Fort Collins Book Club

This month we will discuss The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.” ― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

When orphaned Mary Lennox comes to live at her uncle's great house on the Yorkshire Moors, she finds it full of secrets. The mansion has nearly one hundred rooms, and her uncle keeps himself locked up. And at night, she hears the sound of crying down one of the long corridors.

The gardens surrounding the large property are Mary's only escape. Then, Mary discovers a secret garden, surrounded by walls and locked with a missing key. One day, with the help of two unexpected companions, she discovers a way in. Is everything in the garden dead, or can Mary bring it back to life?

One of the most delightful and enduring classics of children's literature, The Secret Garden has remained a firm favorite with children the world over ever since it made its first appearance. Initially published as a serial story in 1910 in The American Magazine, it was brought out in novel form in 1911.

DETAILS ABOUT OUR MEETING: We are starting at 6:00 PM for a general greetings and a potluck supper. The book discussion will begin at about 6:45 PM. At the conclusion of the discussion, we will elect the next Fiction book to discuss at the February 2026 meetup. The candidate books will be:

1. A Street Cat Named Bob: And How He Saved My Life by James Bowen
2. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
3. The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoë Schlanger

Hope to see you there.

This month we will read and discuss "Stories of Your Life and Others" by Ted Chiang.

Stories of Your Life and Others delivers dual delights of the very, very strange and the heartbreakingly familiar, often presenting characters who must confront sudden change—the inevitable rise of automatons or the appearance of aliens—with some sense of normalcy. With sharp intelligence and humor, Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty, but also by beauty and wonder. An award-winning collection from one of today's most lauded writers, Stories of Your Life and Others is a contemporary classic.

DETAILS ABOUT OUR MEETING: We are starting at 6:00 PM for a general greetings and a potluck supper. The book discussion will begin at about 6:45 PM. At the conclusion of the discussion, we will elect the next Fiction book to discuss at the February 2026 meetup. The candidate books will be:

1. Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know by Adam Grant
2. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann
3. The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson

Hope to see you there.