Cape Fear River Watch

December/January Book Club
2021-01-23 10:30 - 11:30 (America/New_York) | Pomegranate Books, 4418 Park Ave, Wilmington, NC, 28403, United States
December/January CFRW Book Club Meeting

January 23 @ 10:30am
Join us for our December/January CFRW Book Club Meeting! This time, the book is real fishy because it’s all about the British Columbia commercial fishing industry!–It features halibut, black cod and fish thought to be extinct! So, we hope you’re ready to put your hooks into Still Fishin’: The BC Fishing Industry Revisited by Alan Haig-Brown.
“It is generally known that the West Coasts once-great commercial fishing industry has fallen on hard times, but as Alan Haig-Brown demonstrates in this new book, reports of its demise are exaggerated. A veteran of the industry himself, Haig-Brown here offers a state of the industry report, discovering pockets of surprising activity among the vistas of closed processing plants, downsized fleets and corporate concentration. The Ray Phillips family of Pender Harbour continue to support a second generation by fishing halibut and black cod. Albert Radil and his two brothers have found success trawling hake in Queen Charlotte Sound. Seiner John Lenic is taking advantage of the miraculous reappearance in BC waters of the pilchard, once thought extinct. Former Vietnamese boat person Lon Truong hopes to finance a triumphant return to the Mekong Delta by trawling BC shrimp. The Assu brothers of Campbell River still seine chum salmon in the same Johnstone Strait tide rip their father used to fish, as did many generations of Assu ancestors before them, but they have to work fast to get their work done in the near-impossible 12-hour time limit set by the DFO. In Haig-Brown’s story of the west coast fishery, boats get equal time with people and fish. He laments the destruction of some historic old seiners, just as he relishes the preservation of an old Finn Slough gillnetter named the Eva and approves the activities of fishboat superfan Randy Reifel, who uses his considerable wealth to buy up endangered boats and keep them in working order. Is the whole fishing industry now on life support? It seems to be headed that way, but this book offers many practical and persuasive reasons why it doesn’t have to be.”
Pomegranate Books will have copies of Still Fishin’ available for purchase, and CFRW Book Club members receive a 15% discount. Thanks to everyone who participated in any of our discussions via Zoom during this pandemic! This next meeting will be in-person and socially distanced with chairs 6ft apart outside of Pomegranate Books! (Please bring your own outdoor chair.) Book club was created and is facilitated by CFRW Board Member Chantay Allen.

February / March 2021 Book Club
2021-03-27 10:30 - 11:30
Join us for our February/March CFRW Book Club Meeting! We are fortunate to be reading, A Journey Through Theodore Roosevelt’s American Wilderness, another environmental book by David Gessner, a local author and Creative Writing Professor at UNCW.

Pomegranate Books will have copies of A Journey Through Theodore Roosevelt’s American Wilderness available for purchase, and CFRW Book Club members receive a 15% discount. This next meeting will be in-person and socially distanced with chairs 6ft apart outside of Pomegranate Books! (Please bring your own outdoor chair.) Book club was created and is facilitated by CFRW Board Member Chantay Allen.

April/May Book Club
2021-05-22 10:30 - 11:30
Join us for our April/May CFRW Book Club Meeting! This month we will be reading Susquehanna, River of Dreams by Susan Q. Stranahan. The Susquehanna River, which is one of the oldest rivers in the United States. It is also the 16th largest in the United States and- at 444 miles long- the longest river on the East Coast! Rich in natural history with that flows over rocks and feeds into Chesapeake Bay, this is sure to be an intriguing book to read!

Pomegranate Books will have copies of Susquehanna, River of Dreams by Susan Q. Stranahan available for purchase, and CFRW Book Club members receive a 15% discount. This next meeting will be in-person and socially distanced with chairs 6ft apart outside of Pomegranate Books! (Please bring your own outdoor chair.) Book club was created and is facilitated by CFRW Board Member Chantay Allen.

June/July Book Club
2021-07-24 10:30 - 11:30
Join us for our June/July CFRW Book Club Meeting! This month we will be reading Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water by Marc Reisner. This book, which tells the story of a major Western drought, water rights, and a rivalry between the Bureau of Reclamation and the US Army Corps of Engineers, was recommended by one of our book club members! Cadillac Desert is considered advocacy journalism and was a finalist for a National Book Critic’s Circle Award that inspired an award-winning documentary.

Pomegranate Books will have copies of Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water by Marc Reisner available for purchase, and CFRW Book Club members receive a 15% discount. This next meeting will be in-person and socially distanced with chairs 6ft apart outside of Pomegranate Books! (Please bring your own outdoor chair.) Book club was created and is facilitated by CFRW Board Member Chantay Allen.

Aug/Sept Book Club
2021-09-25 10:30 - 12:00
Join us at 10:30am on Saturday, September 25, to discuss our August/September pick at Pomegranate Books!
Our August/September 2021 book is Moving To Higher Ground: Rising Sea Level and the Path Forward written by John Englander, a renowned oceanographer and expert on climate change and sea level rise. Climate change is a controversial topic among those who doubt it and those who refuse to deny it. Moving To Higher Ground discusses the facts about the rising sea level and how excess heat in our oceans contributes to the ongoing problem that is affecting coastal communities around the globe. Copies will be available to CFRW Book Club Members for 15% OFF at Pomegranate Books!
Our next meeting is weather permitting. Due to COVID-19 social gathering restrictions, we will be meeting outside, and chairs will need to be spaced at least 6ft apart.

Oct/Nov Book Club
2021-11-20 10:30 - 11:30
Northland: A 4,000-Mile Journey Along America’s Forgotten Border by Porter Fox

“America’s northern border is the world’s longest international boundary, yet it remains obscure even to Americans. The northern border was America’s primary border for centuries―much of the early history of the United States took place there―and to the tens of millions who live and work near the line, the region even has its own name: the northland.

Travel writer Porter Fox spent three years exploring 4,000 miles of the border between Maine and Washington, traveling by canoe, freighter, car, and foot. In Northland, he blends a deeply reported and beautifully written story of the region’s history with a riveting account of his travels. Setting out from the easternmost point in the mainland United States, Fox follows explorer Samuel de Champlain’s adventures across the Northeast; recounts the rise and fall of the timber, iron, and rail industries; crosses the Great Lakes on a freighter; tracks America’s fur traders through the Boundary Waters; and traces the forty-ninth parallel from Minnesota to the Pacific Ocean. Fox, who grew up the son of a boat-builder in Maine’s northland, packs his narrative with colorful characters (Captain Meriwether Lewis, railroad tycoon James J. Hill, Chief Red Cloud of the Lakota Sioux) and extraordinary landscapes (Glacier National Park, the Northwest Angle, Washington’s North Cascades). He weaves in his encounters with residents, border guards, Indian activists, and militia leaders to give a dynamic portrait of the northland today, wracked by climate change, water wars, oil booms, and border security.”

Our next meeting is scheduled for Saturday, November 20, 2021…10:30AM outside at Pomegranate Books (Weather Permitting). Due to COVID-19 social gathering restrictions, chairs will need to be spaced at least 6ft apart.

CFRW Book Club members receive a 15% discount at Pomegranate Books (910) 452-1107.

December/January Book Club
2022-01-22 10:30 - 12:30
The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water by Charles Fishman

“The Big Thirst brilliantly explores our strange and complex relationship to water. We delight in watching waves roll in from the ocean; we take great comfort from sliding into a hot bath; and we will pay a thousand times the price of tap water to drink our preferred brand of the bottled version. We love water—but at the moment, we don’t appreciate it or respect it. Just as we’ve begun to reimagine our relationship to food, a change that is driving the growth of the organic and local food movements, we must also rethink how we approach and use water. The good news is that we can. As Fishman shows, a host of advances are under way, from the simplicity of harvesting rainwater to the brilliant innovations devised by companies such as IBM, GE, and Royal Caribbean that are making impressive breakthroughs in water productivity. Knowing what to do is not the problem. Ultimately, the hardest part is changing our water consciousness.

As Charles Fishman writes, ‘Many civilizations have been crippled or destroyed by an inability to understand water or manage it. We have a huge advantage over the generations of people who have come before us, because we can understand water and we can use it smartly.’ The Big Thirst will forever change the way we think about water, about our essential relationship to it, and about the creativity we can bring to ensuring that we’ll always have plenty of it.”

Our next meeting is scheduled for Saturday, January 22, 2022 at 10:30AM outside at Pomegranate Books (Weather Permitting). Due to COVID-19 social gathering restrictions, chairs will need to be spaced at least 6ft apart.

CFRW Book Club members receive a 15% discount at Pomegranate Books (910) 452-1107.

February/March Book Club
2022-03-26 10:30 - 12:00
This month’s book club will be held on Saturday, March 26, 2022, at 10:30AM at Pomegranate Books.

River-Horse: A Journey Across America by William Least Heat-Moon

In River-Horse, the preeminent chronicler of American back roads recounts his singular voyage on American waters from sea to sea. Along the route, he offers a lyrical and ceaselessly fascinating shipboard perspective on the country’s rivers, lakes, canals, and landscapes. Brimming with history, drama, humor, and wisdom, River-Horse belongs in the pantheon of American travel literature.

In his most ambitious journey ever, Heat-Moon sets off aboard a small boat he named Nikawa (“river horse” in Osage) from the Atlantic at New York Harbor in hopes of entering the Pacific near Astoria, Oregon. He and his companion, Pilotis, struggle to cover some five thousand watery miles — more than any other cross-country river traveler has ever managed — often following in the wakes of our most famous explorers, from Henry Hudson to Lewis and Clark.

En route, the voyagers confront massive floods, submerged rocks, dangerous weather, and their own doubts about whether they can complete the trip. But the hard days yield up incomparable pleasures: strangers generous with help and eccentric tales, landscapes unchanged since Sacagawea saw them, riverscapes flowing with a lively past, and the growing belief that efforts to protect our lands and waters are beginning to pay off. And, throughout its course, the expedition enjoys coincidences so breathtaking as to suggest the intervention of a divine and witty Providence.

Teeming with humanity and high adventure, Heat-Moon’s account is an unsentimental and original arteriogram of our nation at the edge of the millennium.”

April/May Book Club
2022-05-28 10:30 - 12:30
Thanks to everyone who attended the last meeting to discuss River-Horse: A Journey Across America by William Least Heat-Moon, and a special thanks to member Fred Bingham for leading it!
Our book selection for April/May 2022 is a deep dive into environmental history from the formation of the U.S. Constitution to the national tragedy of Hurricane Katrina and water wars out West titled, The Source: How Rivers Made America and America Remade Its Rivers by Doyle Martin
“America has more than 250,000 rivers, coursing over more than 3 million miles and serving as integral trade routes, borders, passageways, sewers, and sinks. Over the years, based on our shifting needs and values, we have harnessed their power with water-wheels and dams, straightened them for ships, drained them with irrigation canals, set them on fire, and even attempted to restore them. This environmental history tells the story of America and its rivers, from the U.S. Constitution’s roots in interstate river navigation, the origins of the Army Corps of Engineers, the discovery of gold in 1848, and the construction of the Hoover Dam and the TVA during the New Deal, to the failure of the levees in Hurricane Katrina and the water wars in the west. Along the way, it explores how rivers have often been the source of arguments at the heart of the American experiment―over federalism, sovereignty and property rights, taxation, regulation, conservation, and development.”
Our next meeting is scheduled for Saturday, May 28, 2022 at 10:30AM outside at Pomegranate Books (Weather Permitting).
CFRW Book Club members receive a 15% discount at Pomegranate Books (910) 452-1107.

June/July Book Club
2022-07-23 10:30 - 12:00
Our next book selection is The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons by John Wesley Powell.

This book is a story about a “journey no human being had ever made before” and copies are NOW AVAILABLE at Pomegranate Books for a 15% discount!

Legendary pioneer John Wesley Powell’s The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons is a first-person account of his crew’s unprecedented odyssey along the Green and Colorado Rivers and through the Grand Canyon. A bold foray into the heart of the American West’s final frontier, the expedition was achieved without benefit of modern river-running equipment, supplies, or a firm sense of the region’s perilous topography and the attitudes of the native inhabitants.”

Our next meeting is scheduled for Saturday, July 23, 2022…10:30AM outside at Pomegranate Books (Weather Permitting).

August/September Book Club
2022-09-24 10:30 - 12:00
Our next book selection is Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 And How It Changed America by John M. Barry. Copies will be available at Pomegranate Books for a 15% discount!
An American epic of science, politics, race, honor, high society, and the Mississippi River, Rising Tide tells the riveting and nearly forgotten story of the greatest natural disaster this country has ever known — the Mississippi flood of 1927.
Our next meeting is scheduled for Saturday, September 24, 2022 at 10:30AM outside at Pomegranate Books (Weather Permitting).

October/November Book Club
2022-11-26 10:30 - 12:00
Our next book selection is Life on the Mississippi: An Epic American Adventure by Rinker Buck. This New York Times Best-Seller, which was recommended by our new member Jessica Parks, is a true story about historian Rinker Buck’s modern-day journey down the Mississippi River to New Orleans with his shipmates after building an 1800s era flatboat! Copies will be available at Pomegranate Books for a 15% discount!

Life on the Mississippi is an epic, enchanting blend of history and adventure in which Buck builds a wooden flatboat from the grand “flatboat era” of the 1800s and sails it down the Mississippi River, illuminating the forgotten past of America’s first western frontier.

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, our next meeting is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, November 26, 2022, at 10:30AM outside at Pomegranate Books (Weather Permitting).

December/January Book Club
2023-01-28 10:30 - 11:30
Our next book selection is a true lock and dam story about Americans who live near the Mississippi, Ohio, and Missouri River titled, Holding Back the River: The Struggle Against Nature On America’s Waterways by Tyler J. Kelley.! Copies will be available at Pomegranate Books for a 15% discount!

America’s infrastructure is old and underfunded. While our economy, society, and climate have changed, our levees, locks, and dams have not. Yet to fix what’s wrong will require more than money. It will require an act of imagination. Holding Back the River brings us into the lives of the Americans who grapple with our mighty rivers and, through their stories, suggests solutions to some of the century’s greatest challenges.

Our next meeting is scheduled for Saturday, January 28, 2023 at 10:30AM outside at Pomegranate Books (Weather Permitting).

CFRW Book Club members receive a 15% discount at Pomegranate Books (910) 452-1107.
