DRYDEN BOOK CLUB

Dryden, New York

ABOUT US

Our beginning...

In March 2001, a group of Dryden Middle School parents who were attending a Mother/Daughter book club decided to start another reading group for the parents. And so the Dryden Book Club in Dryden, NY, began.

Still going strong...

The Dryden Book Club meets once a month, typically the last Tuesday evening, to share impressions of the book selected for the month. Often discussions lead to a diversity of interpretations and sometimes to strong debate.

The location for the meetings varies with one member providing the location and another providing the snack for the evening. Once a year at a club meeting, books are selected for the upcoming year. At the December meeting, members enjoy an evening of snacks contributed by everyone and an exchange of wrapped new or used books by way of a fun "Yankee Swap".

Since 2001, the group has selected 247 books to read from historical fiction, to memoirs, to classics, to nonfiction. The variety of books keeps the monthly discussions lively and offers club members reading suggestions often outside of their typical selections.

Pulitzer Prize books we've read...

Fiction Winners

To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee (awarded 1961)
The Optimist's Daughter, by Eudora Welty (awarded 1973
The Stone Diaries, by Carol Shields (awarded 1995)
The Hours, by Michael Cunningham (awarded 1999)
Empire Falls, by Richard Russo (awarded 2002)
Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides (awarded 2003)
The Known World, by Edward P. Jones (awarded 2004)
Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout (awarded 2009)
The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt (awarded 2014)
All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr (awarded 2015)
The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen (awarded 2016)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon (awarded 2001)
The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead (awarded 2020)

Fiction Finalists

The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey (recognition 2013)
The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett (recognition 2020)

Biography Winners

Angela's Ashes: A Memoir, by Frank McCourt (1997)

Pulitzer Prize Award website

Events...

Occasionally there are local or regional presentations/lectures the club attends or the club members visit locations associated with books. Below are several noteworthy events.

Author presentations & readings

Toni Morrison
Jeffrey Eugenides
Jeanette Walls
Cathy Marie Buchanan
Joyce Carol Oats
Margaret Atwood
Maya Angelou
Diane Ackerman
Michael Pollen
Robert C. Morgan

Trips & other events

The Kennedy Center (Washington, DC) production of The Little Dancer, a musical which is part fact/part fiction and based on the subject of Edgar Degas's sculpture (Nov 2014)
Johnson Museum Book Club Event: discussion of Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier in conjunction with museum's exhibition, "Past Time: Geology in European and American Art" (March 2019)
Visit (January 2020) to the Matilda Joselyn Gage Center, Fayetteville, NY. Matilda was the mother of Maud Gage Baum, wife of the author of The Wizard of Oz. We read Finding Dorothy, a historical novel from the perspective of Maud Gage Baum.

Conversations with authors...

From time to time, the club has the opportunity to talk with an author by conference call or Skype. Below are some of the authors the club has talked with.

Janet Fitch, White Oleander and Paint It Black
Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Cathy Marie Buchanan, The Day the Falls Stood Still
Hiliary Carlip, Queen of the Oddballs
Patti Callahan Henry, When Light Breaks
Joshua Henkin, Matrimony
Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin
Robert Morgan, The Truest Pleasure (attended club meeting)
Cathy Marie Buchanan, The Painted Girls (talked by Skype)
Justin Kramon, The Preservationist (attended club meeting)
Jeanne Mackin, A Lady of Good Family (attended club meeting)
Mary Pat Hyland, The House with the Wraparound Porch (attended club meeting)
Marlies Adam Difante, The Queen of the Bremen (attended club meeting)