MARCH 2025 MEETING
Remember, we plan to meet next at 5:30 PM at Giuseppi's (in Shelter Cove) on Tuesday (our normal day to meet), March 18, 2025.
If you plan to come to this meeting, please click on the event in our event calendar and register. By registering you help us in coordinating with the restaurant and also enable us to contact you via email in case of any last-minute changes due to unforeseen circumstances that may come up.
Meeting at Giuseppi's will give us an option to dine out on the patio, if the weather is nice, or go inside if it is still too cool.
On the 26th, we will discuss Patriot: A Memoir by Alexander Navalny.
Alexei Navalny began writing Patriot shortly after his near-fatal poisoning in 2020. It is the full story of his life: his youth, his call to activism, his marriage and family, his commitment to challenging a world super-power determined to silence him, and his total conviction that change cannot be resisted—and will come.
In vivid, page-turning detail, including never-before-seen correspondence from prison, Navalny recounts, among other things, his political career, the many attempts on his life, and the lives of the people closest to him, and the relentless campaign he and his team waged against an increasingly dictatorial regime.
Written with the passion, wit, candor, and bravery for which he was justly acclaimed, Patriot is Navalny’s final letter to the world: a moving account of his last years spent in the most brutal prison on earth; a reminder of why the principles of individual freedom matter so deeply; and a rousing call to continue the work for which he sacrificed his life.
Looking Ahead to April
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In April, we will discuss:
Midnight in Moscow: A Memoir from the Front Lines of Russia's War with the West, by John Sullivan
A memoir of service by the most recent U.S. ambassador to Moscow who was on the diplomatic front lines when Putin invaded Ukraine, Sullivan offers a memoir of his last post, as well as a broader argument about how our relationship with Russia has deteriorated over the past three years and where it’s going.
His arrival in Moscow coincided exactly with a dramatic series of escalations by the Kremlin. He saw firsthand how the Russian leadership repeatedly lied about their intentions to invade Ukraine in the weeks leading up to the attack—while also devoting substantial numbers of personnel and vast resources to undermining the U.S. diplomatic presence in Russia. But it was not until Vladimir Putin gave the order to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 25, 2022 that Sullivan had to admit that Russia was not just at war with itself, it was also at war, in a very real sense, with the United States, and with everything that it represents.
Russian leaders’ treachery and naked hostility, he says, is definitive proof that there can be no negotiation with Putin’s regime or with the Russians at large until their government is thoroughly transformed. A unique perspective on a pivotal moment in world history, Midnight in Moscow also draws shocking historical parallels to explain why we need to stand up to Moscow—and how far we should be prepared to go in that confrontation.
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Reminder
Please forward your recommendations for our May and June reads to Elliot at 4esiegel@gmail.com by March 20th. Shortly thereafter we will vote on what we are reading next.
We hope to see you on the 18th at 5:30 PM at Giuseppi's to discuss "Patriot".
Don't forget to register for the event.
