ONLINE: A Zoom invitation link will be sent the Friday before each class session begins.
Using prepared questions and our own observations, the discussion each month will explore a book from current bestseller lists. Selected books for the Spring 2026 term are:
April Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King
Please read before the first class session.
Published in 1982 128 pages Fiction
A mesmerizing tale of unjust imprisonment and offbeat escape, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption is one of Stephen King's most beloved and iconic stories, and it helped make Castle Rock a place readers would return to over and over again. Suspenseful, mysterious, and heart-wrenching, this iconic King novella, populated by a cast of unforgettable characters, is about a fiercely compelling convict named Andy Dufresne who is seeking his ultimate revenge.
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May A Wilder Shore: The Romantic Odyssey of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson by Camille Peri
Please read before the second class session.
Published in 2024 408 pages Dual Biography
This story chronicles the adventurous and literary partnership between the author and his wife, Fanny Van de Grift. The book is a richly researched and vivid portrait of their unconventional relationship, from their first meeting in France to their global travels and final years in Samoa. It highlights Fanny's crucial role as a muse, editor, and partner, and reframes her as a complex and formidable figure.
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June Orbital by Samantha Harvey
Please read before the third class session.
Published in 2023 224 pages Sci Fi/Fiction
A slender novel of epic power and the winner of the Booker Prize 2024, Orbital deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space. Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts—from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan—have left their lives behind to travel at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below. We glimpse moments of their earthly lives through brief communications with family, their photos and talismans; we watch them whip up dehydrated meals, float in gravity-free sleep, and exercise in regimented routines to prevent atrophying muscles; we witness them form bonds that will stand between them and utter solitude. Most of all, we are with them as they behold and record their silent blue planet. Their experiences of sixteen sunrises and sunsets and the bright, blinking constellations of the galaxy are at once breathtakingly awesome and surprisingly intimate.
Please read Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption before the first class.
We will send a list of discussion questions for each book to all registrants prior to each Book Club session.
Debie White has been a member of the Elderwise Learning Book Club for 10 plus years. She is an avid reader and welcomes an exchange of ideas, opinions, and interpretations.
