Readalikes: If you enjoyed April's selection . . .

If you enjoyed Chesapeake Requiem: A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island by Earl Swift, then you might also like these books suggested by our discussion group members:

The Beans of Egypt, Maine by Carolyn Chute
The Water is Wide: A Memoir by Pat Conroy
The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea by Sebastian Junger
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local--and Helped Save an American Town by Beth Macy
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
The Tillerman Cycle by Cynthia Voigt

You might also enjoy watching this video created by Jeff Leeds Cohn from The Atlantic series The Atlantic Selects posted June 1, 2018 at https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/561587/tangier-island/. In it, viewers meet several of the residents of Tangier profiled in Swift's book and see beautiful footage of the island's landscape. The film has an elegiac tone in keeping with Swift's title Chesapeake Requiem.

April Not Fiction Book Discussions

For April's discussions, we move from the heartland to a tiny island on the East Coast facing many of the same challenges as America's farming communities.

In Chesapeake Requiem: A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island, journalist Earl Swift navigates centuries of history, the effects of climate change, and the rhythms of the crabbing and oystering life on Tangier Island in Chesapeake Bay, Virginia. First settled in the 1700s, Tangier Island has lost two-thirds of its land to the sea since the mid-1800s. Residents and scientists debate the cause, and a feasible solution remains elusive. Meanwhile, as crab and oyster stocks decline, consequent regulations of these fisheries increase, such that making a living as Tangier watermen will prove difficult for young people who might want to stay on the island. Its population has fallen to under 500. Tangier Island will likely be a victim of either or both climate change and the dissolution of its community.

What do you think? Swift titles his book a "requiem," an act of remembrance for someone or something that has passed. What do you think will happen to Tangier Island? As Swift asks, what do you think should happen? Should it be saved, both the physical island and its traditional, conservative community? What criteria should we use to make this decision? The significance of its natural resources? The size of its population? Its value within the narrative of American history and culture? As Swift notes, it will require a national consensus as the effects of climate change accelerate to affect more American places: "We will not have the money, the physical means, or the time to save them all. So we as a people will have to develop a rubric for deciding which towns and properties we save and which we surrender to the sea."

We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, April 2, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, April 18, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; and here on the blog.