Each month, ORK members read a book and then meet (virtually) to discuss it. With guided questions and occasional special guests, participants will find new titles, consider themes, and be inspired by writing.
Not an ORK member? Join now for discounts, members-only events, and perks like this.
To participate in the reading club, please register for Hooked on Books. You will receive an email with a link to the virtual meeting each month. Meetings are held Tuesday evenings, 6:30 p.m., via Zoom.
You do NOT have to join each month. Simply read the books and attend the sessions that are of interest, though we hope you will expand your reading horizons by trying new books.
September 9
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
(Fiction)
Description: A born naturalist with just one day of school, Kya takes life’s lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world—until the unthinkable happens.
In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a profound coming of age story and haunting mystery. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens’s debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the child within us, while also subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Publication date: August 14, 2018
Print length: 384 pages
ISBN-10: 0735219095
Find a copy in the GA Pines library system
Find a copy at your local library via WorldCat
October 1 & 14
Ogeechee Riverkeeper and 100 Miles are joining up to offer an in-person option for this title. On October 1, 6:30 p.m., 100 Miles will host the book club meeting for both ORK and OHM book club members at their Savannah office at 1702 Bull Street.
ORK will still host the virtual meeting for this title on October 14.
Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane
(Nonfiction)
Description: Hailed in the New York Times as “a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence with the breathless ease of a master angler,” Robert Macfarlane brings his glittering style to a profound work of travel writing, reportage, and natural history. Is a River Alive? is a joyful, mind-expanding exploration of an ancient, urgent idea: that rivers are living beings who should be recognized as such in imagination and law.
Macfarlane takes readers on three unforgettable journeys teeming with extraordinary people, stories, and places: to the miraculous cloud-forests and mountain streams of Ecuador, to the wounded creeks and lagoons of India, and to the spectacular wild rivers of Canada―imperiled respectively by mining, pollution, and dams. Braiding these journeys is the life story of the fragile chalk stream a mile from Macfarlane’s house, a stream who flows through his own years and days.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date: May 20, 2025
Print length: 384 pages
ISBN-10: 0393242137
Find a copy in the GA Pines library system
Find a copy at your local library via WorldCat
November 18
The River by Peter Heller
(Fiction)
Description: When friends Wynn and Jack decide to canoe the Maskwa River in northern Canada, they anticipate long days of leisurely paddling and picking blueberries, and nights of stargazing and reading paperback Westerns. But a wildfire making its way across the forest adds unexpected urgency to the journey.
One night, with the fire advancing, they hear a man and woman arguing on the fog-shrouded riverbank; the next day, a man appears on the river, paddling alone. Is this the same man they heard? And if he is, where is the woman? From this charged beginning, master storyteller Peter Heller unspools a headlong, heart-pounding story of desperate wilderness survival.
Publisher: Knopf
Publication date: March 5, 2019
Print length: 272 pages
ISBN-10: 0525521879
Find a copy in the GA Pines library system
Find a copy at your local library via WorldCat
December 9
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
(Nonfiction)
Description: The Appalachian Trail stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America–majestic mountains, silent forests, sparking lakes. If you’re going to take a hike, it’s probably the place to go. And Bill Bryson is surely the most entertaining guide you’ll find. He introduces us to the history and ecology of the trail and to some of the other hardy (or just foolhardy) folks he meets along the way–and a couple of bears. Already a classic, A Walk in the Woods will make you long for the great outdoors (or at least a comfortable chair to sit and read in).
Publisher: Vintage
Publication date: December 26, 2006
Print length: 397 pages
ISBN-10: 0307279464
Find a copy in the GA Pines library system
Find a copy at your local library via WorldCat