Previously
Read Books (from most recent):
2011
September 22:
"Three Weeks With My Brother" by Nicholas & Micah
Sparks (Non-Fiction)
Host
& Discussion Leader: Sandra Martin
Discussion
Questions
Background
Information
Product Description
When
bestselling author Sparks (The
Notebook; Message
in a Bottle; etc.) receives a brochure
offering a three-week trip around the world, it's not hard
for him to persuade Micah, his older brother, to join him
in touring Guatemala's Mayan ruins, Peru's Incan temples,
Easter Island, the killing fields in Cambodia, the Taj
Mahal and Ethiopian rock cathedrals. His account of the
trip is refreshingly honest and perceptive. At each stop,
the brothers, both deeply committed to their families,
cover the crucial moments in a life full of familial love
and tragedy: Nick's role as the middle child always feeling
left out; his marriage in 1989; the loss of Nick and
Micah's mother two months later after a horseback riding
accident; the death of Nick's first baby and the physical
problems of his second son; the death of their father in a
car accident; and the passing of their younger sister from
a brain tumor. As the brothers travel together through
these mythical sites and share candid thoughts, they find
themselves stunned by fate's turns, realizing that a
peaceful moment may be shattered at any time. Weaving in
vignettes of tenderness and loss with travelogue-like
observations, Sparks's account shows how he and his brother
both evolved on this voyage. "Somehow there was a chance we
could help each other, and in that way, I began to think of
the trip less as a journey around the world than a journey
to rediscover who I was and how I'? developed the way I
did." Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of
Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
August 26:
"The Postmistress" by Sarah Blake (Fiction)
Host
& Discussion Leader: Jennifer Eland & Rebecca
Sellsted
Discussion
Questions
Background
Information
Product Description
Weaving together the stories of
three very different women loosely tied to each other,
debut novelist Blake takes readers back and forth between
small town America and war-torn Europe in 1940. Single,
40-year-old postmistress Iris James and young newlywed Emma
Trask are both new arrivals to Franklin, Mass., on Cape
Cod. While Iris and Emma go about their daily lives, they
follow American reporter Frankie Bard on the radio as she
delivers powerful and personal accounts from the London
Blitz and elsewhere in Europe. While Trask waits for the
return of her husband—a volunteer doctor stationed in
England—James comes across a letter with valuable
information that she chooses to hide. Blake captures two
different worlds—a naïve nation in denial and, across the
ocean, a continent wracked with terror—with a deft sense of
character and plot, and a perfect willingness to take on
big, complex questions, such as the merits of truth and
truth-telling in wartime. Copyright © Reed Business
Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights
reserved.
July 28:
"Peace Like A River" by Leif Enger (Fiction)
Host:
Elna Pendleton
Discussion Leader: Cathi Keene
Discussion
Questions
Background
Information
Product Description
Dead
for 10 minutes before his father orders him to breathe in
the name of the living God, Reuben Land is living proof
that the world is full of miracles. But it's the
impassioned honesty of his quiet, measured narrative voice
that gives weight and truth to the fantastic elements of
this engrossing tale. From the vantage point of adulthood,
Reuben tells how his father rescued his brother Davy's
girlfriend from two attackers, how that led to Davy being
jailed for murder and how, once Davy escapes and heads
south for the Badlands of North Dakota, 12-year-old Reuben,
his younger sister Swede and their janitor father light out
after him. But the FBI is following Davy as well, and
Reuben has a part to play in the finale of that chase, just
as he had a part to play in his brother's trial. It's the
kind of story that used to be material for ballads, and
Enger twines in numerous references to the Old West,
chiefly through the rhymed poetry Swede writes about a hero
called Sunny Sundown. That the story is set in the early
'60s in Minnesota gives it an archetypal feel, evoking a
time when the possibility of getting lost in the country
still existed. Enger has created a world of signs, where
dead crows fall in a snowstorm and vagrants lie curled up
in fields, in which everything is significant, everything
has weight and comprehension is always fleeting. This is a
stunning debut novel, one that sneaks up on you like a
whisper and warms you like a quilt in a North Dakota
winter, a novel about faith, miracles and family that is,
ultimately, miraculous. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business
Information, Inc.
June
23: "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca
Skloot (Non-Fiction)
Discussion
leader & Host: Stephanie
Stearns
Discussion
Questions
More
Discussion Questions
Background
Information
Product Description
From a
single, abbreviated life grew a seemingly immortal line of
cells that made some of the most crucial innovations in
modern science possible. And from that same life, and those
cells, Rebecca Skloot has fashioned in The
Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks a fascinating and moving story
of medicine and family, of how life is sustained in
laboratories and in memory. Henrietta Lacks was a mother of
five in Baltimore, a poor African American migrant from the
tobacco farms of Virginia, who died from a cruelly
aggressive cancer at the age of 30 in 1951. A sample of her
cancerous tissue, taken without her knowledge or consent,
as was the custom then, turned out to provide one of the
holy grails of mid-century biology: human cells that could
survive--even thrive--in the lab. Known as HeLa cells,
their stunning potency gave scientists a building block for
countless breakthroughs, beginning with the cure for polio.
Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty
and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades
later of her unknowing contribution--and her cells' strange
survival--left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion.
For a decade, Skloot doggedly but compassionately gathered
the threads of these stories, slowly gaining the trust of
the family while helping them learn the truth about
Henrietta, and with their aid she tells a rich and haunting
story that asks the questions, Who owns our bodies? And who
carries our memories? --Tom
Nissley
May
26: "The Scent of Sake" by Joyce Libra (Fiction)
Discussion
leader & Host: Bette Green
Discussion
Questions
Background
Information
Product Description
Historian and author Lebra
(Women
Against the Raj) makes her fiction debut with
this historical novel concerning one of Japan's most
ancient practices, sake brewing. Rie Omura, the daughter of
a brewing merchant in 19th-century Kobe, decides at a young
age to get into the business, even though women aren't even
allowed inside the brewing house. Guilt over her brother's
fatal accident drives Rie's fantasy to make her family's
enterprise number one. Soon, however, the company's success
falls to Rie's drunk, delinquent husband, the heir to
another brewing house. Rie begins gently suggesting risky
but profitable ventures to the men of the office, expanding
shipments and wrangling with competitors (in sometimes
excessive detail). The family grows alongside the business,
as Rie reluctantly agrees to adopt her husband's
illegitimate children (by geishas), hoping to build the
great brewing dynasty her father always wanted. A paragon
of determination and suppressed emotion, Rie can seem
stagnant, especially amid a swirl of characters, but
Lebra's focused, businesslike style and attention to detail
make a fine match for her protofeminist heroine. Copyright
© Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier
Inc. All rights reserved.
April 28:
"Cutting For Stone" by Abraham Verghese (Fiction)
Discussion
leader & Host: Bernice Peterson
Discussion
Questions
Background
Information
Product Description
Starred Review. Lauded for his
sensitive memoir (My
Own Country) about his time as a doctor in
eastern Tennessee at the onset of the AIDS epidemic in the
80s, Verghese turns his formidable talents to fiction,
mining his own life and experiences in a magnificent,
sweeping novel that moves from India to Ethiopia to an
inner-city hospital in New York City over decades and
generations. Sister Mary Joseph Praise, a devout young nun,
leaves the south Indian state of Kerala in 1947 for a
missionary post in Yemen. During the arduous sea voyage,
she saves the life of an English doctor bound for Ethiopia,
Thomas Stone, who becomes a key player in her destiny when
they meet up again at Missing Hospital in Addis Ababa.
Seven years later, Sister Praise dies birthing twin boys:
Shiva and Marion, the latter narrating his own and his
brothers long, dramatic, biblical story set against the
backdrop of political turmoil in Ethiopia, the life of the
hospital compound in which they grow up and the love story
of their adopted parents, both doctors at Missing. The boys
become doctors as well and Vergheses weaving of the
practice of medicine into the narrative is fascinating even
as the story bobs and weaves with the power and
coincidences of the best 19th-century novel.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
March:
"Little Bee" by Chris Cleve
Discussion
leader & Host: Cathi Keene
Discussion Questions
Background Information
Product Description
All
you should know going in to Little
Bee is
that what happens on the beach is brutal, and that it
braids the fates of a 16-year-old Nigerian orphan (who
calls herself Little Bee) and a well-off British
couple--journalists trying to repair their strained
marriage with a free holiday--who should have stayed behind
their resort's walls. The tide of that event carries Little
Bee back to their world, which she claims she couldn't
explain to the girls from her village because they'd have
no context for its abundance and calm. But she shows us the
infinite rifts in a globalized world, where any distance
can be crossed in a day--with the right papers--and "no one
likes each other, but everyone likes U2." Where you have to
give up the safety you'd assumed as your birthright if you
decide to save the girl gazing at you through razor wire,
left to the wolves of a failing state.
--Mari
Malcolm
February:
"Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet" by Jamie Ford
Discussion
leader & Host: Nancy Klug
Discussion Questions
Background Information
Product Description
Adult/High School—Henry Lee is
a 12-year-old Chinese boy who falls in love with Keiko
Okabe, a 12-year-old Japanese girl, while they are
scholarship students at a prestigious private school in
World War II Seattle. Henry hides the relationship from his
parents, who would disown him if they knew he had a
Japanese friend. His father insists that Henry wear an "I
am Chinese" button everywhere he goes because Japanese
residents of Seattle have begun to be shipped off by the
thousands to relocation centers. This is an old-fashioned
historical novel that alternates between the early 1940s
and 1984, after Henry's wife Ethel has died of cancer. A
particularly appealing aspect of the story is young Henry's
fascination with jazz and his friendship with Sheldon, an
older black saxophonist just making a name for himself in
the many jazz venues near Henry's home. Other aspects of
the story are more typical of the genre: the bullies that
plague Henry, his lack of connection with his father, and
later with his own son. Readers will care about Henry as he
is forced to make decisions and accept circumstances that
separate him from both his family and the love of his life.
While the novel is less perfect as literature than John
Hamamura's Color
of the Sea (Thomas Dunne, 2006), the
setting and quietly moving, romantic story are
commendable.—Angela
Carstensen, Convent of the Sacred Heart, New York
City
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
January:
"A Night of Long Knives" by Rebecca Cantrell
Discussion
leader: Bette Green; Host: Elna
Pendleton
Discussion Questions
Background Information
Product Description
From BookList
After
escaping Germany in 1931 (A Trace of Smoke, 2009), after
kidnapping her adopted son, Anton, from SA leader Ernst
RÖhm, who wants to believe the boy is his son, Hannah Vogel
vowed never to return to her homeland. Yet here she is,
three years later, with Anton at her side, watching the
zeppelin in which they are riding land not in Switzerland,
the intended destination, but in Germany. RÖhm is behind
the unscheduled stop, and soon Hannah and Anton have been
abducted by brownshirts. Hannah will be forced to marry
RÖhm, thus countering the scandal brewing over his
homosexuality. But it's too late: the Night of the Long
Knives, Hitler's purge of the SA, has begun and will leave
RÖhm dead. Hannah escapes in the melee, but Anton is lost,
prompting a frenzied search across Germany and drawing
Hannah into all levels of political intrigue. Once again,
Cantrell nails the prewar German landscape, although this
time, with the Nazis in power, the mood has gone from
Weimar decadence to tight-lipped uncertainty. The thriller
plot plays out somewhat predictably, but the appeal here is
all about atmosphere and the historical moment. --Bill
Ott
2010
December:
"The Piano Teacher" by Janice Y. K. Lee
Discussion
leader & Host: Stephanie
Stearns
Discussion
Questions
Background
Information
Product Description
Starred Review. Former
Elle
editor Lee delivers
a standout debut dealing with the rigors of love and
survival during a time of war, and the consequences of
choices made under duress. Claire Pendleton, newly married
and arrived in Hong Kong in 1952, finds work giving piano
lessons to the daughter of Melody and Victor Chen, a
wealthy Chinese couple. While the girl is less than
interested in music, the Chens' flinty British expat
driver, Will Truesdale, is certainly interested in Claire,
and vice versa. Their fast-blossoming affair is juxtaposed
against a plot line beginning in 1941 when Will gets swept
up by the beautiful and tempestuous Trudy Liang, and then
follows through his life during the Japanese occupation. As
Claire and Will's affair becomes common knowledge, so do
the specifics of Will's murky past, Trudy's motivations and
Victor's role in past events. The rippling of past actions
through to the present lends the narrative layers of
intrigue and more than a few unexpected twists. Lee covers
a little-known time in Chinese history without melodrama,
and deconstructs without judgment the choices people make
in order to live one more day under torturous
circumstances. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
November: "A
Trace of Smoke" by Rebecca Cantrell
Discussion
leader & Host: Sandra Martin
Discussion
Questions
Product Description
Starred Review. Set in 1931
Berlin, Cantrell's scrupulously researched debut tolls a
somber dirge for Weimar Germany in its last days. In the
Hall of the Unnamed Dead, Hannah Vogel, a 32-year-old crime
reporter for the Berliner
Tageblatt, recognizes a photograph of a
naked corpse on a riverbank as that of her beloved brother,
Ernst, an unabashedly gay transvestite cabaret singer. In
her search for Ernst's killer, Hannah uncovers his sexual
connections reach from newly recruited young Nazis to the
highest levels of the Nazi party. Hannah and Anton, a
five-year-old waif who claims Ernst was his father, along
with her tender lover, Boris, tread an ominous tightrope as
Cantrell unveils the best and the worst of the German
character, setting the humanity of decent Germans, Jews and
gentiles alike, against the Nazis' raw savagery and
mindless militarism. This unforgettable novel, which can be
as painful to read as the history it foreshadows, builds to
an appropriately bittersweet ending. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
October: "The
Lacuna" by Barbara Kingsolver
Discussion
leader & Host: Cathi Keene
Discussion
Questions
Background
Information
Product Description
Starred Review. Kingsolver's
ambitious new novel, her first in nine years (after
the The
Poisonwood Bible), focuses on Harrison William
Shepherd, the product of a divorced American father and a
Mexican mother. After getting kicked out of his American
military academy, Harrison spends his formative years in
Mexico in the 1930s in the household of Diego Rivera; his
wife, Frida Kahlo; and their houseguest, Leon Trotsky, who
is hiding from Soviet assassins. After Trotsky is
assassinated, Harrison returns to the U.S., settling down
in Asheville, N.C., where he becomes an author of
historical potboilers (e.g., Vassals
of Majesty) and is later investigated as
a possible subversive. Narrated in the form of letters,
diary entries and newspaper clippings, the novel takes a
while to get going, but once it does, it achieves a rare
dramatic power that reaches its emotional peak when
Harrison wittily and eloquently defends himself before the
House Un-American Activities Committee (on the panel is a
young Dick Nixon). Employed by the American imagination, is
how one character describes Harrison, a term that could
apply equally to Kingsolver as she masterfully resurrects a
dark period in American history with the assured hand of a
true literary artist. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
September: "South of Broad" by Pat Conroy
Discussion
leader & Host: Gail Jackson
Discussion
Questions
Background
Information
Product Description
Charleston, S.C., gossip
columnist Leopold Bloom King narrates a paean to his
hometown and friends in Conroy's first novel in 14 years.
In the late '60s and after his brother commits suicide,
then 18-year-old Leo befriends a cross-section of the
city's inhabitants: scions of Charleston aristocracy;
Appalachian orphans; a black football coach's son; and an
astonishingly beautiful pair of twins, Sheba and Trevor
Poe, who are evading their psychotic father. The story
alternates between 1969, the glorious year Leo's coterie
stormed Charleston's social, sexual and racial barricades,
and 1989, when Sheba, now a movie star, enlists them to
find her missing gay brother in AIDS-ravaged San Francisco.
Too often the not-so-witty repartee and the narrator's awed
voice (he is very fond of superlatives) overwhelm the
stories surrounding the group's love affairs and their
struggles to protect one another from dangerous pasts. Some
characters are tragically lost to the riptides of love and
obsession, while others emerge from the frothy waters of
sentimentality and nostalgia as exhausted as most readers
are likely to be. Fans of Conroy's florid prose and earnest
melodramas are in for a treat. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
August: "The
Help" by Kathryn Stockett
Discussion
leader & Host: Bobbie Walker
Discussion
Questions
Background
Information
Product Description
Starred Review. What perfect
timing for this optimistic, uplifting debut novel (and
maiden publication of Amy Einhorn's new imprint) set during
the nascent civil rights movement in Jackson, Miss., where
black women were trusted to raise white children but not to
polish the household silver. Eugenia Skeeter Phelan is just
home from college in 1962, and, anxious to become a writer,
is advised to hone her chops by writing about what disturbs
you. The budding social activist begins to collect the
stories of the black women on whom the country club sets
relies and mistrusts enlisting the help of Aibileen, a maid
who's raised 17 children, and Aibileen's best friend Minny,
who's found herself unemployed more than a few times after
mouthing off to her white employers. The book Skeeter puts
together based on their stories is scathing and shocking,
bringing pride and hope to the black community, while
giving Skeeter the courage to break down her personal
boundaries and pursue her dreams. Assured and layered, full
of heart and history, this one has bestseller written all
over it. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
July:
"A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson
Discussion
leader & Host: Bette Green
Discussion
Questions from the Manitowoc Public
Library
Discussion
Questions from Litlovers.com
Product Description
Returning to the U.S. after 20
years in England, Iowa native Bryson decided to reconnect
with his mother country by hiking the length of the
2100-mile Appalachian Trail. Awed by merely the camping
section of his local sporting goods store, he nevertheless
plunges into the wilderness and emerges with a consistently
comical account of a neophyte woodsman learning hard
lessons about self-reliance. Bryson (The Lost Continent)
carries himself in an irresistibly bewildered manner,
accepting each new calamity with wonder and hilarity. He
reviews the characters of the AT (as the trail is called),
from a pack of incompetent Boy Scouts to a perpetually lost
geezer named Chicken John. Most amusing is his cranky,
crude and inestimable companion, Katz, a reformed substance
abuser who once had single-handedly "become, in effect,
Iowa's drug culture." The uneasy but always entertaining
relationship between Bryson and Katz keeps their walk
interesting, even during the flat stretches. Bryson
completes the trail as planned, and he records the
misadventure with insight and elegance. He is a popular
author in Britain and his impeccably graceful and witty
style deserves a large American audience as well.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information,
Inc.
June: "The
Caliph's House" by Tahir Shah
Discussion
leader & Host: Alexandra
Berstein
Discussion
Questions
Product Description
When
Shah, his pregnant wife and their small daughter move from
England to Morocco, where he'd vacationed as a child, he
enters a realm of "invisible spirits and their parallel
world." Shah buys the Caliph's House, once a palatial
compound, now heavy with algae, cobwebs and termites.
Unoccupied for a decade, the place harbors a willful jinni
(invisible spirit), who Shah, the rational Westerner,
reluctantly grasps must be exorcised by traditional means.
As Shah remodels the haunted house, he encounters a cast of
entertaining, sometimes bizarre characters. Three
retainers, whose lives are governed by the jinni, have
attached themselves to the property. Confounding craftsmen
plague but eventually beautify the house. Intriguing
servants come and go, notably Zohra, whose imaginary
friend, a 100-foot tall jinni, lives on her shoulder. A
"gangster neighbor and his trophy wife" conspire to acquire
the Caliph's House, and a countess remembers Shah's
grandfather and his secrets. Passers-through offer
eccentricity (Kenny, visiting 15 cities on five continents
where Casablanca
is playing; Pete, a
convert to Islam, seeking "a world without America"). There
is a thin, dark post-9/11 thread in Shah's elegantly woven
tale. The dominant colors, however, are luminous. "[L]ife
not filled with severe learning curves was no life at all,"
Shah observes. Trailing Shah through his is sheer delight.
Illus. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
May:
"Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" by Lisa See
Discussion
leader & Host: Elna Pendleton
Discussion
Questions
Product Description
See's
engrossing novel set in remote 19th-century China details
the deeply affecting story of lifelong, intimate friends
(laotong,
or "old sames") Lily and Snow Flower, their imprisonment by
rigid codes of conduct for women and their betrayal by
pride and love. While granting immediacy to Lily's voice,
See (Flower
Net)
adroitly transmits historical background in graceful prose.
Her in-depth research into women's ceremonies and duties in
China's rural interior brings fascinating revelations about
arranged marriages, women's inferior status in both their
natal and married homes, and the Confucian proverbs and
myriad superstitions that informed daily life. Beginning
with a detailed and heartbreaking description of Lily and
her sisters' foot binding ("Only through pain will you have
beauty. Only through suffering will you have peace"), the
story widens to a vivid portrait of family and village
life. Most impressive is See's incorporation of
nu
shu, a
secret written phonetic code among women—here between Lily
and Snow Flower—that dates back 1,000 years in the
southwestern Hunan province ("My writing is soaked with the
tears of my heart,/ An invisible rebellion that no man can
see"). As both a suspenseful and poignant story and an
absorbing historical chronicle, this novel has bestseller
potential and should become a reading group favorite as
well.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
April: "The
People of the Book" by Geraldine Brooks
Discussion
leader & Host: Cathi Keen
Discussion
Questions
Product Description
Reading Geraldine Brooks's
remarkable debut novel, Year of Wonders, or more recently
March, which won the Pulitzer Prize, it would be easy to
forget that she grew up in Australia and worked as a
journalist. Now in her dazzling new novel, People of the
Book, Brooks allows both her native land and current events
to play a larger role while still continuing to mine the
historical material that speaks so ardently to her
imagination. Late one night in the city of Sydney, Hanna
Heath, a rare book conservator, gets a phone call. The
Sarajevo Haggadah, which disappeared during the siege in
1992, has been found, and Hanna has been invited by the
U.N. to report on its condition. Missing documents and art
works (as Dan Brown and Lev Grossman, among others, have
demonstrated) are endlessly appealing, and from this
inviting premise Brooks spins her story in two directions.
In the present, we follow the resolutely independent Hanna
through her thrilling first encounter with the beautifully
illustrated codex and her discovery of the tiny signs-a
white hair, an insect wing, missing clasps, a drop of salt,
a wine stain-that will help her to discover its provenance.
Along with the book she also meets its savior, a Muslim
librarian named Karaman. Their romance offers both
predictable pleasures and genuine surprises, as does the
other main relationship in Hanna's life: her fraught
connection with her mother. In the other strand of the
narrative we learn, moving backward through time, how the
codex came to be lost and found, and made. From the opening
section, set in Sarajevo in 1940, to the final section, set
in Seville in 1480, these narratives show Brooks writing at
her very best. With equal authority she depicts the
struggles of a young girl to escape the Nazis, a duel of
wits between an inquisitor and a rabbi living in the Venice
ghetto, and a girl's passionate relationship with her
mistress in a harem. Like the illustrations in the
Haggadah, each of these sections transports the reader to a
fully realized, vividly peopled world. And each gives a
glimpse of both the long history of anti-Semitism and of
the struggle of women toward the independence that Hanna,
despite her mother's lectures, tends to take for granted.
Brooks is too good a novelist to belabor her political
messages, but her depiction of the Haggadah bringing
together Jews, Christians and Muslims could not be more
timely. Her gift for storytelling, happily, is timeless.
Copyright 2007 Publishers Weekly.
March: "The
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" by Mary Ann
Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Discussion
leader & Host: Sandra Martin
Discussion
Questions
Product Description
The
letters comprising this small charming novel begin in 1946,
when single, 30-something author Juliet Ashton (nom de
plume Izzy Bickerstaff) writes to her publisher to say she
is tired of covering the sunny side of war and its
aftermath. When Guernsey farmer Dawsey Adams finds Juliet's
name in a used book and invites articulate—and
not-so-articulate—neighbors to write Juliet with their
stories, the book's epistolary circle widens, putting
Juliet back in the path of war stories. The occasionally
contrived letters jump from incident to incident—including
the formation of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie
Society while Guernsey was under German occupation—and
person to person in a manner that feels disjointed. But
Juliet's quips are so clever, the Guernsey inhabitants so
enchanting and the small acts of heroism so vivid and
moving that one forgives the authors (Shaffer died earlier
this year) for not being able to settle on a single person
or plot. Juliet finds in the letters not just inspiration
for her next work, but also for her life—as will
readers. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
February:
"The Art of Racing in the Rain" by Garth Stein
Discussion
leader & Host: Bernice Peterson
Discussion
Questions
Product Description
If
you've ever wondered what your dog is thinking, Stein's
third novel offers an answer. Enzo is a lab terrier mix
plucked from a farm outside Seattle to ride shotgun with
race car driver Denny Swift as he pursues success on the
track and off. Denny meets and marries Eve, has a daughter,
Zoë, and risks his savings and his life to make it on the
professional racing circuit. Enzo, frustrated by his
inability to speak and his lack of opposable thumbs,
watches Denny's old racing videos, coins koanlike aphorisms
that apply to both driving and life, and hopes for the day
when his life as a dog will be over and he can be reborn a
man. When Denny hits an extended rough patch, Enzo remains
his most steadfast if silent supporter. Enzo is a reliable
companion and a likable enough narrator, though the string
of Denny's bad luck stories strains believability. Much
like Denny, however, Stein is able to salvage some dignity
from the over-the-top drama. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
January: "The
Slave" by Isaac Singer
Discussion
leader & Host: Alexandra
Bernstein
Discussion
Questions
Product Description
Four years after the Chmielnicki massacres of the
seventeenth century, Jacob, a slave and cowherd in a Polish
village high in the mountains, falls in love with Wanda,
his master's daughter. Even after he is ransomed, he finds
he can't live without her, and the two escape together to a
distant Jewish community. Racked by his consciousness of
sin in taking a Gentile wife and by the difficulties of
concealing her identity, Jacob nonetheless stands firm as
the violence of the era threatens to destroy the ill-fated
couple.
2009
December:
"Three Junes" by Julia Glass
Discussion
leader: Stephanie Stearns
Host: Elna Pendleton
Product Description
This
strong and memorable debut novel draws the reader deeply
into the lives of several central characters during three
separate Junes spanning ten years. At the story's onset,
Scotsman Paul McLeod, the father of three grown sons, is
newly widowed and on a group tour of the Greek islands as
he reminisces about how he met and married his deceased
wife and created their family. Next, in the book's longest
section, we see the world through the eyes of Paul's eldest
son, Fenno, a gay man transplanted to New York City and
owner of a small bookstore, who learns lessons about love
and loss that allow him to grow in unexpected ways. And
finally there is Fern, an artist and book designer whom
Paul met on his trip to Greece several years earlier. She
is now a young widow, pregnant and also living in New York
City, who must make sense of her own past and present to be
able to move forward in her life. In this novel,
expectations and revelations collide in startling ways.
Alternately joyful and sad, this exploration of modern
relationships and the families people both inherit or
create for themselves is highly recommended for all fiction
collections. Maureen Neville, Trenton P.L., NJ
From Library Journal, Copyright 2002 Cahners Business
Information, Inc.
November:
"Standing Alone" by Asra Nomani
Discussion
leader:
Host: Noreen Chun
Product Description
As President Bush is preparing to invade Iraq, Wall Street
Journal correspondent Asra Nomani embarks on a dangerous
journey from Middle America to the Middle East to join more
than two million fellow Muslims on the hajj, the pilgrimage
to Mecca required of all Muslims once in their lifetime.
Mecca is Islam's most sacred city and strictly off limits
to non-Muslims. On a journey perilous enough for any
American reporter, Nomani is determined to take along her
infant son, Shibli -- living proof that she, an unmarried
Muslim woman, is guilty of zina, or "illegal sex." If she
is found out, the puritanical Islamic law of the Wahabbis
in Saudi Arabia may mete out terrifying punishment. But
Nomani discovers she is not alone. She is following in the
four-thousand-year-old footsteps of another single mother,
Hajar (known in the West as Hagar), the original pilgrim to
Mecca and mother of the Islamic nation.
Each day of her hajj evokes for Nomani the history of a
different Muslim matriarch: Eve, from whom she learns about
sin and redemption; Hajar, the single mother abandoned in
the desert who teaches her about courage; Khadijah, the
first benefactor of Islam and trailblazer for a Muslim
woman's right to self-determination; and Aisha, the
favorite wife of the Prophet Muhammad and Islam's first
female theologian. Inspired by these heroic Muslim women,
Nomani returns to America to confront the sexism and
intolerance in her local mosque and to fight for the rights
of modern Muslim women who are tired of standing alone
against the repressive rules and regulations imposed by
reactionary fundamentalists.
Nomani shows how many of the freedoms enjoyed centuries ago
have been erased by the conservative brand of Islam
practiced today, giving the West a false image of Muslim
women as veiled and isolated from the world. Standing Alone
in Mecca is a personal narrative, relating the modern-day
lives of the author and other Muslim women to the lives of
those who came before, bringing the changing face of women
in Islam into focus through the unique lens of the hajj.
Interweaving reportage, political analysis, cultural
history, and spiritual travelogue, this is a modern woman's
jihad, offering for Westerners a never-before-seen look
inside the heart of Islam and the emerging role of Muslim
women.
October: "The Birth of Venus: A Novel" by Sarah Dunant
Discussion
leader: Sandra Martin
From Publishers Weekly
In this arresting tale of art, love and betrayal in
15th-century Florence, the daughter of a wealthy cloth
merchant seeks the freedom of marriage in order to paint,
but finds that she may have bought her liberty at the cost
of love and true fulfillment. Alessandra, 16, is tall,
sharp-tongued and dauntingly clever. At first reluctant to
agree to an arranged marriage, she changes her mind when
she meets elegant 48-year-old Cristoforo, who is
well-versed in art and literature. He promises to give her
all the freedom she wants-and she finds out why on her
wedding night. Her disappointment and frustration are soon
overshadowed by the growing cloud of madness and violence
hanging over Florence, nourished by the sermons of the
fanatically pious Savonarola. As the wealthy purge their
palazzos of "low" art and luxuries, Alessandra gives in to
the dangerous attraction that draws her to a tormented
young artist commissioned to paint her family's chapel.
With details as rich as the brocade textiles that built
Alessandra's family fortune, Dunant (Mapping the Edge;
Transgressions; etc.) masterfully recreates Florence in the
age of the original bonfire of the vanities. The novel
moves to its climax as Savonarola's reign draws to a bloody
close, with the final few chapters describing Alessandra's
fate and hinting at the identity of her artist lover. While
the story is rushed at the end, the author has a genius for
peppering her narrative with little-known facts, and the
deadpan dialogue lends a staccato verve to the swift-moving
plot. Forget Baedecker and Vasari's Lives of the Artists.
Dunant's vivid, gripping novel gives fresh life to a
captivating age of glorious art and political turmoil.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
September:
"Crossing to Safety" by Wallace Stegner
Discussion
leader:
From Publishers Weekly
Adding to a distinguished body of work that already has
earned him a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Awardand
on the 50th anniversary of the publication of his first
novelStegner's new book is an eloquent, wise and immensely
moving narrative. It is a meditation on the idealism and
spirit of youth, when the world is full of promise, and on
the blows and compromises life inevitably inflicts. Two
couples meet during the Depression years in Madison, Wis.,
and become devoted friends despite vast differences in
upbringing and social status. Hard work, hope and the will
to succeed as a writer motivate the penurious narrator
Larry Morgan and his wife Sally as he begins a term
teaching at the university. Equally excited by their
opportunities are Sid Lang, another junior man in the
English department, and his wife Charity. They are
fortune's children, favored with intelligence, breeding and
money. Taken into the Langs' nourishing and generous
embrace, the Morgans have many reasons for gratitude over
the years, especially when Sally is afflicted with polio
and the Langs provide financial as well as moral support.
During visits at the Langs' summer home on Battell Pond in
Vermont and later sharing a year in Florence, the couples
feel that they are "four in Eden." Yet the Morgans observe
the stresses in their friends' marriage as headstrong,
insufferably well-organized Charity tries to bully the
passive Sid into a more aggressive mold. Charity is one of
the most vivid characters in fiction; if she is arrogant,
she is also kindhearted, enthusiastic, stalwart and bravean
ardent liver of life. Her incandescent personality is both
the dominant force and the source of strain in the enduring
friendship Stegner conveys with brilliant artistry. He is
also superb at expressing a sense of place, and his
intelligent voice makes cogent observations on American
society in the decades of his setting. But most
importantly, he speaks to us of universal questions,
reflecting on "the miserable failure of the law of nature
to conform to the dream of man." In doing so, he has
created a believable human drama the dimensions of which
reach out beyond the story's end and resonate in the
reader's heart. BOMC and QPBC alternates; Franklin Library
Signed First Edition Society selection.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
August: Movie
"Good Bye, Lenin"
Discussion
leader: Stephanie Stearns
In
East Germany in 1989, Alex Kerner's (Daniel Bruhl) mother
Christiane (Katrin Sass) falls into a coma just as the
Berlin Wall is about to come down. Eight months later, she
wakes up, but her heart is too weak to withstand any great
shock. So Alex goes to great (and often hysterical) lengths
to keep the truth about her country's reform a secret. This
widely praised, Golden Globe-nominated comedy played in
festivals around the world.
If you want to watch it ahead of time, it is available
through the Hawaii Library System as a DVD, Netflix or
Blockbuster.
July: "Wild
Swans: Three Daughters of China" by Jung
Chang
Discussion
leader: Alexandra Bernstein
From
Publishers Weekly
Bursting with drama, heartbreak and horror, this
extraordinary family portrait mirrors China's century of
turbulence. Chang's grandmother, Yu-fang, had her feet
bound at age two and in 1924 was sold as a concubine to
Beijing's police chief. Yu-fang escaped slavery in a
brothel by fleeing her "husband" with her infant daughter,
Bao Qin, Chang's mother-to-be. Growing up during Japan's
brutal occupation, free-spirited Bao Qin chose the man she
would marry, a Communist Party official slavishly devoted
to the revolution. In 1949, while he drove 1000 miles in a
jeep to the southwestern province where they would do Mao's
spadework, Bao Qin walked alongside the vehicle, sick and
pregnant (she lost the child). Chang, born in 1952, saw her
mother put into a detention camp in the Cultural Revolution
and later "rehabilitated." Her father was denounced and
publicly humiliated; his mind snapped, and he died a broken
man in 1975. Working as a "barefoot doctor" with no
training, Chang saw the oppressive, inhuman side of
communism. She left China in 1978 and is now director of
Chinese studies at London University. Her meticulous,
transparent prose radiates an inner strength. Photos. BOMC
alternate.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
June: "The
Dream Begins: How Hawaii Shaped Barack Obama" by Stu
Glauberman and Jerry Burris
Discussion
Leader: Bobbie Walker
Product Description
Born
and raised in the most multicultural state in the union,
United States presidential candidate Barack Obama bears the
indelible stamp of his native Hawaii. Here is a
coming-of-age story set in Hawaii's storied "melting pot"—a
revealing look at what makes Obama tick.
This revised edition contains an 8-page photo section not
published in the previous edition, and an updated epilogue.
Authored by veteran political writers Stu Glauberman and
Jerry Burris, this 152-page book examines Obama's early
years in Hawaii. The self-described "skinny kid with the
funny name" flourished in the Islands, where local values
foster tolerance, compromise and mutual respect—and where
diversity defines people rather than divides them. The
social mores of the Aloha State and the experience of
growing up in an island culture have had a deep and lasting
influence on the candidate. Obama himself has noted,
"What's best in me, and what's best in my message, is
consistent with the tradition of Hawaii."
Glauberman and Burris offer concise lessons in Hawaii
history to help the reader understand its racial and social
climate, and how such an environment could impact a young
man like Obama. For, as his wife, Michelle Obama, has said,
"You can't really understand Barack until you understand
Hawaii." Interviews with Obama's Punahou School classmates
and teachers, as well as others who knew the Senator in his
youth, add a personal dimension to the narrative. Obama's
paternal and maternal family history and his years in
Indonesia are also thoroughly covered.
May:
"The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara
Kingsolver
Discussion
Leader: Elna Pendleton
From Publishers Weekly
In this risky but resoundingly successful novel, Kingsolver
leaves the Southwest, the setting of most of her work (The
Bean Trees; Animal Dreams) and follows an evangelical
Baptist minister's family to the Congo in the late 1950s,
entwining their fate with that of the country during three
turbulent decades. Nathan Price's determination to convert
the natives of the Congo to Christianity is, we gradually
discover, both foolhardy and dangerous, unsanctioned by the
church administration and doomed from the start by Nathan's
self-righteousness. Fanatic and sanctimonious, Nathan is a
domestic monster, too, a physically and emotionally
abusive, misogynistic husband and father. He refuses to
understand how his obsession with river baptism affronts
the traditions of the villagers of Kalinga, and his
stubborn concept of religious rectitude brings misery and
destruction to all. Cleverly, Kingsolver never brings us
inside Nathan's head but instead unfolds the tragic story
of the Price family through the alternating points of view
of Orleanna Price and her four daughters. Cast with her
young children into primitive conditions but trained to be
obedient to her husband, Orleanna is powerless to mitigate
their situation. Meanwhile, each of the four Price
daughters reveals herself through first-person narration,
and their rich and clearly differentiated self-portraits
are small triumphs. Rachel, the eldest, is a self-absorbed
teenager who will never outgrow her selfish view of the
world or her tendency to commit hilarious malapropisms.
Twins Leah and Adah are gifted intellectually but are
physically and emotionally separated by Adah's birth
injury, which has rendered her hemiplagic. Leah adores her
father; Adah, who does not speak, is a shrewd observer of
his monumental ego. The musings of five- year-old Ruth May
reflect a child's humorous misunderstanding of the exotic
world to which she has been transported. By revealing the
story through the female victims of Reverend Price's
hubris, Kingsolver also charts their maturation as they
confront or evade moral and existential issues and, at
great cost, accrue wisdom in the crucible of an alien land.
It is through their eyes that we come to experience the
life of the villagers in an isolated community and the
particular ways in which American and African cultures
collide. As the girls become acquainted with the villagers,
especially the young teacher Anatole, they begin to
understand the political situation in the Congo: the
brutality of Belgian rule, the nascent nationalism briefly
fulfilled in the election of the short-lived Patrice
Lumumba government, and the secret involvement of the
Eisenhower administration in Lumumba's assassination and
the installation of the villainous dictator Mobutu. In the
end, Kingsolver delivers a compelling family saga, a
sobering picture of the horrors of fanatic fundamentalism
and an insightful view of an exploited country crushed by
the heel of colonialism and then ruthlessly manipulated by
a bastion of democracy. The book is also a marvelous mix of
trenchant character portrayal, unflagging narrative thrust
and authoritative background detail. The disastrous outcome
of the forceful imposition of Christian theology on
indigenous natural faith gives the novel its pervasive
irony; but humor is pervasive, too, artfully integrated
into the children's misapprehensions of their world; and
suspense rises inexorably as the Price family's peril and
that of the newly independent country of Zaire intersect.
Kingsolver moves into new moral terrain in this powerful,
convincing and emotionally resonant novel. Agent, Frances
Goldin; BOMC selection; major ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information,
Inc.
April: "Three
Cups of Tea" by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver
Rlein
Discussion
Leader: Nancy Klug
From Publishers Weekly:
Some failures lead to phenomenal successes, and this
American nurse's unsuccessful attempt to climb K2, the
world's second tallest mountain, is one of them.
Dangerously ill when he finished his climb in 1993,
Mortenson was sheltered for seven weeks by the small
Pakistani village of Korphe; in return, he promised to
build the impoverished town's first school, a project that
grew into the Central Asia Institute, which has since
constructed more than 50 schools across rural Pakistan and
Afghanistan. Coauthor Relin recounts Mortenson's efforts in
fascinating detail, presenting compelling portraits of the
village elders, con artists, philanthropists, mujahideen,
Taliban officials, ambitious school girls and upright
Muslims Mortenson met along the way. As the book moves into
the post-9/11 world, Mortenson and Relin argue that the
United States must fight Islamic extremism in the region
through collaborative efforts to alleviate poverty and
improve access to education, especially for girls.
Captivating and suspenseful, with engrossing accounts of
both hostilities and unlikely friendships, this book will
win many readers' hearts. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
March: "Ruby
Tuesday"by Baron Birtcher
Special
Guest: Baron Birtcher
From Publishers Weekly
The sequel to last year's Roadhouse Blues, Baron R.
Birtcher's tropical noir Ruby Tuesday pitches retired LAPD
detective Mike Travis who only wants to get away from it
all headlong into a dangerous criminal investigation when
he finds his Hawaiian home full of drugs and bullets, as
well as the bodies of a rock star and his entourage.
Murders multiply and the lone lead is but a rumor: the
"Lost Tapes" of a famous band, which more characters than
the honest Travis are after.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
February:
"The Woman In White" by Wilkie Collins
Discussion
Leader: Cathi Keene
Review
Novel by Wilkie Collins, published serially in All the Year
Round (November 1859-July 1860) and in book form in 1860.
Noted for its suspenseful plot and unique characterization,
the successful novel brought Collins great fame; he adapted
it into a play in 1871. This dramatic tale, inspired by an
actual criminal case, is told through multiple narrators.
Frederick Fairlie, a wealthy hypochondriac, hires virtuous
Walter Hartright to tutor his beautiful niece and heiress,
Laura, and her homely, courageous half-sister, Marian
Halcombe. Although Hartright and Laura fall in love, she
honors her late father's wish that she marry Sir Percival
Glyde, a villain who plans to steal her inheritance. Glyde
is assisted by sinister Count Fosco, a cultured, corpulent
Italian who became the archetype of subsequent villains in
crime novels. Their plot is threatened by Anne Catherick, a
mysterious fugitive from a mental asylum who dresses in
white, resembles Laura, and knows the secret of Glyde's
illegitimate birth. Through the perseverance of Hartright
and Marian, Glyde and Fosco are defeated and killed,
allowing Hartright to marry Laura. -- The Merriam-Webster
Encyclopedia of Literature
January:
"The End of Manners" by Francessa
Marciano
Discussion
Leader: Stephanie Stearns
From Publishers Weekly
In Marciano's brisk third novel (after Rules of the Wild
and Casa Rossa), an unlikely pair of women are dispatched
to war-torn Afghanistan circa 2004 to report a story about
young Afghan women attempting suicide rather than entering
into arranged marriages. Imo Glass is a flamboyant magazine
writer who wants the story no matter what societal taboos
she tramples. Maria Galante, an award-winning but
emotionally withdrawn photojournalist, has forsaken
dangerous assignments to take pictures of fancy food for
fancy magazines, until her agent persuades her to take this
job. With a fluid mix of gritty irony and palpable fear,
Marciano's evocation of landscape and environment
brilliantly captures a devastated Kabul, a messy war and
the soulless arms dealers and cold-blooded mercenaries
drawn to the fractured nation by the lure of money. Equally
intense is her compassionate depiction of a culture where
taking photos of women is forbidden and religious doctrine
dictates the way of life in a world of a far greater
insanity than Maria, for one, had envisioned. This work of
fiction, rooted in harsh reality, tackles moral
complexities with powerful self-assurance. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
2008
December:
"The Killer Angels" by Michael Shaara
Amazon.com Review
"This novel reveals more about the Battle of Gettysburg
than any piece of learned nonfiction on the same subject.
Michael Shaara's account of the three most important days
of the Civil War features deft characterizations of all of
the main actors, including Lee, Longstreet, Pickett,
Buford, and Hancock. The most inspiring figure in the book,
however, is Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, whose 20th
Maine regiment of volunteers held the Union's left flank on
the second day of the battle. This unit's bravery at Little
Round Top helped turned the tide of the war against the
rebels. There are also plenty of maps, which convey a
complete sense of what happened July 1-3, 1863. Reading
about the past is rarely so much fun as on these pages."
November:
"Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy
Kidder
Editorial Reviews
“Mountains Beyond Mountains is the only book I’ve read in
years that made me feel like cheering. It left me
uncomfortable, guilty, and exhausted—but it also inspired
me, kept me up all night, and moved me to tears. Some
readers will find their lives changed forever; everyone
else will emerge, at the very least, with an unexpectedly
revised set of values. Tracy Kidder has given us not only
an unforgettable book but an unignorable life lesson.
Hurrah!” —Anne Fadiman, author of The Spirit Catches You
and You Fall Down
“Rarely has idealism fared so well on the planet as in
Tracy Kidder’s eloquently reported Mountains Beyond
Mountains. One is tempted to call Paul Farmer’s passionate
sensibilities and loving ambitions otherworldly, but only
in sadness that there are too few of him in the world.
Kidder has provided us all, as the Farmerites say, with a
road map to decency, and such an endowment is beyond
measure.” —Bob Shacochis, author of Easy in the Islands
"Is there anything Tracy Kidder can't do? This is a
beautiful book, and a masterful one. Even better, Mountains
Beyond Mountains is a page-turner that will crack your
conscience open." -Stacey Schiff, author of Vera
October:
"Regeneration" by Pat Barker
From Library Journal
"In 1917, decorated British officer and poet Siegfried
Sassoon wrote a declaration condemning the war. Instead of
a court-martial, he was sent to a hospital for other
"shell-shocked" officers where he was treated by Dr.
William Rivers, noted an thropologist and psychiatrist.
Author Barker turns these true occurrences into a
compelling and brilliant antiwar novel. Sassoon's complete
sanity disturbs Dr. Rivers to such a point that he
questions his own role in "curing" his patients only to
send them back to the slaughter of the war in France. World
War I decimated an entire generation of European men, and
the horrifying loss of life and the callousness of the
government led to the obliteration of the Victorian ideal.
This is an important and impressive novel about war,
soldiers, and humanity. It belongs in most fiction
collections."
- C. Christopher Pavek, National Economic Research As socs.
Lib., Washington, D.C.
September:
"Potluck: Stories That Taste Like Hawai`i" by Catherine
Tarleton (local author)
Editorial Reviews
"A great beach read." -- Adi Kohler
"Well done and thought-provoking...Tarleton has a deft hand
with humor." -- Wanda Adams, Honolulu Advertiser, April 13,
2002
"You'll know a lot more about Hawaii when you've finished
Potluck." -- Islands Magazine, January/February 2003
August:
"Lottery" by Patricia Wood
From Publishers Weekly
"Veteran narrator Michael brings his distinct gift for
dialogue and vocal mannerisms to Wood's novel. The action
centers on how winning a $12-million lottery jackpot
complicates the life of 32-year-old Perry L. Crandall, the
dedicated employee of a marine supply store in the harbor
city of Everett, Wash. With an IQ of 76, Perry emphatically
proclaims that he is slow, not retarded! Wood's dichotomy
of Perry's impaired cognition does present some challenges
for Michael, especially as the unsuspecting protagonist
recounts—but does not grasp—the devious conversations among
his money-grubbing relatives. The thriller elements manage
to move along reasonably well, but the heart and soul of
both Wood's storytelling and Michael's performance remains
the exchanges between Perry and his close-knit surrogate
family, including the beloved grandmother who raised him
and the earthy band of characters with whom he shares the
docks of Puget Sound. As Perry regularly interjects That is
so cool! to his reflections on both the large and small
joys of daily life, Michael gives the proceedings a
refreshing breeze of Zen rather than garden-variety
sentimentality."
July: "Dreams
From My Father" by Barack Obama
From Publishers Weekly
"Elected the first black president of the Harvard Law
Review, Obama was offered a book contract, but the
intellectual journey he planned to recount became instead
this poignant, probing memoir of an unusual life. Born in
1961 to a white American woman and a black Kenyan student,
Obama was reared in Hawaii by his mother and her parents,
his father having left for further study and a return home
to Africa. So Obama's not-unhappy youth is nevertheless a
lonely voyage to racial identity, tensions in school,
struggling with black literature?with one month-long visit
when he was 10 from his commanding father. After college,
Obama became a community organizer in Chicago. He slowly
found place and purpose among folks of similar hue but
different memory, winning enough small victories to commit
himself to the work?he's now a civil rights lawyer there.
Before going to law school, he finally visited Kenya; with
his father dead, he still confronted obligation and loss,
and found wellsprings of love and attachment. Obama leaves
some lingering questions?his mother is virtually absent?but
still has written a resonant book."
June: No
Meeting
May: "The
Last Secret of the Temple" by Paul
Sussman
From Publishers Weekly
"A bestseller overseas, Sussman's follow-up to The Lost
Army of the Cambyses opens at Jerusalem's Holy Temple in
the year 70, jumps to doomed WWII German prison camp
inmates dragging a Nazi-purloined holy relic down an
abandoned coal shaft and then fast-forwards to present-day
Egypt. There, Det. Insp. Yusef Ezz el-Din Khalifa of the
Luxor police investigates the murder of an old man whose
body has been found at an archeological site in the Valley
of the Kings. Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, Palestinian
journalist Layla al-Madani and Israeli police detective
Arieh Ben-Roi have their own sad histories and complicated
lives to deal with. Eventually, Sussman twines all the
threads into one, and the three principals are hard on the
trail of the mysterious artifact hidden by the prisoners.
There are familiar Da Vinci Code elements, but Sussman, an
archeologist, puts in plenty of satisfying twists and
turns, and grounds the story in the violence and intrigue
of the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
April:
"Losing Julia" by Jonathan Hull
From Publishers Weekly
"In a nursing home in California, WWI vet Patrick Delaney
is fighting new battles: against old age (he's 81), stomach
cancer and the knowledge of his encroaching death. This
earnest, elegant first novel takes the form of Patrick's
diary, in which he details the humbling infirmities of an
aging body and looks back at the defining moments of his
life--the war itself, when he lost his best friend, Daniel,
and the brief but intense love affair he had 10 years later
with Daniel's grieving lover, Julia. The diary layers these
two stories with scenes from the nursing home in short
alternating sections. Like the dots in a pointillist
painting, they merge into the larger work, a story of love
and death. "Our lives--all our lives--are a struggle
between love and loss," Julia tells Patrick in Paris, where
their affair unfolds over one week in 1928. Hull is
ultimately better at depicting war than--Patrick's memories
of Julia are tinged with romantic cliche: her eyes are like
"precious stone" and her smile suggests a "combination of
strength and vulnerability." But his descriptions of the
war are frightening and physical, with dirt dislodged by
artillery shells filling Patrick's mouth and flares
illuminating severed body parts in the trenches. Hull's
research is assiduous; he seamlessly incorporates period
detail, referencing the toiletries the enlistees received
in their trench kits and how the weather affected the roads
at the Battle of Verdun. Equally honest and effective are
the unsparing descriptions of the loneliness, physical
decrepitude and indignities of old age. Patrick is a
winning narrator, charming and honest and direct, and the
reader will root for him right through the book's Hollywood
ending, where he makes one last stand against death, his
final enemy. Major ad/promo; author tour."
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
March:
"Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and
Poorer" by Shannon Brownlee
From Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. Contrary to Americans' common belief that
in health care more is more—that more spending, drugs and
technology means better care—this lucid report posits that
less is actually better. Medical journalist Brownlee
acknowledges that state-of-the-art medicine can improve
care and save lives. But technology and drugs are misused
and overused, she argues, citing a 2003 study of one
million Medicare recipients, published in the Annals of
Internal Medicine, which showed that patients in hospitals
that spent the most were 2% to 6% more likely to die than
patients in hospitals that spent the least. Additionally,
she says, billions per year are spent on unnecessary tests
and drugs and on specialists who are rewarded more for some
procedures than for more appropriate ones. The solution,
Brownlee writes, already exists: the Veterans Health
Administration outperforms the rest of the American health
care system on multiple measures of quality. The main
obstacle to replicating this model nationwide, according to
the author, is a powerful cartel of organizations, from
hospitals to drug companies, that stand to lose in such a
system. Many of Brownlee's points have been much covered,
but her incisiveness and proposed solution can add to the
health care debate heated up by the release of Michael
Moore's Sicko."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
February:
"The Street of a Thousand Blossoms" by Gail
Tsukiyama
From Publishers Weekly
"In her ambitious sixth novel (Dreaming Water; The
Samurai's Garden), Tsukiyama tackles life in Japan before,
during and after WWII. The story follows brothers Hiroshi
and Kenji Matsumoto through the devastation of war and the
hardships of postwar reconstruction. Orphaned when their
parents were killed in a boating accident, the boys are
raised by their grandparents in Tokyo. In 1939, Hiroshi is
11 and dreams of becoming a sumo champion, and soon Kenji
will discover his own passion, to become a master maker of
Noh masks. Their grandparents, Yoshio and Fumiko Wada, are
vividly rendered; the war years and early postwar years,
centered in their home on the street of the novel's title,
are powerfully portrayed. Hiroshi and Kenji reach pinnacles
of success in their chosen fields as well as in love, and
while Tsukiyama's close attention to historical and
geographical detail enriches the narrative, she isn't as
successful when describing Hiroshi's wrestling career; the
matches all begin to blur together. The lingering effects
of war, on the other hand, are clear, and these, combined
with a nation's search for pride and hope after surrender
comprise the novel's oversized heart."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
January: "The
Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival" by Stanley
Alpert
From Publishers Weekly
"In this tartly written memoir recalling his 1998
kidnapping, Alpert, a former assistant U.S. attorney for
the Eastern District of New York, describes his abduction
and release, and the subsequent trial of the kidnappers,
with an impressive amount of detail and only the occasional
note of self-congratulation for how he handled the ordeal.
On the night before his 38th birthday, Alpert was forced at
gunpoint into a car near his Greenwich Village apartment,
blindfolded, made to relinquish his ATM and PIN, and driven
to Brooklyn, where he was kept in an apartment full of
oddly personable, gun-wielding youths and teenage
prostitutes. In between violent threats, the criminals
solicited legal advice concerning past crimes and offered
him pot and sexual favors in honor of his birthday. After
25 hours, they handed their hostage $20 cab money and left
him in Prospect Park. Though the second part of the
account, detailing the mechanics of the arrests and
sentencing of the perpetrators, along with Alpert's return
to normalcy, is relatively dry and slow, Alpert delivers an
honest, vivid chronicle of the suspenseful event itself in
the memoir's first half."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
2007
December:
"The Stupidest Angel" by Christopher
Moore
From Publishers Weekly
"Hilarity abounds in Moore's latest satirical gem. Sleepy
Pine Cove, Calif., is abuzz with Christmas spirit, but Lena
Marquez is fed up with her despicable ex-husband, Dale
Pearson. On his way home from playing Santa Claus at the
local lodge, Dale spies sneaky Lena uprooting his Monterey
pines; he pulls a gun on her, she lashes out with a shovel
and—oops!—kills him. Seven-year-old Josh Barker, thinking
he's just seen the murder of Santa, prays for a miracle to
save Christmas. To Lena's rescue comes Tucker Case, a
slimy, reformed Casanova and DEA pilot, who gives her an
alibi and sweeps her off her feet. The
marijuana-cultivating town constable, Theo Crowe, suspects
foul play, but Tucker intervenes with a blackmail scheme to
keep the crime buried. Meanwhile, there's a new arrival in
town: the glowingly blond Archangel Raziel (last seen in
Lamb) has come "dirtside" on a "miracle mission" involving
Josh's wish and reviving the town's dearly departed. Pine
Cove's biggest challenge surfaces as comically reanimated
zombies begin to rise and feast on the living, and a huge
El Niño–induced storm swirls. This little slice of perverse
Christmas cheer is enough to make even the most cynical
Scrooge guffaw."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
November:
"Good Things" by Mia King (local author)
From Publishers Weekly
"A domestic diva goes from princess to pauper in King's
mushy debut. Deidre McIntosh, the 40-year-old host of
Seattle television show Live Simple, has had a successful
five-year run, but, as with all cookies, hers too must
crumble. The show gets canceled, her gay best friend and
roommate moves in with his boyfriend, and her investments
tank, forcing her to sell her designer clothes and land a
cheaper place to live. By chance, she meets the dapper and
wealthy Kevin, who, after an exceedingly serendipitous
second encounter, offers her the use of his vacation home
in remote Jacob's Point. It takes her a little while to
warm up to the backwoods, but Deidre finds a friend and
retail outlet for her gourmet baked goods in Lindsey
Miller, the owner of the local diner. After a few months at
Jacob's Point, Deidre, armed with a proposal for a new TV
show, returns to Seattle, but getting back on the air isn't
as simple as she'd hoped. There's never a doubt that Deidre
will find her professional and romantic happy ending, and
readers' patience may be stretched while the earnest
heroine orchestrates her comeback. But the plucky
protagonist and sweeter-than-syrup ending will please those
willing to wait for the inevitable."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
October:
"Case Histories" by Kate Atkinson
From Publishers Weekly
"In this ambitious fourth novel from Whitbread winner
Atkinson (Behind the Scenes at the Museum), private
detective Jackson Brodie—ex-cop, ex-husband and weekend
dad—takes on three cases involving past crimes that
occurred in and around London. The first case introduces
two middle-aged sisters who, after the death of their vile,
distant father, look again into the disappearance of their
beloved sister Olivia, last seen at three years old, while
they were camping under the stars during an oppressive heat
wave. A retired lawyer who lives only on the fumes of
possible justice next enlists Jackson's aid in solving the
brutal killing of his grown daughter 10 years earlier. In
the third dog-eared case file, the sibling of an infamous
ax-bludgeoner seeks a reunion with her niece, who as a baby
was a witness to murder. Jackson's reluctant persistence
heats up these cold cases and by happenstance leads him to
reassess his own painful history. The humility of the
extraordinary, unabashed characters is skillfully revealed
with humor and surprise. Atkinson contrasts the inevitable
results of family dysfunction with random fate, gracefully
weaving the three stories into a denouement that taps into
collective wishful thinking and suggests that warmth and
safety may be found in the aftermath of blood and
abandonment. Atkinson's meaty, satisfying prose will
attract many eager readers."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
September:
"Grand Ambition" by Lisa Michaels
From Publishers Weekly
"A perilous 1928 expedition provides the historical
inspiration for this solid, low-key novel by Michaels, a
poet and memoirist. More than 70 years ago, spurred on by
Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic, newlyweds Glen and
Bessie Hyde went rafting down the Colorado River. If they
made it, Bessie would be the first woman to run the
dangerous rapids, but the expedition ended in disaster: the
Hydes disappeared before they reached Needles, Calif., the
endpoint of their journey. Michaels divides the story
between an account of the young couple's tragic adventure
and the tale of Glen's father, Reith, who mounted an
unsuccessful search party to find them. Glen Hyde is an
uncommon man thoroughly open-minded, but also ignorant of
normal fears and sometimes maddeningly literal. Bessie
Hyde, n‚e Haley, has had a more varied experience than her
husband, and her history is revealed in flashbacks. Married
before, she fled her first husband to go to art school in
San Francisco. When she meets Glen, she is impressed by his
"most unusual composure." Rafting through spectacularly
dangerous rapids, she begins to feel that Glen's composure
might well be simple recklessness, but she is seized by a
need to keep up with the husband she loves. The sepia-toned
tale runs straight and true along the course of the
Colorado, Michaels's well-integrated research and
descriptions of the rushing water and rocky cliffs giving
it a simple, convincing period tone. Though the rapids may
come to seem monotonous, the love story at the heart of
this honest historical adventure tale rings true.
(June)Forecast: The only connection between this book and
Michaels's well-received memoir, Split, about growing up a
child of the counterculture, is the author's clean,
well-crafted prose. Fans of the latter may be puzzled, and
chances are this quiet first novel won't attract the
attention of the earlier memoir."
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
August: "A
Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled
Hosseini
Amazon.com Review
"It's difficult to imagine a harder first act to follow
than The Kite Runner: a debut novel by an unknown writer
about a country many readers knew little about that has
gone on to have over four million copies in print
worldwide. But when preview copies of Khaled Hosseini's
second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, started circulating
at Amazon.com, readers reacted with a unanimous enthusiasm
that few of us could remember seeing before. As special as
The Kite Runner was, those readers said, A Thousand
Splendid Suns is more so, bringing Hosseini's compassionate
storytelling and his sense of personal and national tragedy
to a tale of two women that is weighted equally with
despair and grave hope."
July: "The
Glass Bead Game (Magister Ludi)" by Hermann
Hesse
Review
"Final novel by Hermann Hesse, published in two volumes in
1943 in German as Das Glasperlenspiel, and sometimes
translated as Magister Ludi. The book is an intricate
bildungsroman about humanity's eternal quest for
enlightenment and for synthesis of the intellectual and the
participatory life. Set in the 23rd century, the novel
purports to be a biography of Josef Knecht ("servant" in
German), who has been reared in Castalia, the remote place
his society has provided for the intellectual elite to grow
and flourish. Since childhood, Knecht has been consumed
with mastering the Glass Bead Game, which requires a
synthesis of aesthetics and scientific arts, such as
mathematics, music, logic, and philosophy. This he achieves
in adulthood, becoming a Magister Ludi (Master of the
Game)." -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature
June: "The
Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
Amazon.com Review
"Author Erik Larson imbues the incredible events
surrounding the 1893 Chicago World's Fair with such drama
that readers may find themselves checking the book's
categorization to be sure that The Devil in the White City
is not, in fact, a highly imaginative novel. Larson tells
the stories of two men: Daniel H. Burnham, the architect
responsible for the fair's construction, and H.H. Holmes, a
serial killer masquerading as a charming doctor. Burnham's
challenge was immense. In a short period of time, he was
forced to overcome the death of his partner and numerous
other obstacles to construct the famous "White City" around
which the fair was built. His efforts to complete the
project, and the fair's incredible success, are skillfully
related along with entertaining appearances by such
notables as Buffalo Bill Cody, Susan B. Anthony, and Thomas
Edison. The activities of the sinister Dr. Holmes, who is
believed to be responsible for scores of murders around the
time of the fair, are equally remarkable. He devised and
erected the World's Fair Hotel, complete with crematorium
and gas chamber, near the fairgrounds and used the event as
well as his own charismatic personality to lure victims.
Combining the stories of an architect and a killer in one
book, mostly in alternating chapters, seems like an odd
choice but it works. The magical appeal and horrifying dark
side of 19th-century Chicago are both revealed through
Larson's skillful writing." --John Moe
May:
"Yesterday's Rainbow" by John Tanaka
Product Description
Hawaii may have been an idyllic Bali Hai or Shangri-La at
one time in its ancient past. We cannot know. With no
written language, only the chanted legacy of elders told
the tale before the Europeans arrived with pen and paper.
Then, almost immediately, Hawaii became a land ravaged by
change. From "Lani E" the old gods sadly observe two lovers
in the chaos. One beholds her floundering kingdom from a
secret cave where aumakua animals talk to her. The other
goes on a heroic journey to an alien world - to learn and
bring back knowledge, to take responsibility, find
forgiveness and save whatever is left of his beloved land.
He is prepared to face down the wayward ali'i, the new
government and the entrenched missionary, but his
courageous efforts may be too late.
April:
"Fluke, Or I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings" by
Christopher Moore
Amazon.com
Review
"In his entertaining adventure-in-whale-researching, Fluke,
or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings, Nathan Quinn, a
prominent marine biologist, has been conducting studies in
Hawaii for years trying to unravel the secret of why
humpback whales sing. During a typical day of data
gathering, Nate believes his mind is failing: the subject
whale has "Bite Me" scrawled across its tail. Events become
even stranger as the self-proclaimed "action nerds," Nate,
photographer Clay, their research assistant Amy, and Kona,
a white Rasta (a Jewish kid from New Jersey), encounter
sabotage to their data and equipment. They also observe
increasingly bizarre whale behavior, including a phone call
from the whale to their wealthy sponsor to ask that Nate
bring it a hot pastrami and Swiss on rye, and discover both
a thriving underwater city and the secret to what happened
to Amelia Earhart."
March: "My
Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult
From Publishers Weekly
The difficult choices a family must make when a child is
diagnosed with a serious disease are explored with pathos
and understanding in this 11th novel by Picoult (Second
Glance, etc.). The author, who has taken on such
controversial subjects as euthanasia (Mercy), teen suicide
(The Pact) and sterilization laws (Second Glance), turns
her gaze on genetic planning, the prospect of creating
babies for health purposes and the ethical and moral
fallout that results. Kate Fitzgerald has a rare form of
leukemia. Her sister, Anna, was conceived to provide a
donor match for procedures that become increasingly
invasive. At 13, Anna hires a lawyer so that she can sue
her parents for the right to make her own decisions about
how her body is used when a kidney transplant is planned.
Meanwhile, Jesse, the neglected oldest child of the family,
is out setting fires, which his firefighter father, Brian,
inevitably puts out. Picoult uses multiple viewpoints to
reveal each character's intentions and observations, but
she doesn't manage her transitions as gracefully as usual;
a series of flashbacks are abrupt. Nor is Sara, the
children's mother, as well developed and three-dimensional
as previous Picoult protagonists. Her devotion to Kate is
understandable, but her complete lack of sympathy for
Anna's predicament until the trial does not ring true, nor
can we buy that Sara would dust off her law degree and
represent herself in such a complicated case. Nevertheless,
Picoult ably explores a complex subject with bravado and
clarity, and comes up with a heart-wrenching, unexpected
plot twist at the book's conclusion.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
February:
"Next" by Michael Crichton
From Publishers Weekly
"Bestseller Crichton (Jurassic Park) once again focuses on
genetic engineering in his cerebral new thriller, though
the science involved is a lot less far-fetched than
creating dinosaurs from DNA. In an ambitious effort to show
what's wrong with the U.S.'s current handling of gene
patents and with the laws governing human tissues, the
author interweaves many plot strands, one involving a
California researcher, Henry Kendall, who has mixed human
and chimp DNA while working at NIH. Kendall produces an
intelligent hybrid whom he rescues from the government and
tries to pass off as a fully human child. Some readers may
be disappointed by the relative lack of action, the lame
attempts to lighten the mood with humor (especially
centering on an unusually bright parrot named Gerard), and
the contrived convergence of the main characters toward the
end. Still, few can match Crichton in crafting page-turners
with intellectual substance, and his opinions this time are
less likely to create a firestorm than his controversial
take on global warming in 2004's State of Fear."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.