Tuesday Evening Book Club
Join us for these fun, engaging informal discussions of non-fiction and fiction books and how they relate to Marblehead's history. Free. Sign up for each (below) to receive the Zoom link.
2021 Schedule
The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore
Tuesday, January 26th at 7pm via Zoom
Based on true events, this fictional book recounts the technological turning point of electrical current. The rivalry between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse is thrown for a loop with the arrival of Nicola Tessa.
Just how safe is AC or DC current? Who will win the patent? And how did this industry shape America (and the world)?
Free via Zoom. Sign up HERE to receive the link.
Ghosts of Eden Park by Karen Abbott
Tuesday, March 23rd at 7pm via Zoom
This Prohibition-era non-fiction work tells the story of George Remus, known as the "King of the Bootleggers" and his spectacular rise and fall. Between the pioneering female prosecutor, Mabel W. Willebrant and a cast of real-life characters, this story is filled with page-turning intrigue!
Free via Zoom. Sign up HERE to receive the link.
Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War by Brian Matthew Jordan
Tuesday, May 25th at 7pm via Zoom
This book tells the story of Union veterans after the battles on the field had been fought. What was the mindset of those returning men? What traumas did they endure? Jordan uncovers the anguish and triumphs of these men using their own words and medical reports to share the post-war history of everyday humans.
Free via Zoom. Sign up HERE to receive the link.
Bunker Hill by Nathaniel Philbrick
Tuesday, July 27th at 7pm via Zoom
A month after the battles at Lexington and Concord, a powder horn of patriotic cause, ignites in Boston. Under-siege from the British, a skirmish from rebel Patriots turns into one of the bloodiest battles of the American Revolution, and propels a young Dr. Joseph Warren to historic fame after he perishes. Philbrick's work brings the reader to 1775 Boston with his narrative geographic descriptions and mesmerizing ideological insight of the time.
Free via Zoom. Sign up HERE to receive the link.
Brilliant Beacons by Eric Jay Dolin
Tuesday, September 28th at 7pm via Zoom
Set against the backdrop of an expanding nation, this book traces the evolution of America’s lighthouse system, highlighting the political, military, and technological battles fought to illuminate the nation’s hardscrabble coastlines. Dolin treats readers to a memorable cast of characters including the penny-pinching Treasury official Stephen Pleasonton, who hamstrung the country’s efforts to adopt the revolutionary “Fresnel Lens,” and presents tales both humorous and harrowing of soldiers, saboteurs, ruthless egg collectors, and most importantly, the light-keepers themselves.
Free via Zoom. Sign up HERE to receive the link.
This Land is Their Land by David J. Silverman
Tuesday, November 30th at 7pm via Zoom
Focusing on the Wampanoag Indians, Silverman deepens the narrative to consider tensions that developed well before 1620 and lasted long after the devastating war-tracing the Wampanoags' ongoing struggle for self-determination up to this very day. Over 400 years after that famous meal, historian David J. Silverman sheds profound new light on the events that led to the creation, and bloody dissolution, of this alliance.
Free via Zoom. Sign up HERE to receive the link.