Pemberville Mental Culture Club
At the November meeting 21 members answered roll call by naming their favorite book or author.
After a short business meeting, Mary Kuhlman presented a program about author Geraldine Brooks, who
started her career as a newspaper reporter in Sydney, Australia. She also wrote for the Wall Street
Journal as a Middle East reporter. After being jailed in Nigeria and accused of being a spy, she decided
to make a career change to something safer. While in the Middle East, she had talked to women living
behind the veil about their daily lives. This lead to the book "Nine Parts of Desire." The
fact that some of the women wore Victoria’s Secret outfits under their clothing was quite surprising.

After she and her husband, Tony Horowitz, bought a home in Virginia, they found Civil War artifacts on
the property. This inspired her to write "March," a story about the fictional father from
Louisa Mae Alcott’s "Little Women" and his experiences in the Civil War. The character is
based on Alcott’s real father. Two other books Brooks wrote are "Year of Wonders," about a
widow in a village that quarantines itself during the Black Plague, and "People of the Book."

Hostess Trudy Davies served refreshments.
Inga Offerman will host the next meeting Dec. 8.