[MD-Sligo] Announcing Sligo Creek book club selections and September meeting date!

[Jeff Baer]

Hello everyone!
Below is the newly chosen and fast-approaching date for our next book club meeting, plus the list for our newly selected books through next June! Thank you to all who participate in book club! Full book details follow below after the summary information. Sincerely, Jeff

September, 2025:  Book club Zoom will take place Sunday, September 7 @2:30 pm "Reaching for the Stars: The Inspiring Story of a Migrant Farmworker Turned Astronaut" by José Moreno Hernández and Monica Rojas Rubin DB 116999 Duration: 8 hours and 14 minutes

October, 2025: "The Story of My Life", by Helen Keller, DB55883 Duration =16 hours, 20 minutes ( Discussion will be in-person only at Rockville Library for our chapter outreach event. Saturday, October 18: 2:00pm - 3:30pm

November, 2025: " Fast Girls: A Novel of the 1936 Women's Olympic Team" by Elise Hooper  DB 101131  Duration: 12 hours and 5 minutes

December, 2025:  "The Twelve Topsy-Turvy, Very Messy Days of Christmas" by  James Patterson and Tad Safran  DB 116361 Duration: 6 hours and 7 minutes

January, 2026:  "South of the Buttonwood Tree" by Heather Weber BARD DB#112517  Duration 11 hours and 48 minutes

February 2026: (Winter Olympics month): The Hard Parts, a Memoir of Courage and Triumph by Oksana Masters and Cassidy Randall Duration 11 hours exactly. BARD DB #119093

March, 2026: "After the Last Border, Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America"  by Jessica Goudeau Duration = 13 hours and 24 minutes BARD DB # 100891


April, 2026:  "The Face of a Stranger" a William Monk Mystery by Anne Perry DB #32732 Duration 12 hours and 54 minutes

May, 2026:  "Blood Moon, an American Epic of War and Splendor in the Cherokee Nation" by John Sedgwick  Duration 17 hours and 20 minutes BARD DB # 92140

June, 2026: "Born a Crime, Stories from a South African Childhood",  by Trevor Noah DB#  86608 Duration =  8 hours and 46 minutes

Full book details commence.

September, 2025:

."Reaching for the Stars: The Inspiring Story of a Migrant Farmworker Turned Astronaut" by José Moreno Hernández and Monica Rojas Rubin
 (Joint Author)  DB 116999  Duration: 8 hours and 14 minutes
Good Reads Description:
"Born into a family of migrant workers, toiling in the fields by the age of six, Jose M. Hernàndez dreamed of traveling through the night skies on a rocket ship. Reaching for the Stars is the inspiring story of how he realized that dream, becoming the first Mexican-American astronaut.

Hernàndez didn't speak English till he was 12, and his peers often joined gangs, or skipped school. And yet, by his twenties he was part of an elite team helping develop technology for the early detection of breast cancer. He was turned down by NASA eleven times on his long journey to donning that famous orange space suit.

Hernàndez message of hard work, education, perseverance, of "reaching for the stars," makes this a classic American autobiography."


October, 2025:

"The Story of My Life", by Helen Keller, DB55883 Duration =16 hours, 20 minutes

 Partial Good Reads book description:

"When she was 19 months old, Helen Keller (1880–1968) suffered a severe illness that left her blind and deaf. Not long after, she also became mute. Her tenacious struggle to overcome these handicaps-with the help of her inspired teacher, Anne Sullivan-is one of the great stories of human courage and dedication. In this classic autobiography, first published in 1903, Miss Keller recounts the first 22 years of her life, including the magical moment at the water pump when, recognizing the connection between the word "water" and the cold liquid flowing over her hand, she realized that objects had names..."


November, 2025:
 " Fast Girls: A Novel of the 1936 Women's Olympic Team" by Elise Hooper  DB 101131  Duration: 12 hours and 5 minutes

Abbreviated Good Reads Description:

"Fast Girls is a compelling, thrilling look at what it takes to be a female Olympian in pre-war America. Rich with historical detail and brilliant story-telling, the book follows three athletes on their path to compete – and win – in a man’s world...
Acclaimed author Elise Hooper explores the gripping, real life history of female athletes, members of the first integrated women’s Olympic team, and their journeys to the 1936 summer games in Berlin, Nazi Germany.

This inspiring story is based on the real lives of three little-known trailblazing women Olympians.  Perfect for readers who love untold stories of amazing women, such as The Only Woman in the Room, Hidden Figures, and The Lost Girls of Paris.

In the 1928 Olympics, Chicago’s Betty Robinson competes as a member of the first-ever women’s delegation in track and field. Destined for further glory, she returns home feted as America’s Golden Girl until a nearly-fatal airplane crash threatens to end everything.

Outside of Boston, Louise Stokes, one of the few black girls in her town, sees competing as an opportunity to overcome the limitations placed on her. Eager to prove that she has what it takes to be a champion, she risks everything to join the Olympic team.

>From Missouri, Helen Stephens, awkward, tomboyish, and poor, is considered an outcast by her schoolmates, but she dreams of escaping the hardships of her farm life through athletic success. Her aspirations appear impossible until a chance encounter changes her life.

These three athletes will join with others to defy society’s expectations of what women can achieve. As tensions bring the United States and Europe closer and closer to the brink of war, Betty, Louise, and Helen must fight for the chance to compete as the fastest women in the world amidst the pomp and pageantry of the Nazi-sponsored 1936 Olympics in Berlin."

December, 2025: Duration: 6 hours and 7 minutes

   "The Twelve Topsy-Turvy, Very Messy Days of Christmas" by  James Patterson and Tad Safran  DB 116361
Duration: 6 hours and 7 minutes

Good Reads Description:
"Every year at Christmastime, Will and Ella Sullivan, and their father, Henry, come to a family agreement: Christmas is a holiday for other people.

At their brownstone in Harlem, stockings go unstuffed, tinsel unstrewn, gifts unbought, mistletoe unhung, chestnuts unroasted, carols unplayed, cookies uncooked, a tree un-visible, and guests uninvited.

Until guests start arriving anyway. In pairs and sixes, in sevens and tens—they keep coming. And they stay. For twelve long, hard, topsy-turvy, very messy days. That’s when the Sullivans discover that those moments in life that defy hope, expectation, or even imagination, might be the best gifts of all."


January, 2026 "South of the Buttonwood Tree" by Heather Weber BARD DB# 112517  Duration 11 hours and 48 minutes Synopsis from GoodReads:
"Blue Bishop has a knack for finding lost things. While growing up in charming small-town Buttonwood, Alabama, she's happened across lost wallets, jewelry, pets, her wandering neighbor, and sometimes, trouble. No one is more surprised than Blue, however, when she comes across an abandoned newborn baby in the woods, just south of a very special buttonwood tree.  Sarah Grace Landreneau Fulton is at a crossroads. She has always tried so hard to do the right thing, but her own mother would disown her if she ever learned half of Sarah Grace's secrets.  The unexpected discovery of the newborn baby girl will alter Blue's and Sarah Grace's lives forever. Both women must fight for what they truly want in life and for who they love. In doing so, they uncover long-held secrets that reveal exactly who they really are- and what they're willing to sacrifice in the name of family."


February 2026: "The Hard Parts, a Memoir of Courage and Triumph" by Oksana Masters and Cassidy Randall Duration 11 hours exactly. BARD DB #119093 GoodReads Synopsis:

"A memoir from the United States’s most decorated winter Paralympic or Olympic athlete, The Hard Parts is Oksana Masters' account of overcoming extraordinary Chernobyl disaster–caused physical challenges to create a life that challenges everyone to push through what is holding them back.

Oksana Masters was born in Ukraine—in the shadow of Chernobyl—seemingly with the odds stacked against her. She came into the world with one kidney, a partial stomach, six toes on each foot, webbed fingers, no right bicep, and no thumbs. Her left leg was six inches shorter than her right, and she was missing both tibias.

Relinquished to the orphanage system by birth parents daunted by the staggering cost of what would be their child’s medical care, Oksana encountered numerous abuses, some horrifying. Salvation came at age seven when Gay Masters, an unmarried American professor who saw a photo of the little girl and became haunted by her eyes, waged a two-year war against stubborn adoption authorities to rescue Oksana from her circumstances.

In America, Oksana endured years of operations that included a double leg amputation. Still, how could she hope to fit in when there were so many things making her different?


March, 2026:  "After the Last Border, Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America  by Jessica Goudeau Duration = 13 hours and 24 minutes  BARD DB # 100891  GoodReads Synopsis: The story of two refugee families and their hope and resilience as they fight to survive and belong in America

The welcoming and acceptance of immigrants and refugees have been central to America's identity for centuries--yet America has periodically turned its back in times of the greatest humanitarian need. After the Last Border is an intimate look at the lives of two women as they struggle for the twenty-first century American dream, having won the golden ticket to settle as refugees in Austin, Texas.

Mu Naw, a Christian from Myanmar struggling to put down roots with her family, was accepted after decades in a refugee camp at a time when America was at its most open to displaced families; and Hasna, a Muslim from Syria, agrees to relocate as a last resort for the safety of her family--only to be cruelly separated from her children by a sudden ban on refugees from Muslim countries. Writer and activist Jessica Goudeau tracks the human impacts of America's ever-shifting refugee policy as both women narrowly escape from their home countries and begin the arduous but lifesaving process of resettling in Austin--a city that would show them the best and worst of what America has to offer.

After the Last Border situates a dramatic, character-driven story within a larger history--the evolution of modern refugee resettlement in the United States, beginning with World War II and ending with current closed-door policies--revealing not just how America's changing attitudes toward refugees have influenced policies and laws, but also the profound effect on human lives."



April, 2026:

"The Face of a Stranger" a William Monk Mystery by Anne Perry DB #32732 Duration 12 hours and 54 minutes Synopsis from GoodReads: "His name, they tell him, is William Monk, and he is a London police detective. But the accident that felled him has left him with only half a life; his memory and his entire past have vanished. As he tries to hide the truth, Monk returns to work and is assigned to investigate the brutal murder of a Crimean War hero and man about town. Which makes Monk's efforts doubly difficult, since he's forgotten his professional skills along with everything else...."


May, 2026:
12) "Blood Moon, an American Epic of War and Splendor in  the Cherokee Nation" by  John Sedgwick  Duration 17 hours and 20 minutes BARD DB # 92140 GoodReads Synopsis:
"An astonishing untold story from America’s past—a sweeping, powerful, and necessary work of history that reads like Gone with the Wind for the Cherokee.

Blood Moon is the story of the century-long blood feud between two rival Cherokee chiefs from the early years of the United States through the infamous Trail of Tears and into the Civil War. The two men’s mutual hatred, while little remembered today, shaped the tragic history of the tribe far more than anyone, even the reviled President Andrew Jackson, ever did. Their enmity would lead to war, forced removal from their homeland, and the devastation of a once-proud nation.

It begins in the years after America wins its independence, when the Cherokee rule expansive lands of the Southeast that encompass eight present-day states. With its own government, language, newspapers, and religious traditions, it is one of the most culturally and socially advanced Native American tribes in history. But over time this harmony is disrupted by white settlers who grow more invasive in both number and attitude.

In the midst of this rising conflict, two rival Cherokee chiefs, different in every conceivable way, emerge to fight for control of their people’s destiny. One of the men, known as The Ridge—short for He Who Walks on Mountaintops—is a fearsome warrior who speaks no English but whose exploits on the battlefield are legendary. The other, John Ross, is descended from Scottish traders and looks like a pale, unimposing half-pint who wears modern clothes and speaks not a word of Cherokee. At first, the two men are friends and allies. To protect their sacred landholdings from white encroachment, they negotiate with almost every American president from George Washington through Abraham Lincoln. But as the threat to their land and their people grows more dire, they break with each other on the subject of removal, breeding a hatred that will lead to a bloody civil war within the Cherokee Nation, the tragedy and heartbreak of the Trail of Tears, and finally, the two factions battling each other on opposite sides of the US Civil War.

Through the eyes of these two primary characters, John Sedgwick restores the Cherokee to their rightful place in American history in a dramatic saga of land, pride, honor, and loss that informs much of the country’s mythic past today. It is a story populated with heroes and scoundrels of all varieties—missionaries, gold prospectors, linguists, journalists, land thieves, schoolteachers, politicians, and more. And at the center of it all are two proud men, Ross and Ridge, locked in a life-or-death struggle for the survival of their people.

This propulsive narrative, fueled by meticulous research in contemporary diaries and journals, newspaper reports, and eyewitness accounts—and Sedgwick’s own extensive travels within Cherokee lands from the Southeast to Oklahoma—brings two towering figures back to life with reverence, texture, and humanity. The result is a richly evocative portrait of the Cherokee that is destined to become the defining book on this extraordinary people."


June, 2026: "Born a Crime, Stories from a South African Childhood",  by Trevor Noah DB#  86608  Duration = 8 hours and 46 minutes Synopsis from GoodReads: "The memoir of one man’s coming-of-age, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed.  Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle. Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life."

  1.



Selected book tabled for the future:

October, 2026, perhaps!:  The Country of the Blind  A Memoir at the End of Sight"  by Andrew Leland. BARD DB #115575 Duration  = 7 hours and 51 minutes Partial Synopsis from GoodReads:" We meet Andrew Leland as he’s suspended in the liminal state of the soon-to-be he’s midway through his life with retinitis pigmentosa, a condition that ushers those who live with it from sightedness to blindness over years, even decades. He grew up with full vision, but starting in his teenage years, his sight began to degrade from the outside in, such that he now sees the world as if through a narrow tube. Soon—but without knowing exactly when—he will likely have no vision left. Full of apprehension but also dogged curiosity, Leland embarks on a sweeping exploration of the state of being that awaits not only the physical experience of blindness but also its language, politics, and customs. He negotiates his changing relationships with his wife and son, and with his own sense of self, as he moves from his mainstream, “typical” life to one with a disability. Part memoir, part historical and cultural investigation, The Country of the Blind represents Leland’s determination not to merely survive this transition but to grow from it—to seek out and revel in that which makes blindness enlightening."


Other books receiving multiple votes were added to the next nominees list for more discussion.

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