Wednesday, August 27; 7:00PM - 8:00PM
Reading the Western Landscape Community Book Discussion
About the Community Book Discussion
The Arboretum Library’s book group explores the portrayal of western North American landscape in fiction, non-fiction, drama, poetry, letters, graphic novels, etc. The group generally, but not always, meets the 4th Wednesday of the month in the Arboretum Library. When the weather is good and the mosquitos are less active, the group will meet outside in appropriate places in the gloriously, beautiful grounds of the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden. At other times the group will meet in the Arboretum Library with social distancing and masking if desired. The group leader will decide each month whether the meeting will be in-person (in the Arboretum Library or outside on the Arboretum grounds) or on Zoom.
The group uses a modified version of the Shared Inquiry™ method developed by the Great Books Foundation. The discussion is greatly enhanced if the chosen book of the month is read, although we welcome those who just want to listen. Let the host know you want to listen. New participants are always welcome!
Click here to see the questions already asked for this year’s past books and check out the history of the book club by hovering on the tab and explore the books from previous years.
For more information and to be added to the e-mail reminder list about the Community Book Discussion Group, please contact, Arboretum Librarian Emeritus, Susan Eubank, at Susan.Eubank@Arboretum.org. You must RSVP to Susan for the discussions you would like to attend.
April 23, 2025, 7:00 p.m.
Invisible Country by
When Europeans first settled in Australia, the land withheld many of its secrets from them. There were broad rivers, wide plains and tall forests, all of which, to European eyes, suggested promising sites for settlement. To many of the new settlers, the First Australians were a puzzle. They moved freely through country they knew intimately. They had useful things to say to the European newcomers – if they would listen. What few realised then was that Aboriginal people, and the land they lived in, were indistinguishable. Failure to read the people made it hard to read the country. Invisible Country describes the environmental change that has occurred in south-western Australia since European settlement, through four case studies of the development of local rivers, forests and coastal plains. These stories, compiled through extensive conversations with farmers, ecologists, traditional owners and others who rely on the land, are book-ended by an examination of the historical perspective in which these changes have occurred. It is a reminder that the land owns people, not the other way around, and is the beginning of a conversation about understanding and care for a land we are all lucky to live in.
May 28, 2025, 7:00 p.m.
Tales of the City by
Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City has blazed a singular trail through popular culture — from a groundbreaking newspaper serial to a classic novel to a television event that entranced millions around the world. The first of six novels about the denizens of the mythic apartment house at 28 Barbary Lane, Tales is both a wry comedy of manners and a deeply involving portrait of a vanished era.
June 25, 2025, 7:00 p.m.
Read Me, Los Angeles by
The book […] has surprising depth. Orphan visits the stomping grounds of historic and contemporary Los Angeles writers[…] and gathers illustrations, interviews, and reading lists to create a well-rounded resource. While Read Me is a light romp, it has the potential to open new doors to familiar territory—namely the city itself. H.L. Mencken’s famously tart description of Los Angeles as “nineteen suburbs in search of a metropolis” appears […], but for some authors, sprawl emerges as a superpower. Los Angeles narratives are layered, shifting; just take a look (or a walk, or a drive) around.–Agatha French, Alta Journal
A colorful, lively, and informed celebration of all things bookish in L.A. past and present, including interviews with current L.A. writers; day trips in search of favorite fictional characters, from Marlowe to Weetzie Bat; author quotes galore; curated lists of the must-read L.A. books; a look at where writers have lived and worked in the City of Angels; and insight into the city’s book festivals, bookstores, publishers, literacy nonprofits, libraries, and more. Rich with photographs, book images, and vintage maps.
July 23, 2025, 7:00 p.m.
Big Sur by
“Big Sur is so devastatingly honest & painful & yet so beautifully written. He was able to document his own destruction & breakdown, & at the same time you feel that the person who was documenting this tragedy was also someone with high ideals that wanted more. He was sharing his pain & suffering with the reader in the same way Dostoyevsky did, with the idea of salvation through suffering. [Kerouac’s] idea […] was […] rather, looking for a higher spiritual & moral ground & going through all those twisted paths we meet to get there. […I]t was a twisted path that he, in part, created himself, because he was trying to escape the horror of unwanted celebrity & becoming a victim of a stereotype that most people would have profited from. He didn’t. He wanted to be accepted for just what he was, […] a great man of American and English Letters.”— David Amram , speaking at “Kerouac in Newport”
Big Sur was written some time after Kerouac’s best-known work, following a visit to northern California and the first ravages of midlife crisis. The book reveals Kerouac’s burgeoning problem with alcoholism, the mental duress aggravated by his unwanted fame, and his quest for inner peace.
August 27, 2025, 7:00 p.m.
The Forgotten Botanist by
ISBN: 9781496222817
“Every once in awhile, a book comes along that, even though it is non-fiction, is so well written that it reads like a novel. […] I was drawn in immediately by Ms. Brown’s eye for detail and [the] well written narrative of […] Lemmon’s life, loves, and scientific contributions to the field of botany. [The book] chronicles [her] remarkable life, in which [she & her husband] found new plant species in Arizona, California, Oregon, & Mexico & traveled throughout the Southwest […]. [It] is a timeless tale about a woman who discovered who she was by leaving everything behind. Her inspiring story is one of resilience, determination, & courage—and is as relevant to our nation today as it was in her own time.” — Mary Sauers, NCompass Blog
WILLA Literary Award Winner in Creative Nonfiction; 2022 Spur Award Winner; 2022 Top Pick in Southwest Books of the Year; New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards Finalist in Cover Design; Honorable Mention in the At-Large NFPW Communications Contes
The Forgotten Botanist is the account of an extraordinary woman who, in 1870, was driven by ill health to leave the East Coast for a new life in the West–alone. At thirty-three, Sara Plummer relocated to Santa Barbara, where she taught herself botany and established the town’s first library. Ten years later she married botanist John Gill Lemmon, and together the two discovered hundreds of new plant species, many of them illustrated by Sara, an accomplished artist. Although she became an acknowledged botanical expert and lecturer, Sara’s considerable contributions to scientific knowledge were credited merely as “J.G. Lemmon & wife.” The Forgotten Botanist chronicles Sara’s remarkable life, in which she and JG found new plant species in Arizona, California, Oregon, and Mexico and traveled throughout the Southwest with such friends as John Muir and Clara Barton. Sara also found time to work as a journalist and as an activist in women’s suffrage and forest conservation. Her inspiring story is one of resilience, determination, and courage–and is as relevant to our nation today as it was in her own time.
September 24, 2025, 7:00 p.m.
White Oleander by
ISBN: 0316285269
“This dark tale of mothers, daughters and the enigma of ‘womanhood’ is told through the eyes of Astrid Magnussen, a thirteen year old girl who finds her idyllic life shattered when her mother Ingrid gets sent to jail for murder…I loved everything about this novel. The characters, the settings, each and every turn of phrase which is so painstakingly written. … It’s a relief to read something that makes no apologies for what it is; a book about women for women. Fitch is a brave, bold author who is unashamedly feminine in her approach to the subject of mother-daughter relations and everything else in between. … it is intimate, raw with a sheer clarity for memory, place and emotion.” — Zee, Wordly Obsessions
A New York Times bestseller Astrid is the only child of a single mother, Ingrid, a brilliant, obsessed poet. Astrid worships her mother and cherishes their private world full of ritual and mystery — but their idyll is shattered when Ingrid falls apart over a lover. Deranged by rejection, she murders the man, and is sentenced to life in prison. White Oleander is the unforgettable story of Astrid’s journey through a series
of foster homes and her efforts to find a place herself in impossible circumstances. Each home is its own universe, with a new set of laws and lessons to be learned. With determination and humor, Astrid confronts the challenges of loneliness and poverty, and strives to learn who a motherless child in an indifferent world can become.
October 29, 2025, 7:00 p.m.
Reconstructing the View: The Grand Canyon Photographs of Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe, by
ISBN: 9780520273900
“[…The photographers] find their inspiration not only in the canyon but also in other artists’ interpretations of this immense landscape. The catalogue, […]is an in-depth look at […the] collaborative project (2007–2011). Following two introductory essays, the catalogue opens into lush reproductions of the artist’s work. While Klett & Wolfe’s original photographs are large format, the device of utilizing several foldout pages allows the eye to pick out details that we might not ordinarily see. [..]Senf’s informative essay contextualizes [the] project by detailing their intricate process of incorporating other artists’ work to both capture the essence of the original image & to chart differences to the canyon wrought by time. […] Pyne contributes a […] wider view of the canyon, familiar to so many through visiting or the vast existing imagery…”— Jennifer Jankauskas , Museums & Society
Using landscape photography to reflect on broader notions of culture, the passage of time, and the construction of perception, photographers Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe spent five years exploring the Grand Canyon for their most recent project, Reconstructing the View. The team’s landscape photographs are based on the practice of rephotography, in which they identify sites of historic photographs and make new photographs of those precise locations. Klett and Wolfe referenced a wealth of images of the canyon, ranging from historical photographs and drawings by William Bell and William Henry Holmes, to well-known artworks by Edward Weston and Ansel Adams, and from souvenir postcards to contemporary digital images drawn from Flickr. The pair then employed digital postproduction methods to bring the original images into dialogue with their own. The result is this stunning volume, illustrated with a wealth of full-color illustrations that attest to the role photographers–both anonymous and great–have played in picturing American places. Rebecca Senf’s compelling essay traces the photographers’ process and methodology, conveying the complexity of their collaboration. Stephen J. Pyne provides a conceptual framework for understanding the history of the canyon, offering an overview of its discovery by Europeans and its subsequent treatment in writing, photography, and graphic arts.
Icarus by Deon Meyer translated by K.L. Seeger, Atlantic Monthly Press, 2015
ISBN: 9780802124005
“Deon Meyer’s gritty crime novels [are] part police procedural, part political thriller . . . What makes Meyer such a national treasure – and as good as anyone in the world – is that even if you have no knowledge or interest in South Africa’s history or present, his books are compelling page-turners. Politics and race are just part of the intricately crafted superstructure bolted onto the rock-solid chassis of a top-quality crime thriller, driven by a writer with deceptive skill.” — Books Live [A] …”great discovery: classy, edgy writing, subtly plotted and beautifully balanced between fast-paced action, pungent social comment and the process of investigation.” —Weekend Australian
South Africa’s preeminent crime fiction writer, Deon Meyer is internationally acclaimed for his razor’s-edge thrillers, unforgettable characters, and nuanced portrayals of contemporary life in his native country. The fifth pulse-pounder starring Captain Benny Griessel, a lead detective in South Africa’s priority crimes unit, delves into the country’s burgeoning tech and wine industries. A week before Christmas, a young photographer discovers a plastic-wrapped corpse amidst the sand dunes north of Cape Town. The only thing found on the corpse is a dead iPhone, but it doesn’t take long for the police to identify the body as that of Ernst Richter–the tech whiz behind MyAlibi, an internet service that provides unfaithful partners with sophisticated cover stories to hide an affair. Meanwhile, Benny Griessel is called to the scene of a multiple homicide involving a former colleague, and four years of sobriety are undone on the spot. He emerges from his drunken haze determined to quit the force, but the take-no-sass Major Mbali Kaleni, now his boss, wants Griessel on the Richter case. The high-profile murder has already been the subject of fierce media speculation, with questions swirling about the potential for motive: could the perpetrator be one of the countless jilted spouses? An aggrieved client? Before the week is out, an unexpected connection to a storied family winery comes to light, and Griessel’s reputation is again on the line. Mounting towards a startling conclusion, Icarus is another exceptional novel from the “King of South African Crime.”
December 17, 2025, 7:00 p.m.
Venice by
“… [She] writes beautiful prose. This hymn to Venice, from someone who has lived there, is, as you would expect, a lyrical and haunting evocation of the beauty of one of the world’s most visited tourist destinations, and a fascinating history of a city state that was a republic and maritime empire throughout the middle ages. […I]t is also shrewd and practical and funny. […] This is a piece of the best sort of travel writing, the sort where the traveller becomes part of an alien landscape and has deep interactions with the inhabitants and begins to struggle to an understanding of what it must be like to live in such a place..”— David Appleby, Goodreads
Cost
Free event
