The Big White Farmhouse

I am so excited for our third book with The Inspired Readers Book Club!  Starting September 21, we will be reading and discussing The Winter of our Disconnect: How Three Totally Wired Teenagers (and a Mother Who Slept with Her iPhone) Pulled the Plug on Their Technology and Lived to Tell the Tale by Susan Maushart.  And guys, this one is going to be good.


Here’s just a snippet from the Introduction:

The Winter of our Disconnect – aka the Experiment (as we all eventually came to call it – was in some ways an accident waiting to happen.  Over a period of years, I watched and worried as our media began to function as a force field separating my children from what my son, only half ironically, called RL (Real Life).  But to be honest, the teenagers weren’t the only ones with dependency issues.  Although a relatively recent arrival to the global village, I’d been known to abuse information too.  (Sneaking the iPhone into the toilet?  Did I have no self-respect?)  As a journalist, it was easy to hide my habit, but deep down I knew I was hooked.  

The Winter of Our Disconnect started out as a kind of purge.  It ended up as so much more.  Long story short: Our digital detox messed with our heads, our hearts, and our homework.  It changed the way we ate and the way we slept, the way we “friended,” fought, planned, and played.  It altered the very taste and texture of our family life…In the end, our family’s self-imposed exile from the Information Age changed our lives indelibly – and infinitely for the better.  This book is our travel log, our apologia, our Pilgrim’s Progress slash Walden Pond slash Lonely Planet Guide to Google-free Living. 

 At the simplest level, The Winter of our Disconnect is the story of how one highly idiosyncratic family survived six months of wandering through the desert, digitally speaking, and the lessons we learned about ourselves and our technology along the way.  At the same time, our story is a channel, if you’ll excuse the expression, to a wider view – into the impact of new media on the lives of families, into the very heart of the meaning of home.

Our reading schedule will be as follows:
Week 1 (September 21):  Introduction, Chapters 1 & 2
Week 2 (September 28): Chapters 3 & 4
Week 3 (October 5): Chapters 5 & 6
Week 4 (October 12): Chapter 7 & 8

Like before, we’ll have discussion questions posted every Monday, so feel free to jump into the conversation whenever you have time.  We are always open to new members and would love to see you in the Facebook group!