Book Club 10:30AM

Wednesday, January 19, 2022 - 10:30am

Suncoast Empire: Bertha Honore Palmer, Her Family and the Rise of Sarasota by Frank Cassell

This meeting will be available virtually via GoToMeeting.
There will not be an in-person meeting at the Club.
Save this email: click here to join the GoToMeeting on Wednesday, January 19 at 10:30am.
Access Code: 246 788 293

New to GoToMeeting? Get the app now and be ready when your first meeting starts: click here

Frank Cassell will join Book Club members to discuss his novel. This book is the Sarasota County Library 2021 selection for the One Book/One Community Program and received the Florida Book Award's 2017 Silver medal for non-fiction.

In the early 20th century, Bertha Palmer was one of the best-known and wealthiest women in America. She was an art collector, women's rights advocate, businesswoman, owner of Chicago's Palmer House Hotel, and had elegant homes in Chicago, Paris, and London. In 1910 she traveled to the small and rough settlement called Sarasota on the west coast of Florida. For some reason, she decided to spend much of each year for the rest of her life on one of America's last frontiers, investing in cattle and farming, creating communities out of marshlands, pine forests, and tropical jungles. The society queen and social reform advocate excelled as a frontier entrepreneur, just as she had in every other endeavor in her life. She managed to make a good deal of money and to change Sarasota forever.

click here to view the Book Club schedule.

If you have any inquiries, please contact Marysue Wechsler at [email protected]  or Marlene Lancaster at [email protected].