Local History Book Group: ‘American Bloomsbury’ by Susan Cheever

February 03, 2020 | Will Adamczyk

Join me on Wednesday, March 4th  at 7:00 for a discussion of ‘American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau : their lives, their loves, their work‘ Susan Cheever.

The Local History Book Group meets quarterly at the Library. Copies of the book will be available at the Main Desk on the first floor, or you can place a hold here.

“The 1850s were heady times in Concord, Massachusetts: in a town where a woman’s petticoat drying on an outdoor line was enough to elicit scandal, some of the greatest minds of our nation’s history were gathering in three of its wooden houses to establish a major American literary movement. The Transcendentalists, as these thinkers came to be called, challenged the norms of American society with essays, novels, and treatises whose beautifully rendered prose and groundbreaking assertions still resonate with readers today. Though noted contemporary author Susan Cheever stands in awe of the monumental achievements of such writers as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Louisa May Alcott, her personal, evocative narrative removes these figures from their dusty pedestals and provides a lively account of their longings, jealousies, and indiscretions.”

To see previous Local History Book Club titles and lists from our other groups, visit our Book Group page.

Will Adamczyk, Library Director