On Monday, July 27, 2015, the JLT Natural History Book Club will discuss The Living by Annie Dillard. We will meet at the Ilahee Preserve from 3:30 to 5:00. Contact Jean at jltnatural@saveland.org to RSVP and for directions, if needed.

The Living is a historical fiction novel of the first settlers in Bellingham Bay. Annie Dillard became acquainted with the area while living on Lummi Island for five years in the mid 1970s.

The book begins in 1855 with a group of white settlers watching the ship sail away as they stand on the beach at the edge of the dark Northwest forest.  Annie Dillard introduces us to various people in that area during the last half of the nineteenth century—pioneer farmers and loggers, native peoples of the Northwest, Chinese immigrants, railroad men, men seeking gold in Alaska, women from Eastern cities raising children in the newly settled Northwest.  The precariousness of life in the wilderness is revealed as we learn of the many hardships of pioneer life in the Northwest.