Stranger Than Fiction Book Discussion

Sometimes, life can be stranger than fiction. Join this monthly book club to discuss nonfiction titles. We will be meeting both in-person and online via Zoom. Register in advance to receive the Zoom meeting info to your email. Books will be available at the Circulation Desk one month prior to book club meeting.

This month, we will be reading and discussing The Forbidden Garden: The Botanists of Besieged Leningrad and Their Impossible Choice by Simon Parkin.

In the summer of 1941, German troops surrounded the Russian city of Leningrad--now St. Petersburg--and began the longest blockade in recorded history, one that would ultimately claim the lives of nearly three-quarters of a million people. At the center of the besieged city stood a converted palace that housed the world's largest collection of seeds--more than 250,000 samples hand-collected over two decades from all over the globe by world-famous explorer, geneticist, and dissident Nikolai Vavilov, who had recently been disappeared by the Soviet government. After attempts to evacuate the priceless collection failed and supplies dwindled amongst the three million starving citizens, the employees at the Plant Institute were left with a terrible choice. Should they save the collection? Or themselves?