STANTON READERS BOOK CLUB
Join our Book Club for ECSHA members.
Avid readers engage in rich discussions of books chosen by us.
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In March 2024 a small group of our members decided it would be great enjoyment to read books together about women’s lives, accomplishments, and struggles over a wide variety of genres, places and time periods. We usually read in the morning, but can try an evening read as well. It depends on the make-up and wishes of the group. As does the selection of titles and facilitators.
NOTIFICATIONS of book selection will be by email - generated by club facilitator Jennifer Gardella.
If you are interested in participating, please email gardella15@gmail.com.
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We appreciate member Laurie Freeman’s willingness to send out the Zoom links.
MEMBERSHIP in ECSHA is required to participate as a reader in the Stanton Readers’ Club.
(click JOIN US for more information)
Current Selection
COME JOIN OUR DISCUSSION. YOU MUST BE AN ECSHA MEMBER.
Please contact gardella15@gmail.com for the Zoom link.
Read #9: April 30, 2025 |10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Zoom meeting facilitator: Joyce Caputo
Please contact gardella15@gmail.com for the Zoom link.
Let's Call Her Barbie
Renée Rosen
THE USA TODAY BESTSELLER ∙ She was only eleven-and-a-half inches tall, but she would change the world. Barbie is born in this bold novel by USA Today bestselling author Renée Rosen.
As featured in The New York Post ∙ RuPaul's Book Club ∙ Book Riot ∙ The Nerd Daily ∙ Chicago Review of Books ∙ and more!
“A fresh and fun take on Barbie lore…clever and satisfying.”—Shelby Van Pelt, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Remarkably Bright Creatures
When Ruth Handler walks into the boardroom of the toy company she co-founded and pitches her idea for a doll unlike any other, she knows what she’s setting in motion. It might just take the world a moment to catch up.
In 1956, the only dolls on the market for little girls let them pretend to be mothers. Ruth’s vision for a doll shaped like a grown woman and outfitted in an enviable wardrobe will let them dream they can be anything.
As Ruth assembles her team of creative rebels—head engineer Jack Ryan who hides his deepest secrets behind his genius and designers Charlotte Johnson and Stevie Klein, whose hopes and dreams rest on the success of Barbie’s fashion—she knows they’re working against a ticking clock to get this wild idea off the ground.
In the decades to come—through soaring heights and devastating personal lows, public scandals and private tensions— each of them will have to decide how tightly to hold on to their creation. Because Barbie has never been just a doll—she’s a legacy.
Includes a Reader's Guide and Exclusive Vintage Barbie Photos!
Past Selections
Read #8: March 20, 2025 |10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Zoom meeting facilitator: Ruth Levinton
Educated
Tara Westover
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, 2018
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Autobiography and John Leonard Prize For Best First Book • PEN/Jean Stein Book Award • Los Angeles Times Book Prize
As featured in Amazon books ad:
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#1 NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER • One of the most acclaimed books of our time: an unforgettable memoir about a young woman who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University.
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“Extraordinary . . . an act of courage and self-invention.”
—The New York Times
Movie Review #7: February 13, 2025 |6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Six Triple 8
Tyler Perry
Based on a true story
The movie is Six Triple 8 with Kerry Washington in the starring role, plus other familiar faces.
An important piece of Black Women's WW2 History hidden from historic accounts of their contributions.
Project of Director Tyler Perry who felt that this story of black women, overlooked in the telling of our history, must be known.
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The 6888th Central Postal Directory was the first and only Women's Army Corps unit of color to be stationed in Europe during World War II.
Read #6: January 8, 2025 |10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
TAKE MY HAND
Dolen-Perkins-Valdez
Winner of the 2023 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work
FICTION
From Amazon:
“Deeply empathetic yet unflinching in its gaze…an unforgettable exploration of responsibility and redemption.”—Celeste Ng
Inspired by true events that rocked the nation, a searing and compassionate new novel about a Black nurse in post-segregation Alabama who blows the whistle on a terrible injustice done to her patients, from the New York Times bestselling author of Wench
Inspired by true events and brimming with hope, Take My Hand is a stirring exploration of accountability and redemption.
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“Highlights the horrific discrepancies in our healthcare system and illustrates their heartbreaking consequences.”—Essence
Read: #5: October 23, 2024 | 6:30 PM - 8 PM
Discussion facilitator: Jennifer Gardella
MY LIFE ON THE ROAD
Gloria Steinem
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL
The personal and political influences in Steinem’s life that propelled her into being one of the leading spokeswomen for women and civil rights in the mid-20th century.
Gloria Steinem - writer, activist, organizer, and one of the most inspiring leaders in the world - now tells a story she has never told before, a candid account of how her early years led her to live an on-the-road kind of life, traveling, listening to people, learning, and creating change. She reveals the story of her own growth in tandem with the growth of an ongoing movement for equality. This is the story at the heart of My Life on the Road.
Read: #4: September 18, 2024 | 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Discussion Facilitator: Joyce Caputo
The Secret Life of Sunflowers
Marta Molnar
Amazon described the book as:
“A gripping, inspiring novel based on the true story of Johanna Bonger, Vincent van Gogh's sister-in-law. Johanna inherited Vincent van Gogh's paintings. They were all she had, and they weren't worth anything. She was a 28-year-old widow with a baby in the 1800s, without any means of supporting herself, living in Paris where she barely spoke the language. Yet she managed to introduce Vincent's legacy to the world.”
Read: #3: June 19, 2024 | 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Discussion Facilitator: Laurie Kozakiewicz
Between Two Kingdoms
Suleika Jaouad
A MEMOIR
Summary from Amazon:
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“A searing, deeply moving memoir of illness and recovery that traces one young woman’s journey from diagnosis to remission to reentry into “normal” life - from the author of the Life, Interrupted column in The New York Times “
Read: #2: May 15, 2024 | 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Discussion Facilitator: Marlene Guiffre
The Women
Kristin Hannah
A novel focusing on the lives, struggles, survival and sometimes even triumphs, of the unsung hero nurses who served in Vietnam during one of America’s most turbulent times at
Read: #1: March 26, 2024 | 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Discussion Facilitator: Ruth Levinton
My Personal Librarian
Marie Benedict and
Victoria Christopher Murray
A work of historical fiction focusing on the light-skinned African-American woman who was J.P. Morgan’s key purchaser of books for his famous library in NYC. She was “passing” as a white woman to have this marvelous career that benefitted so many.
