Miss the last #AgBookClub chat? No worries, we’ve compiled a summary of the chat to prepare you for next week!
This week, we continued with our November/December selection, The Worst Hard Time, by Timothy Egan. The assigned pages, 193 – 253, covered Black Sunday, the establishment of the Soil Conservation Service, the foundation of the Last Man Club, diary entries from a farmer, and a film crew assigned to cover the Dust Bowl, capturing scenes from the Panhandle for a government-funded feature.
Below are several responses that we thought summed up the Week 5 chat well, covered themes, or contained thought-provoking questions or comments.
Feel free to chime in with your thoughts in the comments section of this post or on Twitter (clicking the date at the bottom of each tweet will take you directly to that tweet on Twitter’s website). You can see the full conversation by searching “#AgBookClub” on Twitter.
Q1: Share time! What’s been your favorite or least favorite part of this section? Catch anything interesting that hit home?
Q2: “The problem with history is that it was written by the survivors…so Hartwell started his diary at the darkest hour.” (p. 242). Have you ever recorded your own history with a diary or journal?
Q3: Many diaries and journals kept during the Dust Bowl were destroyed in later years. Would you destroy yours? Why or why not?
Q4: Hartwell described his amazement at the fine details, such as the crack of the bat, heard over the radio during the World Series in his October 2, 1936 diary entry. What technology are you most excited about today that you wouldn’t have dreamed about 10 years ago?
Q5: Black Sunday is the most well-known event of the Dust Bowl. What do you think of Big Hugh Bennett timing his request for government funding of his Soil Conservation Service for exactly when the storm arrived in Washington, D.C.?
Q6: The Last Man Club was formed following Black Sunday by individuals who resolved to never leave their home in the Texas Panhandle. Would you have joined?
We’ll be wrapping up this book during our next chat, so join us at 8pm Wednesday, December 20th as we discuss Week 6’s reading assignment of The Worst Hard Time. We’ll be discussing pages 254 – end. See the full schedule here.
The #AgBookClub Twitter chat takes place Wednesdays at 8pm CST.
Christmas is coming soon! Need some help with ideas for your wish list or gifts for book lovers in your life? Check out what’s coming up on #AgBookClub in early 2018. Buy them the book (or books!) and encourage them to participate in the weekly discussion – it’s the gift that keeps on giving! 🙂
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