All adult Wilton residents are welcome to join this free book discussion group which meets at the Comstock Community Center from September through May. An optional lunch following the discussion is $3. Extra copies of each title will be available at the Wilton Library in the month the book is to be discussed. Please call the Senior Center at 834-6240 to reserve a place for lunch.

Click Here for Past Senior Center Selections

September 22 at 11 am The Complete Poems of Elizabeth Bishop 1927-1979		Discussion Leader: Judson Scruton Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1956 and Poet Laureate of the United States from 1949-1950, Elizabeth Bishop was looked upon as a “poet’s poet” and did not become a force in contemporary literature until after the publication of her last book in 1976. Her work is said to have a distant, objective point of view; she did not want to be considered a “woman’s poet.” All of Elizabeth Bishop’s work is contained in this volume, some printed for the first time, beginning with her poems written at the age of sixteen and continuing until her death in 1979.
October 27 at 11 am Lucia, Lucia by Adriana Trigiani		Discussion Leader: Maureen Canary In this engaging novel, set in the vibrant New York City of the 1950s, a young Italian American woman named Lucia Sartori faces difficult choices in her personal life. Blending the past with the present, she must choose between duty to her family and her own dreams. According to the Boston Herald, “Trigiani does a wonderful job evoking Lucia’s beloved, homey Greenwich Village and the couture-clad Upper East Side. Vivid, too, are, the descriptions of Italian cooking and feasting, and the Sartoris’ storybook hometown in the old country.”
November 24 at 11 am Sailing Alone Around the World by Captain Joshua Slocum		Discussion Leader: Ray Rauth This classic book, an account of an epic voyage by Captain Joshua Slocum, was first published in 1900 and has been in print ever since. Slocum, an aging Massachusetts master mariner, was the first man to circumnavigate the globe single-handed. He did this in a 37-foot sailboat which he had rebuilt from an oyster sloop. Leaving Boston in April of 1895 he returned to Newport, Rhode Island, in June of 1898. He had traveled by sail, entirely alone, for 46,000 miles. And, he set down the story of his journey in what is considered an unequaled masterpiece of prose.
January 26 at 11 am The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte		Discussion Leader: William Zeigler Published in 1848, this novel written by the youngest of the Bronte sisters has been described as a “powerful feminist testament.” The story, told by two narrators in two literary forms, is concerned with two periods of time. It is both a romantic-domestic social comedy and the story of a tragic relationship. Charlotte Bronte is said to have expressed the wish that the book had never been written as the life of Arthur Huntingdon, one of the main characters, reflected too closely the life of Branwell Bronte, the degenerate Bronte brother.
February 23 at 11 am The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope by Jonathan Alter		Discussion Leader: David Ostergren The following quote from the noted writer and historian David Herbert Donald best describes this nonfiction work: “The Defining Moment is a riveting account of the first hundred days of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency. Working without a plan—indeed, working often with two or more contradictory plans—FDR argued, persuaded, cajoled and enticed the American people to pull out of the miserable slough of the Great Depression and to resume their natural optimism. He was, Jonathan Alter shows, a real American Music Man, capable of creating a brass band without the instruments.”
March 23 at 111 am Burmese Days by George Orwell		Discussion Leader: Miwako Ogasawara Evocative and gripping, this novel features a few Englishmen living in Burma during the waning days of British imperialism. The atmosphere of Burma—its climate, foliage, animals, and birds—is strongly portrayed as is the extreme loneliness and boredom of the British residents who are isolated by their contempt and hatred of the natives. The New York Times states, “This is a superior novel, not less so because it tells an absorbing story. Orwell has made his people and background vividly real. And he knows of what he writes.”
April 27 at 11 am Never Let Me Go by Kazua Ishiguro		Discussion Leader: Kathy Leeds From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day, comes a strangely affecting novel. Narrated by an adult woman named Kathy, the story, set in an undisclosed time, revolves around three people who were children together in Hailsham, a British private school. According to the Washington Post, “It is almost literally a novel about humanity, what constitutes it, what it means, how it can be honored or denied. These little children and the adults they eventually become are brought up to serve humanity in the most astonishing and selfless ways….”
May 25 at 11 am Teta, Mother and Me by Jean Said Makdisi		Discussion Leader: Barbara Jones This beautifully written memoir by the sister of Edward Said, a noted Middle East scholar, tells the story of three generations of Arab women. Teta, the grandmother, is Munira Badr Musa, Mother is Hilda Musa Said, and “me” is Jean Said Makdisi. The worlds and times in which they lived span over a century in Syria, Palestine and Egypt. In elegant prose, Makdisi portrays images of history and culture through the domestic details of everyday life. In showing how individual choices relate to great events, she gives proper respect and attention to the private lives of women.