CHeshire Democrats Book Club

Hello Everyone, After a summer hiatus, we are regrouping for a September meeting. We will be reading The Wordy Shipmates, by Sarah Vowell. It's an amusing look at the Puritans and how they still influence us today. We are going to meet on Wednesday, September 23, 6:30 PM at the Food Court at Colony Mill Marketplace. I hope you are all having a good summer and I look forward to seeing you in September. Linda Cates From Publishers WeeklyEssayist and public radio regular Vowell revisits America's Puritan roots in this witty exploration of the ways in which our country's present predicaments are inextricably tied to its past. In a style less colloquial than her previous books, Vowell traces the 1630 journey of several key English colonists and members of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Foremost among these men was John Winthrop, who would become governor of Massachusetts. While the Puritans who had earlier sailed to Plymouth on the Mayflower were separatists, Winthrop's followers remained loyal to England, spurred on by Puritan Reverend John Cotton's proclamation that they were God's chosen people. Vowell underscores that the seemingly minute differences between the Plymouth Puritans and the Massachusetts Puritans were as meaningful as the current Sunni/Shia Muslim rift. Gracefully interspersing her history lesson with personal anecdotes, Vowell offers reflections that are both amusing and tender .