Hoosier Authors Book Club

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 and Kelsey Timmerman. This continued in 2021 when author Ray E. Boomhower joined the March discussion of his biography of suffragist May Wright Sewall.

Normally, the book club meets in the ADA-accessible Carriage House. In 2021 we moved to a virtual format on the Zoom platform. While we hope to return to in-person meetings sometime in 2022, we will have hybrid options for those who aren’t comfortable attending in person.

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 [email protected].

2022 Book Discussions

Dates are subject to change.

April 7, 2022 – 7 p.m. – Riverine: A Memoir From Anywhere But Here – Angela Palm

May 19, 2022 – 7 p.m. – The Life List of Adrian Mandrick – Chris White

July 7, 2022 – 7 p.m. – The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays from a Human-Centered Planet – John Green

August 4, 2022 – 7 p.m. – Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants – Robin Wall Kimmerer

October 20, 2022 – 7 p.m. – Always a River: The Ohio River and the American Experience – Robert Reid, editor

November 17, 2022 – 7 p.m. – All These Beautiful Strangers – Elizabeth Klehfoth

Past Books Discussed

• 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

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