Reading and Connecting with an AARP Book Club

In the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, AARP Maryland volunteer Mary Angela Baker wanted to connect people who were feeling isolated. Her solution: a quarterly virtual book club featuring Maryland-related books.

The club—which now attracts about 60 readers from across the country—will discuss its 13th book on Tuesday, May 21, from 4 to 5 p.m. The book is Flee North: A Forgotten Hero and the Fight for Freedom in Slavery’s Borderland, about the abolitionist Thomas Smallwood, an enslaved man who bought his freedom.

The author, Scott Shane, will be a featured speaker. To register, go to aarp.org/MDbookclub.