Join the Reading Group

​By Faye Herold, originally published in the April 2026 issue of the 1666 Coffman Newsletter

​As you may have noted from Exchange invitations to join us, there is a group of readers who meet monthly to share what they have been reading. We began meeting on the last Wednesday of the month in February 2024. Everyone is welcome to join us! What follows is a list of some of the favorites, new and old, of the ten to fifteen folks who have been gathering and who love to READ.

• Red Earth, White Earth, by Will Weaver, 1986. A white businessman returning to Minnesota must live with his childhood Indian friend. Sparks fly.
• The Frozen River, by Ariel Lawhon, 2023. In the winter of 1789, a midwife gets involved in domestic abuse crimes, combining mystery and women’s issues. A story with depth.

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• O Pioneers!, by Willa Cather, 1913. A daughter inherits her immigrant father’s farmland.  Cather’s writing has put her at the forefront of American writers.
• Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann, 2017. Nonfiction detailing the 1920s murders of wealthy Osage Nation members and the early FBI investigation into these crimes.
• The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder, by David Grann, 2023. A shipwrecked and starving British naval crew abandon their captain on a desolate Patagonian island. (Nonfiction)
• Trust, by Hernan Diaz, 2022. “In glamorous 1920s New York City, two characters of sophisticated taste come together. One is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; the other, the brilliant daughter of penniless aristocrats.” Called a “kaleidoscope of capitalism run amok in the 20th century,” the numerous characters play off each other in Diaz’s stirring prose.
• A Woman in Amber: Healing the Trauma of War and Exile, by Agate Nesaule, 1999. “A woman in amber is one trapped and preserved in her past.” This is “a memoir about the suffering of a child and her family in WWII and their efforts as immigrants to rebuild their lives and psyches in America.” Library Journal
• Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There, by Aldo Leopold, 1949. A collection of essays advocating the author’s idea of a “land ethic,” a responsible relationship between people and the land they inhabit. (Wikipedia)
• The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen, 2023. The narrator, who is a double agent during the Vietnam War, looks back at his past in order to find reasons for his current life. Highly recommended.
• The Secret Hours, by Mick Herron, 2023. A standalone spy story from Slough House author.