History Book Club
Let’s gather to explore America’s history together.
In 2024, Rocktown History and the Massanutton Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution invited the community to join a new history book club. Early attendees adopted the general rule to read titles related to American history—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or other writings.
Initial books included The Indigo Girl by Natasha Boyd, The War That Made America, by Fred Anderson, and Treacherous Beauty, by Mark Jacob and Stephen Case.
Come to meet other readers, help create a new community for conversation, and discover connections through our past. All are welcome to attend. Reading not required. Book suggestions strongly encouraged. #rocktownreads
Book Club meets at 10:00 am on the first Wednesday of the month at Rocktown History (dates subject to change due to holidays and/or weather).
Our next reads:
April 1—Washington’s Spies, by Alexander Rose. The story of the Revolution that didn’t make the history books; one of friendship and trust, fear and betrayal, amid the dark and silent world of the spy.
May 6—The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, by Benjamin Franklin. Franklin’s unfinished memoirs have been an enduring favorite for over 200 years. This book is available in many formats. Look for a version published in or after 1868 to be sure you read his complete manuscript.
June 3—Battlefield: Farming a Civil War Battleground, by Peter Svenson. The author explores his connection to history and land at Cross Keys Battlefield in Rockingham County, Virginia.
Our past reads:
West from Shenandoah: A Scotch-Irish Family Fights for America, 1729-1781, by Thomas A. Lewis
Guardians of the Valley, by Dean King
Travels with George, by Nathaniel Philbrick
The Great Wagon Road: From Philadelphia to the South, by Parke Rouse
A Girl Called Samson: A Novel, by Amy Harmon
To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian, by Stephen E. Ambrose
Undaunted Courage, by Stephen E. Ambros.
Patriotic Fire: Andrew Jackson and Jean Laffite at the Battle of New Orleans, by Winston Groom
The President’s Lady, by Irving Stone
Washington’s Spies: The Story of the First Spy Ring, by Alexander Rose
Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation, by Cokie Roberts
The Virginia Dynasty, by Lynne Cheney
Blood and Treasure, by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin
Follow the River, by James Alexander Thom
Treacherous Beauty, by Mark Jacob and Stephen H. Case
The War That Made America, by Fred Anderson
The Indigo Girl, by Natasha Boyd
Suggestions for future reads:
Bound Away: Virginia and the Westward Movement, David Hackett Fischer and James C. Kelly.
The Way it Was: Coming of Age in Harrisonburg, VA in the Jim Crow Era—The Memoirs of Doris Harper Allen, edited by Mark Metzler Sawin with Billow Harper and the Harper family.
The Planting of New Virginia: Settlement and Landscape in the Shenandoah Valley, by Warren R. Hofstra.
What American history have you been reading lately? Help build our list of suggestions!