1000 White Women

This Reading Group Guide offers some interesting discussion points and a Q&A with the author. Sometimes I find that books I didn't love lend themselves to better meetings. Trying to find a review that can critic the historical accuracy of the book.

BTW, Jim Fergus has published another book, The Wild Girl : The Notebooks of Ned Giles, 1932, but, I don't think it did too well because the paperback edition was given a new name and a whole new publisher: Last Apache Girl

1000 White Women

Just a reminder that we will be meeting at my house at 7 pm on Dec 3 to discuss lots and lots of white women. I'm still working on the book - trying to plow my way through. It's a bit slow moving so far, and not the best-written book we've encountered. But I'm hoping it will pick up in the chapters to come.

Also, at the last meeting we discussed using our "free months" to springboard off the previous month's book to a related topic. So next month, for example, we may choose to read books about the Cheyenne or women's journals from that time period, or to watch a movie even. That way we still have some common ground for discussion the following month. That meeting will be January 7th at Jayne's house.

Carolyn said she would like to do Eat, Pray, Love for February 4 at her House.

Other books we added to Our BIG List of good reads are: Ahab's Wife;
Love in the time of Cholera; When the Emperor was Divine; Down River; Blue Highway; The Spellman Files and Where the Road Goes.

Frances gets to choose a book for April.

One Thousand White Women

This book sounds good! Someone had requested the library buy it and it came in yesterday. The suggester gets first crack at it but I've put you on the list, Reid, so you'll get it second.
jayne the librarian

One Thousand White Women

Thinking about suggesting this as our next book. Any comments?

Amazon says: An American western with a most unusual twist, this is an imaginative fictional account of the participation of May Dodd and others in the controversial "Brides for Indians" program, a clandestine U.S. government-sponsored program intended to instruct "savages" in the ways of civilization and to assimilate the Indians into white culture through the offspring of these unions. May's personal journals, loaded with humor and intelligent reflection, describe the adventures of some very colorful white brides (including one black one), their marriages to Cheyenne warriors, and the natural abundance of life on the prairie before the final press of the white man's civilization. Fergus is gifted in his ability to portray the perceptions and emotions of women. He writes with tremendous insight and sensitivity about the individual community and the political and religious issues of the time, many of which are still relevant today. This book is artistically rendered with meticulous attention to small details that bring to life the daily concerns of a group of hardy souls at a pivotal time in U.S. history.