Upcoming Events

Our next book club meeting will be on Tuesday, May 19, 2026 at 7:00pm .

Although, due to the unexpected amount of snow, we had a last minute pivot from in-person Book Club to Zoom Book Club, we had a great discussion about The Briar Club by Kate Quinn. So many characters with such a variety of back stories, set in DC, inspired conversation that brought up personal experiences and memories of that era.

On to our next book:

All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me

by Patrick Bringley

From Goodreads:

A fascinating, revelatory portrait of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its treasures by a former New Yorker staffer who spent a decade as a museum guard.

Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art every year. But only a select few have unrestricted access to every nook and cranny. They’re the guards who roam unobtrusively in dark blue suits, keeping a watchful eye on the two million square foot treasure house. Caught up in his glamorous fledgling career at The New Yorker, Patrick Bringley never thought he’d be one of them. Then his older brother was diagnosed with fatal cancer and he found himself needing to escape the mundane clamor of daily life. So he quit The New Yorker and sought solace in the most beautiful place he knew.

To his surprise and the reader’s delight, this temporary refuge becomes Bringley’s home away from home for a decade. We follow him as he guards delicate treasures from Egypt to Rome, strolls the labyrinths beneath the galleries, wears out nine pairs of company shoes, and marvels at the beautiful works in his care. Bringley enters the museum as a ghost, silent and almost invisible, but soon finds his voice and his tribe: the artworks and their creators and the lively subculture of museum guards—a gorgeous mosaic of artists, musicians, blue-collar stalwarts, immigrants, cutups, and dreamers. As his bonds with his colleagues and the art grow, he comes to understand how fortunate he is to be walled off in this little world, and how much it resembles the best aspects of the larger world to which he gradually, gratefully returns.
In the tradition of classic workplace memoirs like Lab Girl and Working Stiff, All The Beauty in the World is a surprising, inspiring portrait of a great museum, its hidden treasures, and the people who make it tick, by one of its most intimate observers.

**Our recently established routine is that if your book suggestion has been selected you will be responsible for coming up with a few discussion-starter questions. Not to worry, this is not a difficult task (Google is very helpful ).

Diane Straub will host the next meeting at her home at 1605 Crestline Rd. 

**Our host provides beverages and paper products. Everyone else: please bring a small snack to share.

We will meet on Tuesday, May 19, 2026 at 7:00 pm.

If you have questions you could email me at: 

straub.diane@yahoo.com

If you have not already, bring the name of a book you would like us to add to the list of book suggestions.

Text or email with any questions or comments.

Hope to see you on Tuesday, May 19, 2026.

Diane Straub

301-996-4879

 

                          

                           Book Club members at our discussion of Good Night Irene on March 26, 2025.