NOOK FARM BOOK TALKS GET FOLKS READING AND TONGUES WAGGING

In late 2009, folks from The Mark Twain House & Museum started a conversation with our neighbors at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center. The jumping off point of discussion: “Why don’t we start a monthly program that encourages people to read the works of Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe?” As historic house museums, we preserve and restore the homes of these two legends. But as centers of education charged with promoting their legacies, we needed to get people reading…and talking.

With Nook Farm being the home of two of America’s most significant authors, as well as other literary figures like Charles Dudley Warner (co-writer of Twain’s first novel The Gilded Age, among others), William Gillette (who adapted Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes into a successful stage play), and Richard Burton (literary critic for The Hartford Courant), we knew that launching an ongoing series of book talks was essential. This area of Hartford was a hotbed of literary conversation in the mid-to-late 1800s -- a tradition well worth reviving in the era of 140-character tweets, scrolling news feeds, and visual over-stimulation.

Our main concern was limiting ourselves solely to the writings of Twain and Stowe. First, they would be finite in number (although both authors wrote a prodigious amount). Second, we feared that once the “big titles” -- Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – were discussed, that attendance would drop precipitously. Finally, Stowe and Twain’s interests were incredibly wide and varied taking in social issues, religion, domestic concerns, humor, war, human trafficking, and more. Why not pursue books that would have interested them, as well?

As a result, we decided that we would take a broader view. Both museums agreed that we would pick an initial slate of ten books that would mix Stowe and Twain works with biographies, fiction and non-fiction that look at the Gilded Age, and modern books that would focus on issues relevant to their interests. The challenge would be how to whittle it down to only 10 books with so much ground to cover. Each museum would select 5 books and we would alternate throughout the year. The discussions would alternate between the two properties, as well. Of course, refreshments would be required to keep the participants lively! Thus began the Nook Farm Book Club.

We kicked off the series in February 2010 with Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, as that month marked the 125th anniversary of the controversial masterpiece book being published in the United States. Sixty-five book clubbers showed eager to talk about this landmark Twain novel. We met in the Mark Twain Museum Center classroom in a U-shaped arrangement of chairs. A first edition Huckleberry Finn and other items drawn from our collection made this first meeting quite different than a standard book club.

The second meeting drew an equally large and engaged crowd to the Katharine Seymour Day House at the Stowe Center to discuss Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The book was contextualized by Stowe Center Director Katherine Kane and then the talk was off and running. Precious little moderation was required as the participants were extremely eager to share their feelings about Stowe’s landmark abolitionist novel. And to think we were discussing it only yards away from where the great lady herself lived for over two decades.

Having gotten to the two most obvious choices within the first two meetings, we were then prepared to start heading in different directions. The third book selected was Promised Land: Thirteen Books that Changed America. Of course, Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn made the list. Having just discussed the books, the conversation allowed us to put them into perspective alongside the other classics considered – from early landmarks Of Plymouth Plantation and The Federalist Papers up through How to Win Friends and Influence People and Dr. Spock’s The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care.

Illustration from "Pink & White Tyranny"

The rest of the year allowed participants to examine more obscure Twain (Tom Sawyer Abroad & Tom Sawyer, Detective), a biting society novel by Stowe (Pink & White Tyranny), a work that examines Stowe and Twain alongside their post-Civil War contemporaries artist Martin Johnson Heade and poet Emily Dickinson (A Summer of Hummingbirds), a biographical collage of Stowe (Stowe in Her Own Time), a dark novel examining Huck Finn’s adventures from his father Pap’s perspective (Finn, with author John Clinch participating via Skype), a powerful look at New Orleans post-Katrina (David Eggers’ Zeitoun), and a warm-hearted reading of Twain’s beloved The Diaries of Adam & Eve for the holidays.

At the end of 2010, Stowe and Twain staffs reconvened to examine the success of the first year and plot the second year. The first decision made was to switch from calling the meetings “Nook Farm Book Club” to “Nook Farm Book Talks.” The thought was that calling it a “book club” might preclude the attendance of people who have not actually read the books. By calling the meetings “book talks,” anyone with an interest can attend. For certain, the conversation will be more rewarding if one has read the book, but someone who has not read the book will be able to enjoy the chat and hopefully be inspired to read the book at a later date. The second change was trying to get guest authors and scholars when possible.

The first selection of 2011 was apt: A Skeptic’s Guide to Writers’ Houses by the skeptical scholar Anne Trubek. Anne traveled through a blizzard to be with us in January and led an engaging conversation about her travels visiting house museums dedicated to authors. This year we celebrate the bicentennial of the birth of Harriet Beecher Stowe, so the next choice was also apt: the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Stowe by Trinity College professor Joan Hedrick. Again, the author was present and participated in a lively conversation about her research. The March selection was the hefty Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1, the recently released blockbuster. As Twain specified the book could not be published in full until after 100 years after his death, the author was not present, but was ably represented by Twain scholar and St. Joseph College professor Dr. Kerry Driscoll.  Participants have enjoyed the small changes and attendance has been terrific.

So what is coming up for the Nook Farm Book Talks and why did we pick them?  Mark your calendar and start reading!

April 7th at Stowe
HALF THE SKY: TURNING OPPRESSION INTO OPPORTUNITY FOR WOMEN WORLDWIDE by Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn

This book, which focuses on gender oppression including rape, genital mutilation, and sexual slavery, is the groundbreaking selection for the first-ever Stowe Prize. Not merely a catalog of atrocities, the authors offer a path forward through empowerment, education and investment.

May 5th at Twain

THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY: MURDER, MAGIC AND MADNESS AT THE FAIR THAT CHANGED AMERICA by Erik Larson

This #1 national bestseller is a remarkable and page-turning distillation of a turning point in America’s history. The excesses of the Gilded Age reach a simultaneous high and low with the creation of the 1893 Columbian World Exposition in Chicago and the arrival of the nation’s most diabolical serial killer.

June 2nd at Stowe
THE MINISTER’S WOOING by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe's domestic comedy is a powerful examination of slavery, Protestant theology, and gender differences in early America. First published in 1859, and set in eighteenth-century Newport, Rhode Island, The Minister's Wooing is a historical novel that satirizes Calvinism, celebrating its intellectual and moral integrity while critiquing its rigid theology.

July 7th at Twain

JOSEPH HOPKINS TWICHELL: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MARK TWAIN’S CLOSEST FRIEND by Steve Courtney

The esteemed and dynamic leader of the Asylum Hill Congregational Church, Joseph Hopkins Twichell was the perfect and most unlikely best friend for the irascible Mark Twain. MTH&M staffer Steve Courtney will discuss his Connecticut Book Award-winning biography.

September 1st at Stowe

THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE by Stieg Larsson

The Swedish author Stieg Larsson tragically died before he saw his trilogy about the brutal adventures of a computer hacker and a dogged journalist turn into a worldwide publishing and movie sensation. This Nook Farm Book Talk focuses on the middle book of the trilogy and its unflinching look at human trafficking in the sex trade.

October 6th at Twain

THE TURN OF THE SCREW by Henry James

Twain and his contemporary Henry James are linked as two major figures in the 19th century movement of Literary Realism. October’s meeting takes on James’ spooky classic ghost story of two children who may be inviting evil into their forlorn estate.  See if you agree with Twain's assessment of a Henry James novel:  "Once you put it down, you simply can't pick it up." 

November 3rd at Stowe

THE LINCOLN & DOUGLASS SPEECHES

The Stowe Center considers the impact of two seminal figures of the Civil War Era: President Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. We will examine the text of several significant speeches of these two famous orators and boundary-shattering abolitionists.

December 1st at Twain

THE TRAGEDY OF PUDD’NHEAD WILSON by Mark Twain

The year draws to a close with another little-read Twain classic. Roxy, a slave woman who is 1/16th black, switches her baby boy with the white son of her wealthy master. With only 1/32nd of black blood differentiating them, the two boys grow up in vastly different circumstances.  Pudd'nhead Wilson marks a darker turn in Twain's writing and presages his turbulent later works.  It also points the way to 2012 and a whole new year of book talks.

Nook Farm Book Talks are free and open to all. Meetings begin at 5 p.m. with a free reception featuring light snacks, wine and soft drinks. The discussion begins at 5:30 p.m. and runs an hour in duration. Book titles are generally available through the Twain and Stowe gift shops, but are also widely available in book stores, libraries and online.

Special thanks to the Connecticut Humanities Council for their support of the Nook Farm Book Talks series.