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Discussion Books, Resources and Activities for 2025
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LAVA discussed (or will soon discuss) the following books during 2025. Click book names for reading resources, or browse month by month. Resources for books read in other years are also available.
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| January |
We met at church for a combined pot luck dinner and business meeting to exchange opinions on books on the 2025 voting list. Here are the voting results.
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| February |
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
by David Grann, 329 pages, 2023.
In 1742, a British ship named The Wager wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of southern South America. One group of survivors made their way to Brazil, where they were treated as heroes for overcoming extreme hardship. Another group eventually made their way to Britain, where they told a very different story about the first group. Los Angeles Times: "A testament to the depths of human depravity and the heights of human endurance, and you can't ask for better than that from a story ... The Wager will keep you in its grip to its head-scratching, improbable end." The Guardian: "He fixes his spyglass on the ravages of empire, of racism, of bureaucratic indifference and raw greed ... one of the finest nonfiction books I've ever read." Washington Post: "Glorious, steely ... a tightly written, relentless, blow-by-blow account that is hard to put down."
Several reviews of the book.
Here are the Wikipedia articles on the author
and the book, which in turn have links to the articles on the Wager Mutiny
and the HMS Wager
The author's website.
A five-minute video interview with the author at a Barnes and Noble store.
An interview with the author by a representive of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard.
A diagram of the main parts of a British man-of-war.
On page 113, the author mentions the
Minnesota starvation experiment.
The book mentions indiginous people called the Kawesqar and the Chono.
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| March |
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, 309 pages, 2023.
During covid, Lara's three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. Over the course of many days, they hear the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she had shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. Her daughters are forced to reconsider everything they thought they knew about her. Boston Globe: "A searching reflection on the relationships between theater and life, romance and realism, Tom Lake is perhaps Patchett's finest novel yet." Los Angeles Review of Books: "Tom Lake is about love in all its many forms. But it is also about death and the ephemeral and how everything goes by so damned fast."
The author's web site.
Several reviews of the book.
Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town" on YouTube, which helps to fully understand the novel.
A short (8-minute) interview and a long (90-minute) interview with the author about this book. At the end of the shorter interview, there is a brief clip of traffic on the main street in Peterboro, New Hampshire, the inspiration for Grover's Corners in "Our Town".
According to this interview, the cherry orchard in the novel is near Traverse City, Michigan.
On page 184, the Stage Manager's understudy refuses to perform, saying "I would prefer not to." The three sisters recognize the reference to Herman Melville's short story "Bartleby the Scrivener".
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| April |
The Possibility of Life by Jaime Green, 272 pages, 2023.
Written by a science journalist, this work of non-fiction combines insights from scientists and science fiction writers to explore the question of whether there is life elsewhere in the universe and what that would mean for us if
such life was discovered.
The author's website.
Several reviews of the book.
A seven-minute video interview with the author about her work as a science writer.
A fifty-minute video interview with the author about this book. The interview begins at the six-minute mark.
Beginning on page 21, the author describes a Star Trek episode that explains why the three main Galactic species look so much alike. Here is a short clip of that scene.
Adam Frank, a professor at the University of Rochester, is mentioned several times in the book, the first time on page 173. Here is his website and the Wikipedia article about him. If you want more, here is a one-hour one-hour talk by him called "Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth."
Carl Sagan introduces the photo named "The Pale Blue Dot," mentioned on page 65, in this short video from 1990.
The photo named "Earthrise," mentioned on page 66, has its own Wikipedia article.
On page 85, the author recommends watching the short
video simulation of the violent creation of our moon.
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| May |
Animal Farm by George Orwell, about 125 pages, 1945.
In this classic satire of the Soviet Union written by a democratic socialist, animals on a farm rebel against the farmer and attempt to create a free and equal society. They end up instead under the control of a dictatorial pig and are worse off than before. This novella is number 31 on the Modern Library's list of the best 20th-Century novels, and it is a selection in the Great Books of the Western World series.
The Wikipedia articles on the
author and the book.
A review in the Antigonish review
The introduction to one edition of the book by Tea Obreht, as reproduced in Time magazine.
A review in the London Review of Books by Julian Symons, who wrote the introduction to one edition of Animal Farm, of a book about Orwell.
Chapter 8 reflects the events of the Moscow Show Trials, at which people admitted to crimes they did not commit.
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