The Road to Soul by Carmen Mendoza at the Community Center Gazebo
Our September book club selection is Road to Soul by Carmen Mendoza. Don’t feel bad if you haven’t heard about it–this collection of short stories was published only a few months ago with a book release party at the 29 Palms Inn. A graduate of 29 Palms High, now living in Colorado, the memories of driving the lonely roads of the Mojave inspire Mendoza’s writing to this day. The prose gets a little racy at times, a perfect easy read to end the summer with.
The meeting place will be the gazebo outside the Copper Mountain Mesa Community Center at 65336 Winter Road, Twentynine Palms, CA.
From downtown JT, drive east on Highway 62 and turn left on Sunburst. Turn right at Golden, left on Border, and keep your eyes open for Pole and Del Oro streets. Winter will be the next road, (sign on the left hand side). Look for the white “Book Club” sign on the right. The community center is 4 miles down Winter on the left hand side.
From 29 Palms, Go west on Hwy. 62, turn right on Sunfair and continue on the dirt where it changes names to Coyote Valley. Turn left on Winter at the stop sign, and the Center will be on your right in about a quarter mile.
Monday, September 7, 2015, 7 pm
Copper Mountain Mesa Community Center
65336 Winter Road
Twentynine Palms, CA (see driving directions above)
This is the twelfth meeting of Kip’s Desert Book Club.
See Book Club homepage for more information on this monthly gathering
P.S. In honor of the one year anniversary of Kip’s Desert Book Club in October, October’s book club meeting will be at The Palms Restaurant and Saloon and we will be reading Edna in the Desert by Maddy Lederman, a book written in, and about, Wonder Valley.
Every month from October 2014 until March 2020, Kip’s Desert Book Club gathered on the first Monday of the month at 7:00 pm in the home of a different resident of the Morongo Basin to discuss a book that in one way or another touches on the theme of “desert”.
Since the start of the pandemic, Kip has been hard at work making renovations to the kitchen and bathrooms at Copper Mountain Mesa Community Center, where he is the board President, and keeping their monthly USDA food drive alive. During this time, Kip’s Desert Book Club had largely been on pause, with the exception of a few virtual meetings. These virtual gatherings allowed us to welcome the participation of book club fans from beyond our local region.
Sixty-six books, more than seven years, and one pandemic later, Kip has decided to step back from being the primary book club organizer and join the rest of us as readers. Kip, we thank you for all the wonderful and eclectic desert books you’ve chosen over the years, as well as the unforgettable stories and knowledge you continue to share (if you know, you know!)
So, we are excited to announce that beginning in January 2022, our in-person book club will resume as the Desert Research Library Book Club (or DRL Book Club, for short). Each month, a member of the current Desert Research Library Artist Cohort will select a book from the library as that month’s book club selection.
