Looking for a great read and lively discussion, something engaging and informative?
Come to “Booked for Lunch” A History Reading Group!
About three times a year, the Wilton Historical Society hosts a lunchtime book discussion that focuses on a non-fiction work of history. Over time, book topics have ranged from the story of the Dutch influence on Manhattan’s culture and character; the life and times of the famous Adams sisters; and the Japanese interment camps during WWII. Recently we have added Zoom to some Booked for Lunch discussions, welcoming the author to the table to talk about their work and answer questions. A 2020 participant was the journalist Elaine Weiss, who provided fascinating insight into the writing and research for “The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote”.
Join the Society’s newsletter to be alerted for when the next Booked for Lunch is announced!
To view previous Booked for Lunch discussions, click here!
Past Booked for Lunch Title Selections:
2022
February 24: Free the Beaches: The Story of Ned Coll and the Battle for America’s Most Exclusive Shoreline by Andrew Kahrl
2021
January 28: Yale Needs Women: How the First Group of Girls Rewrote the Rules of an Ivy League Giant by Anne Gardiner Perkins
June 3: The Agitators: Three Friends Who Fought for Abolition and Women’s Rights by Dorothy Wickenden
October 28: The Ghosts of Eden Park: The Bootleg King, the Women Who Pursued Him, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz-Age America by Karen Abbott
2020
February 13: The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America’s Enemies by Jason Fagone
April 30: The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote by Elaine Weiss
June 30: Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine by Sarah Lohman
September 24: Booked for Lunch: Creating Connecticut: Critical Moments That Shaped a Great State by State Historian Walter Woodward
2019
January 31: Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World by Linda Hirshman
June 20: Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Women’s Civil Rights Movement by Sally McMillen
October 24: Bringing Down the Colonel: A Sex Scandal of the Gilded Age, and the “Powerless” Woman Who Took On Washington by Patricia Miller
2018
January 26: Angelic Music: The Story of Ben Franklin’s Glass Armonica by Corey Hunt
June 22: Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill by Sonia Purnell
September 7: 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in a New York Tenement by Jane Zeligman
2017
January 27: Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov) by Stacy Schiff
June 30: Infamy: The Shocking Story of the Japanese American Internment in World War II by Richard Reeves
September 22: No Ordinary Time: Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in WWII by Doris Kearns Goodman
2016
February 2: Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation Josephine Baker, Tallulah Bankhead, Diana Cooper, Nancy Cunard, Zelda Fitzgerald, Tamara De Lempicka by Judith Mackrell
June 7: Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis by Timothy Egan
September 20: Louisa: The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams by Louisa Thomas
2015
February 3: Liar, Temptress, Solider, Spy: Four Women Under Cover in the Civil War by Karen Abbott
May 26: First Lady of the Confederacy: Varina Davis’s Civil War by Joan E. Cashin
September 12: The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America by Russell Shorto
2014
June 10: Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin by Jill Lepore
September 23: Dear Abigail: The Intimate Lives and Revolutionary Ideas of Abigail Adams and Her Two Remarkable Sisters by Diane Jacobs