Fire Weather, A True Story From a Hotter World – by John Valliant
The Light Pirate – by Lily Brooks-Dalton
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating – by Elizabeth Tova Bailey
The Overstory – by Richard Powers
The Ministry for the Future – by Kim Stanley Robinson
Eat Like a Fish – by Bren Smith
The Deluge – by Stephen Markley
Unsheltered – by Barbara Kingsolver
Strange as This Weather Has Been – by Ann Pancake
The Source: How Rivers Made America and America Remade Its Rivers – by Martin Doyle
The Sixth Extinction – by Elizabeth Kolbert
The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet – by Jeff Goodell
Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right – by Jane Mayer
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants – by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Botany of Desire – by Michael Pollan

All these books are available from the Ramapo Catskill Library System.