Book Club
A collection of essential reads for Cape Ann enthusiasts. The following books include a mix of wonderful stories of local interest, as well as the genius work of local writers.
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The Maximus Poems
By Charles Olson
Read it because: Walking the waterfront of a city alone in the morning, watching fish landings, cash stuffed in pockets, net mendings, and halos of circling gulls, is almost as lost an experience as whaling. Olson is gritty, petulant Gloucester’s Walt Whitman.
Cape Ann Granite
By Paul St. Germain
Read it because: You don’t know a feather from a wedge, but you cannot help but wonder how men once moved tons of granite out of the Cape Ann earth and on to places like New York City with only oxen and sailing ships.
Decline of Fishes
By Peter Anastas
Read it because: Anastas was a local kid who went Ivy League and came home to become the moral epicenter of the city’s cultural life.
Down to the Sea: The Fishing Schooners of Gloucester
By Joseph E. Garland
Read it because: Schooners are not just pretty boats in paintings. They were deadly workhorses, turning around the economy of this city while simultaneously sending thousands of men to the bottom of the sea.
The Whole Song: Selected Poems
By Vincent Ferrini
Read it because: Vincent Ferrini was Charles Olson’s best friend.
Quick, Before the Music Stops: How Ballroom Dancing Saved My Life
By Janet Carlson
Read it because: The next best thing to dancing is laughing and Carlson uses both to navigate divorce.
Birdseye: The Adventures of a Curious Man
By Mark Kurlansky
Read it because: That bag of frozen peas in your freezer has an origin story right here.
Twin Lights Tonic: Cape Ann’s Timeless Soda Pop
By Paul St. Germain & Devlin Sherlock
Read it because: Our favorite fizzy drink is as iconic here as that other one is to Atlanta.
The Perfect Storm
By Sebastian Junger
Read it because: This is the book that introduced George Clooney to Gloucester. He came to make the movie. He hung out in our waterfront bars and shot hoops with locals. Also, the book also has the best description in the English language of what happens when we drown.
The Boston Girl
By Anita Diamant
Read it because: The Rockport Lodge, where the story’s heroine vacations, was still open ten years ago as a place for single working women from Boston to have an affordable seaside vacation. In other words, there were places where until very recently work had dignity.
At the Cut
By Peter Anastas
Read it because: If you don’t know what The Cut is you don’t know Gloucester.
Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost town
By Elyssa East
Read it because: It’s one of the saddest corners of local history. This is a true crime story that unfolds in Dogtown, a wild place at the center of a city of 30,000 people.
Goneboy, A Walkabout: A Father’s Search for the Truth in His Son’s Murder
By Gregory Gibson
Read it because: The gun reform movement in America started here.
Mistress Bradstreet: The Untold Life of America’s First Poet
By Charlotte Gordon
Read it because: Much of this country’s political philosophy came from a young girl with a pen in Ipswich in the 17th century. The American Revolution dudes were quoting Anne Bradstreet to each other.
The North Shore Literary Trail
By Kristin Bierfelt
Read it because: This book maps the ideal North Shore journey for a reader.
Out of Line: A Life of Playing with Fire
By Barbara Lynch
Read it because: She runs many of the top restaurants in Boston and, frankly, the whole country. She appeared as a guest judge on a 2019 episode of Top Chef. (And because you might need to go next door and borrow a cup of sugar from her.)
Gloucester Along the Water
By Justin Demetri
Read it because: This is America’s oldest seaport. There is much to learn.
The Last Days of Dogtown
By Anita Diamant
Read it because: It’s a story of a real-life lost colony.
Flight Calls: Exploring Massachusetts through Birds
By John R. Nelson
Read it because: You might learn who is chirping, cawing, coo-ing, and calling in Cape Ann woods and waters.
Leaving Lucy Pear
By Anna Solomon
Read it because: You might bump into the award-winning author at Shaw’s, so you will want to let her know that you have read her second novel, too.
The Woman Who Named God: Abraham’s Dilemma and the Birth of the Three Faiths
By Charlotte Gordon
Read it because: We all have troubled families, more or less, but this troubled family is a cornerstone of biblical myth.
Adventure: Queen of the Windjammers
By Joseph E. Garland
Read it because: You don’t have to just read about it. You can sail on the Adventure, too. A sunset cruise through Gloucester Harbor beneath majestic sails is an unforgettable experience, and one that immediately explains what life was like when these ships ruled the seas.
Know Fish
By Vincent Ferrini
Read it because: Vincent Ferrini was Poet Laureate of Gloucester in 1998. He understands a fishing metaphor and a Gloucester poem.
Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Woostonecraft & Mary Shelley
By Charlotte Gordon
Read it because: It is a story of a 19th century mother and daughter who each lived lives that wholly and intentionally embraced women’s intellectual equality, but the mother died giving birth to the daughter. The daughter never knew her mother. It’s adventurous. It’s romantic. It’s tragic. And it’s true.
The Silence in the Sound
By Dianne C. Braley
Read it because: It has it all: celebrity, love, addiction, and is inspired by actual events with insight into a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. Did I mention part of the proceeds goes to help kids in Massachusetts affected by addiction?