Book Club Discussions
Arts and Crafts collectors love to read, and we love our books and our home libraries. While reading is a solitary endeavor, we also enjoy sharing with others our thoughts, opinions, and observations. For several years Pat Bartinique, English professor and author, has lead our popular in-person book discussions at the National Arts and Crafts Conference at the Grove Park Inn. This coming February, Pat will return to use her experience to lead our discussions. We hope you will take the opportunity to read any of this year’s selections in advance of February, so that you can join the other registered participants in the lively discussions Pat will be leading on the Friday and Saturday during Conference weekend.
The 2025 Book Club Selections
What The Mountains Remember
by Joy Callaway
For the first time, The Grove Park Inn is a character in its own right in this 2024 release in historical fiction!
“April 1913 —Belle Newbold hasn’t seen mountains for seven years since her father died in a mining accident. But when her stepfather’s friend, Henry Ford, invites the family on one of his famous Vagabonds camping tours, she is forced to face the hills once again—primarily in order to reunite with her future fiancé, owner of the land the Vagabonds are using for their campsite. It is a veritable arranged marriage, but she prefers it that way. But when the Vagabonds group is invited to tour the unfinished Grove Park Inn and Belle is unexpectedly thrust into a role researching and writing about the building of the inn—a construction the locals are calling The Eighth Wonder of the World—she quickly realizes that these mountains are no different from the ones she once called home. As Belle peels back the facade of Grove Park Inn, of Worth, of the society she’s come to claim as her own, and the truth of her heart, she begins to see that perhaps her part in Grove Park’s story isn’t a coincidence after all. International bestselling author Joy Callaway returns with a story of the ordinary people behind extraordinary beauty—and the question of who gets to tell their stories.”
Consider purchasing this title at your local bookstore OR use the links below for Barnes & Noble, AbeBooks.com or Amazon. Used copies available!
Links to purchase new or used copies online
The Art of Seeing Things: Essays by John Burroughs
edited by Charlotte Zoe Walker
A collection of essays by noted naturalist John Burroughs in which he contemplates a wide array of topics including farming, religion, and conservation. A departure from previous John Burroughs anthologies, this volume celebrates the surprising range of his writing to include religion, philosophy, conservation, and farming. In doing so, it emphasizes the process of the literary naturalist, specifically the lively connection the author makes between perceiving nature and how perception permeates all aspects of life experiences.
Consider purchasing this title at your local bookstore OR use the links below for Barnes & Noble, AbeBooks.com or Amazon. Used copies available!
Links to purchase new or used copies online