Clubs: What are we reading

Nancy Tarbutton, Sandersville

Silk Stocking Readers

How often they meet: Monthly, except in June, July, August and December

About this club: "This club got started in 2000 when a young bride from the city asked a few of her new friends each to ask two or three people who loved to read to join the club," Tarbutton said. The club has 14 members ranging in age from 35 to older than 85. "This diversity of ages makes for lively discussion," Tarbutton said. Meetings are held in members' homes. Drinks and desserts are served. One or two members serve as reviewers for each book, facilitating discussion and sometimes inviting a guest who has a connection to the book. For example, when members read "Blossoms in the Wind" by Mordecai G. Sheftall, the author's mother joined the meeting to discuss the book about surviving kamikaze pilots. Members compile a list of suggested titles each April, and the top vote-getters become the reading list for the year. Other titles members enjoyed include: "Loving Frank," by Nancy Horan; "One Thousand White Women," by Jim Fergus; "Bel Canto," by Ann Patchett; "The Nine," by Jeffrey Toobin; and "The Book Thief," by Markus Zusak. When they read "A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories" by Flannery O'Connor, they traveled to the author's hometown of Milledgeville.

Recently read: "Franklin and Winston" by Jon Meacham

What it's about: An account of the friendship between Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.

What members thought: The book was chosen because Doris Kearns Goodwin's "No Ordinary Time," the club's all-time favorite book, is also about the Roosevelt years. "Everyone agreed 'Franklin and Winston' was excellent, also," Tarbutton said. Club members thought the book "did a good job of showing how Franklin manipulated Stalin and Churchill, and how he was not loyal to Churchill when he should have been."