Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
I am so happy Tonelise picked Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine De Saint-Exupéry for the Desert Book Club meeting at 7:00pm Monday, February 3rd. You may have noticed that this book has been mentioned before in several of our previous Book Club selections. This book spoke to me when I was much younger and I am curious how it might affect me now that I find myself actually living in a desert.
To get to the meeting place from downtown JT on Hwy. 62, turn North at the light on Sunburst, right on Golden, left on Border, keep your eyes peeled for the Pole and Del Oro signs and turn left on Winters, with the street sign and Book Club sign on the left hand side of the road. Drive about one mile and turn left on McGarry and Tonelise’s will be the 3rd or 4th house on the left, (depends on what one considers a house). I’ll make sure to have the big white signs out to guide you in. I know that Tonelise will have the wood burner stoked up for us!
—Kip
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.