Book Club is an online community gathering to discuss books by MDI authors or with local settings, using literature as an entry-point to regional history. The Society provides MDI-specific historical context to bring the novels to life, such as sharing relevant artifacts from the collection, sound bites from oral histories, and photographs or slides of the book’s people and places. Book Club also includes traditional discussions around themes, characters, and plot, and readers are encouraged to share their reactions and ask questions of the groups’ collective knowledge.
Finishing the novel isn’t required to attend meetings; we welcome readers whether they’re on page 12, 200, have finished the book, or haven’t had a chance to crack it open yet.
To join or receive updates about Book Club, please email Raney at raney@mdihistory.org to be added to the mailing list.
February Book Club: February 26, 2024 at 6pm
Murder with an Ocean View: A Robin's Nest Mystery By Rob Lawton
Someone is stalking what’s left of Jennifer Jameson’s family. The question is who? Her only clue comes from a great-grandfather who died before she was born. According to Jack Winston’s journal from 1943, he and his wife were like toast and jam. She was sweet while Jack was always toasted. The glamorous couple solved mysteries between quips and cocktails, but because they left one puzzle unsolved, their great-granddaughter must confront a killer at Robin’s Nest. Jenny teams up with a former FBI agent to identify the villain in her ancestral home before she becomes the next victim. Two interlocking mysteries will unfold within the same house. Two couples, separated by 75 years, will have one thing in common: murder with an ocean view.
Author Biography:
Robert and Robin Lawton are a husband and wife team who publish under the pseudonym, Rob Lawton. They live on Mount Desert Island, where they plot murders daily. The product of their combined imagination has manifested itself in the form of plays, mystery weekends, novels, novellas, and short stories. Other books by Rob Lawton: “Murder in Black & White” and “A Meritage of Murders: A Collection of Short Stories” and plays “Murder at the Vandy’s” “The Fine Art of Murder”, “The Auto Wars” and “Murder is for the Birds.”
Check out their website at RLawtonSquared.com
Previous Selections:
December 2023 - Women of the Dawn by Bunny McBride
Women of the Dawn tells the stories of four remarkable Wabanaki Indian women who lived in northeast America during the four centuries that devastated their traditional world. Their courageous responses to tragedies brought on by European contact make up the heart of the book.
View the book talk recording here.
October 2023 - Windswept by Mary Ellen Chase
Born in Blue Hill in 1887, Mary Ellen Chase was the author of many works of fiction, non-fiction, essays, and even two college textbooks about writing. Windswept was her best-selling book, a work of fiction that spans three generations, exploring their connections to each other through the remote property at Windswept.
View the slideshow here. View the book talk recording here.
April 2023 - God’s Pocket by Rachel Field
Rachel Field, award-winning author, poet, playwright (etc.) who lived on Sutton Island, wrote about Samuel Hadlock, Jr. and his journey to Europe with a Bailey-and-Barnum-type sideshow which included three Inuit, one an infant.
View research here.
February 2023 - Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar
Marguerite Yourcenar, the first woman to be elected to the Académie Française, lived year-round in Northeast Harbor, where she penned this novel, translated into English by Grace Frick.
View research and notes from the meeting here.
December 2022 - Love in Idleness by F. Marion Crawford
F. Marion Crawford, a visitor to Bar Harbor, wrote this romance novella set there during the Gilded Age, along with a travel guide to Bar Harbour [sic] in 1894.
View research into F. Marion Crawford and Bar Harbor in the Gilded Age, here.
October 2022 - Speak to the Winds by Ruth Moore
Ruth Moore, born on Gotts Island, wrote fourteen novels, some while living on MDI, and is considered one of the most prominent writers of the mid-20th century.
View research into Ruth Moore and Gott’s Island here.
May 2022 - Swan’s Harbor by Eleanor Mayo
Novelist Eleanor Mayo (1920-1981) also happened to be the first female selectperson elected to Tremont, shortly after buying property in Bass Harbor in 1946 and building a home out of found lumber and driftwood with partner and fellow author Ruth Moore.
View research into Eleanor Mayo, and the Quietside at that time, here.
March 2022 - The Wall by Mary Roberts Rinehart
Book Club in March 2022 featured Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876-1958) and her murder mystery novel, The Wall, set in Bar Harbor and published in 1938.
Rinehart, coined by some “the American Agatha Christie” and “the great dame of American crime fiction,” began summering in Bar Harbor in the 1930s, until her death in 1958. Jenna Jandreau, Communications and Engagement Manager, said “The Wall is a fun read for winter, an intriguing page-turner,” and she particularly loves the local references to place, both those still recognizable and those left only to history or imagination. Jenna’s research into Rinehart has proved even more fascinating - of all things, Rinehart was nearly murdered by her own chef!
View that research here.