The Hoosier Authors Book Club began as part of our Indiana State Bicentennial programming for 2016. The Museum’s 2016 exhibit discussed the Golden Age of Indiana Literature. This Golden Age began with the publication of Lew Wallace’s Ben-Hur. It included prominent novelists such as Crawfordsville native Meredith Nicholson, Gene Stratton-Porter, and others. The book club has proven to be popular, so it has been extended. Over the years the book club has hosted discussions with some of the authors, including Susan Crandall, Kelsey Timmerman, Ray E. Boomhower, and Kelly O’Dell Stanley.
The book club meets in our ADA-accessible Carriage House.
Copies of the books are usually available for checkout beforehand at the Carriage House. To RSVP or for more information call 765-362-5769 or email tmeeks@ben-hur.com.
2026 Book Discussions
Set across one week and culminating in a shocking act of violence, The Rabbit Hutch chronicles a group of people looking for ways to live in a dying city, a town on the brink, desperate for rebirth. How far will its residents—especially Blandine—go to achieve it? Does one person’s gain always come at another’s expense? Tess Gunty’s The Rabbit Hutch is a gorgeous and provocative tale of loneliness and community, entrapment and freedom.
This book will be available to borrow at the General Lew Wallace Study & Museum’s Carriage House.
Dubbed the “joy goddess of Harlem’s 1920s” by poet Langston Hughes, A’Lelia Walker was a dazzling cultural icon whose legendary parties and Dark Tower salon helped define the Harlem cultural scene. After inheriting her mother’s pioneering hair care business, A’Lelia became America’s first high-profile Black heiress and a patron of the arts. Joy Goddess takes readers inside her New York homes, where she hosted luminaries including Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Carl Van Vechten, and W.E.B. Du Bois—figures who shaped African American history and culture during the Roaring Twenties
This book will be available to borrow at the General Lew Wallace Study & Museum’s Carriage House.
Set during the Tudor dynasty period in the late15th and 16th centuries of English history, When Knighthood Was in Flower tells the tribulations of Mary Tudor, a younger sister of old King Henry VIII of England who has fallen in love with a commoner. However, for political reasons, King Henry has arranged for her to wed neighboring King Louis XII of France and demands his sister put the House of Tudor first, threatening, “You will marry France and I will give you a wedding present – Charles Brandon’s head!”
This book will be available to borrow at the General Lew Wallace Study & Museum’s Carriage House.
Past Books Discussed
- Some Memories of a Long Life by Malvina Shanklin Harlin
- The Witchery of Archery by Maurice Thompson
- Hawaii and a Revolution by Mary Hannah Krout
- The Artist, Ladoga, Indiana by Kelly O’Dell Stanley
- The Port of Missing Men by Meredith Nicholson
- Shakespeare Saved My Life by Laura Bates
- Hoosier Public Enemy: A Life of John Dillinger by John A. Beineke
- You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson
- An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
- The Magic Garden – Gene Stratton-Porter
- The Magnificent Ambersons – Booth Tarkington
- The House of a Thousand Candles – Meredith Nicholson
- The Hoosier School-Master – Edward Eggleston
- Sister Carrie – Theodore Dreiser
- Prince of Graustark – George B. McCutcheon
- The Storied Sea – Susan E. Wallace
- Alice of Old Vincennes – Maurice Thompson
- The Fault in Our Stars – John Green
- A Girl of the Limberlost – Gene Stratton-Porter
- The Friendly Persuasion – Jessamyn West
- God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater – Kurt Vonnegut
- On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker – A’Lelia Bundles
- Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ – Lew Wallace
- The Massacre at Fall Creek – Jessamyn West
- The Flying Circus – Susan Crandall
- So Cold the River – Michael Koryta
- Dune Boy – Edwin Way Teale
- An American Tragedy – Theodore Dreiser
- Brave Men – Ernie Pyle
- What This River Keeps – Greg Schwipps
- Where Am I Wearing? A Global Tour to the Countries, Factories, and People Who Make Our Clothes – Kelsey Timmerman
- Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World – Scott Russell Sanders
- Sailing the Inland Sea: On Writing, Literature, and Land – Susan Neville
- Divided Paths, Common Ground: The Story of Mary Matthews and Lella Gaddis, Pioneering Purdue Women Who Introduced Science into the Home – Angie Klink
- A Conservationist Manifesto – Scott Russell Sanders
- Invincible, Indiana – Nate Dunlevy
- Fighting for Equality: A Life of May Wright Sewall – Ray Boomhower
- The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
- Bento Box in the Heartland: My Japanese Girlhood in Whitebread America – Linda Furiya
- Whistling Past the Graveyard – Susan Crandall
- Riverine: A Memoir From Anywhere But Here – Angela Palm
- The Life List of Adrian Mandrick – Chris White
- The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays from a Human-Centered Planet – John Green
- Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants – Robin Wall Kimmerer
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