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<p class="MsoNormal">Happy New Year!<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">A small group of us met recently and selected the following books for the next three months.<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">January 6, 2025<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><a href="https://nlsbard.loc.gov/nlsbardprod/download/detail/srch/DB122023">Vision: a memoir of blindness and justice. DB122023</a><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Tatel, David S. Reading time: 10 hours, 22 minutes.<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">John<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">February: We may wish to change the date because it conflicts with the Washington Seminar.<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">The Other Wes Moore<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">By Wes Moore<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>NEW YORK TIMES</i> BESTSELLER • From the governor of Maryland, the “compassionate” (<i>People</i>), “startling” (Baltimore <i>Sun</i>), “moving” (<i>Chicago Tribune</i>) true story of two kids with the same name: One went on to be
a Rhodes Scholar, decorated combat veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader. The other is serving a life sentence in prison. </b><br>
<i>The chilling truth is that his story could have been mine. The tragedy is that my story could have been his.</i><br>
<br>
In December 2000, the Baltimore <i>Sun </i>ran a small piece about Wes Moore, a local student who had just received a Rhodes Scholarship. The same paper also ran a series of articles about four young men who had allegedly killed a police officer in a spectacularly
botched armed robbery. The police were still hunting for two of the suspects who had gone on the lam, a pair of brothers. One was named Wes Moore. <br>
<br>
Wes just couldn’t shake off the unsettling coincidence, or the inkling that the two shared much more than space in the same newspaper. After following the story of the robbery, the manhunt, and the trial to its conclusion, he wrote a letter to the other Wes,
now a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. His letter tentatively asked the questions that had been haunting him: <i>Who are you? How did this happen?</i><br>
<br>
That letter led to a correspondence and relationship that have lasted for several years. Over dozens of letters and prison visits, Wes discovered that the other Wes had had a life not unlike his own: Both had had difficult childhoods, both were fatherless;
they’d hung out on similar corners with similar crews, and both had run into trouble with the police. At each stage of their young lives they had come across similar moments of decision, yet their choices would lead them to astonishingly different destinies.<br>
<br>
Told in alternating dramatic narratives that take readers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption, <i>The Other Wes Moore</i> tells the story of a generation of boys trying to find their way in a hostile world.<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Leroy<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">March 5<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b>The Great Divide: a novel, by Cristina Henriquez</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The building of the Panama Canal is the backbone of this book. For Francisco, a local fisherman who resents the foreign powers clamoring for a slice of his country, nothing is more upsetting than the decision of his son, Omar, to work as
a digger in the excavation zone. But for Omar, whose upbringing was quiet and lonely, this job offers a chance to finally find connection. Ada Bunting is a bold sixteen-year-old from Barbados who arrives in Panama as a stowaway alongside thousands of other
West Indians seeking work. John Oswald has dedicated his life to scientific research and has journeyed to Panama in single-minded pursuit of one goal: eliminating malaria. But now, his wife, Marian, has fallen ill.
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<p class="MsoNormal">Sandy<o:p></o:p></p>
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