Resident Ralph Strong will review Brief Answers to The Big Questions by Stephen Hawking, on Tuesday, August 20, 2019 at 7 PM in the Auditorium.

This final book by Stephen Hawking was published a few months after his death in March 2018. The author attempts to answer some of the big questions in cosmology, philosophy and human awareness. In the process, Hawking weaves interesting details of his personal life along with brief descriptions of his technical discoveries, including how he arrived at the realization that black holes can and do lose mass, a phenomenon that has been named ‘Hawking Radiation’ in his honor. His life is so remarkable because he became afflicted with the muscle debilitating disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS}, at the age of 21. Although he was always under the threat of dying within the next five years, he lived to be 76 and built a career as a well-respected mathematician, cosmologist, author and personality, whose life was portrayed in the film “The Theory of Everything.” His most popular book was All About Time, which sold over 25 million copies.

An introduction with details of his personal life is followed by 10 chapters devoted to answering 10 big questions. In our review, we will discuss a few of these answers including “Is there a God?”, “How did it all begin?” and “How do we shape the future?”. Hawking includes thought-provoking ideas on the future of education and how to deal with the rapidly evolving technology, identifying the big questions that we are leaving for the next generation.  

A forward written by  Kip Thorne, a lifetime friend, a physicist from California Institute of Technology,  and an afterward written by his daughter Lucy shed light on his family life and achievements. Hawking remained engaged in his work until he died at the age of 76. For the last years of his life, he communicated and drove his motorized wheelchair by controlling motion of a muscle in his cheek.

Brief Answers to the Big Questions is thought- provoking and provides a non-mathematical walk through the life of a remarkable man, the history of science and challenging concepts in education and social relations.

Janet Neer and Jane Backstrom, Co-chairs

July 16 – Separate: The Story of Plessy v. Ferguson an America’s Journey from Slavery to Segregation [New York : Norton, 2019] by Steve Luxenberg, reviewed by Ken Weeden.

REVIEWS & SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

Separate Website
Book Excerpts [Amazon]
The Tumultuous Path from Emancipation to Segregation [New York Times]
The Court Decision That Ushered in Decades of Jim Crow [Washington Post]
The Life and Afterlife of Plessy v. Ferguson [The Nation]
‘Separate’ Is An Eye-Opening Journey… [NPR]
Book Review [Washington Independent Review of Books]
Interview with Steve Luxenberg – video [WYPR- Baltimore]
Video of Luxenberg on his book [Politics and Prose Bookstore]
Video of Steve Luxenberg on his book [Author forum]

Resident Ken Weeden will review Separate: The Story of Plessy v. Ferguson and America’s Journey from Slavery to Segregation by Steve Luxenberg, on Tuesday, July 16, 2019 at 7 PM in the Auditorium.

When Homer Plessy walked to the train station to buy a ticket for a short ride on the East Louisiana Railroad one sunny June day in 1892, he was determined to break the law. It was all planned:  He would purchase a first-class ticket, then board the train, sit down in a comfortable chair. He would be recognized and told to leave the car; he would refuse; he would be arrested and taken to jail, booked, post bail and be home in a couple of hours.

 And his crime? Homer Plessy entered the “Whites Only” first class car.  He was a Creole, 1/8 African descendent.  His family’s ancestor had come from Haiti in the 18th century and settled into the Spanish, French culture of New Orleans.  He passed for white on a regular basis, and he was seldom bothered by the increasing restrictions and violence former slaves faced. But by state law, he was Black and must travel in the Jim Crow car.  Because he looked white, civil rights lawyers wanted him to be the test case that challenged the constitutionality of this law that they felt flew in the face of the 14th Amendment.

Four years later, on May 3, 1896, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments and later rendered its decision.  In a 7-1 vote, the Court ruled that the separate but equal doctrine did not violate the Constitution.  Further, Justice Brown argued that if negroes felt humiliated and degraded, that was their personal issue, there was nothing humiliating or degrading in the races being separate.  The lone dissent was penned by Mr. Justice John Marshal Harlan who argued that the Constitution is color blind and any distinction based on race was illegal.  He feared that this decision would open the floodgates to greater separation of the races and greater violence. The few newspapers that picked up the story agreed that the races should be separate, it had always been; it was natural.

 Separate by Steve Luxenberg is more than a detailed study of the infamous decision. It traces race relations from the optimistic days of Reconstruction:  Black Americans building businesses, entering politics, voting, building schools and seeing a bright future for themselves and their children.  Plessy v. Ferguson made constitutional the way White America wanted to relate to Black America: separate, unequal and as invisible as possible. 

Janet Neer and Jane Backstrom, Co-chairs

June 18 – Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, reviewed by Chilton Knudsen.

REVIEWS & SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

Delia Owen’s website
Interview with the author [Youtube]
Summary & review of book [Bibliofile Book Reviews]
Book Study Guide [Bookrags]
Book excerpts [Amazon]
Are the Rural Poor Noble Savages? [The Arts Fuse]
Now that We’ve All Read [it]….Can We Talk about the Ending? [Washington Post]
On Delia Owens [CBS News video]
The Debut Novel That Rules the Best-Seller List [New York Times]
…In the Swamps of North Carolina [The Guardian]