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Funding for this project is provided by
the Library Services and Technology Act administered by the Institute of Museum
and Library Services and the West Virginia Library Commission.
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News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more information
Kim Dankovich or Pam May, 343-4646
Main Library hosts wilderness fiction book group
The Main Library, 123 Capitol Street in Charleston, will host Exploring
Wilderness Fiction, a short-term book discussion group for adults which will
meet from 4 to 5:30 p.m. on the third Thursday of September, October, November
and December. The group will discuss four books set in the wilderness. Of
special note is the discussion of "Follow the River" on Oct. 20 because the
author, James Alexander Thom, will present a program at the West Virginia Book
Festival three days later. Call the
Reference Department at 343-4646 for more information.
Discussion leader is Carolyn Sturgeon, an English teacher at West Virginia State
University and an avid book club member herself. Please join her to discuss key
ideas from these books:
September 15 - "O Beulah Land" by Mary Lee
Settle.
Charleston native Mary Lee Settle tells the story
of West
Virginia's settlement from its pre-statehood era in 1755 to the mid-20th
century by way of main character Jonathan Lacey, a Virginia gentleman who scouts
and surveys the mountains in 1775 and who leads settlers into an area that the
New Light preacher accompanying him calls Beulah.
October 20 - "Follow the River" by James
Alexander Thom.
This powerful captivity narration is the story of
Mary Draper Ingles and the other captives from a 1755 Indian raid. Ingles
and another captive escape and journey home following the Ohio River through
hundreds of miles of wilderness. Love, fear, and determination are a few key
themes in this tale.
November 17 - "Blue Jacket" by Allan Eckert.
Blue Jacket was a white boy who was captured in
1771 by Shawnee Indians in what is now West Virginia. The boy was adopted into
the tribe, and he grew to excel as a warrior, becoming the only white to be made
war chief of the Shawnee Nation. Eckert's use of historical information helps
him craft a compelling narrative about Blue Jacket's life.
December 15 - "One Thousand White Women"
by Jim Fergus.
This alternate-history novel takes the form of a
journal written by May Dodd, a 19th century frontier woman. Dodd is one of the
thousand brides recruited as part of a fictional 1854 peace pact between the
U.S. government and the Cheyennes.
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