Current Books We Are Reading:
2011
October 27: "The Impressionist" by Hari Kunzru
Host & Discussion Leader: Alexandra Bernstein

Discussion Questions
Background Information

Product Description
Charting the bizarre and picaresque journey of a chameleon-like figure from India to England to Africa, Kunzru keenly explores themes of racial and ethnic identity and overweening British pride. Until 1918, his 15th year, spoiled Pran Nath believes that he is the son of a wealthy Kashmiri merchant and a disturbed woman, Amrita, who died giving birth to him. When the housekeeper reveals that he is actually an Englishman's child, and thus a despised half-breed, he's thrown out on the street. After an involuntary stay in a brothel, a stint as a servant in the depraved household of the Nawab of Fatehpur, and a sojourn at a Bombay missionary's home, he moves on to England, where he pretends to be an orphaned heir, Jonathan Bridgeman. With each identity he assumes, the hero strives to become more and more like a pure Englishman and to hide his "tainted blood." As Bridgeman, Pran goes through Brideshead-era Oxford and falls in love with a seductive heartbreaker, Astarte Chapel. When she dumps him, he despairingly joins an anthropological expedition to the Fotse tribe in Africa; in the plot's most clever twist, he comes full circle with his real father's life. While the initial chapters are somewhat heavy-handed, and the plot stalls in its overfamiliar satire of the Oxford aesthetes, the African chapters exude a Paul Bowles-like power, and the seamlessly composed, vividly exotic set pieces exhibit an energy and density not usually found in debut fiction. London talents like Kunzru and Zadie Smith suggest that something like the Latin American boom of the '60s is happening in England. Author tour; rights sold in France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Israel, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and U.K. (Apr.)Forecast: Kunzru's audacious version of the everyman antihero should establish his literary credentials, and his fast-moving plot should attract readers who like a good yarn. His experience as host of an English TV show should spin in the media, and Dutton's aggressive ad campaign will likely move the book toward the bestseller list. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

This book is available through the following:
Amazon.com:
$10.47 (Paperback, new)
From $1.32 (Used)
$9.98 (Hardback, new)
From $3.99 (used)
N/A (Kindle edition)
Also available as an audio cassette (unabridged)

Audible.com:
Not Available

Barnes & Noble:
$10.74 (Paperback, new)
From $1.99 (Used)
N/A (Hardback, new)
From N/A (Used)
N/A (Nook ebook)

HI Library System:
Available as a book (11 copies, 0 requests)
Also available in large print (1 copy, 0 requests)


November 17: "A Reliable Wife" by Robert Goolrick
**NOTE: This meeting will be held 1 week early due to the Thanksgiving Holiday**
Host & Discussion Leader: Patty Barufaldi

Discussion Questions
Background Information

Product Description
Set in 1907 Wisconsin, Goolrick's fiction debut (after a memoir, The End of the World as We Know It) gets off to a slow, stylized start, but eventually generates some real suspense. When Catherine Land, who's survived a traumatic early life by using her wits and sexuality as weapons, happens on a newspaper ad from a well-to-do businessman in need of a "reliable wife," she invents a plan to benefit from his riches and his need. Her new husband, Ralph Truitt, discovers she's deceived him the moment she arrives in his remote hometown. Driven by a complex mix of emotions and simple animal attraction, he marries her anyway. After the wedding, Catherine helps Ralph search for his estranged son and, despite growing misgivings, begins to poison him with small doses of arsenic. Ralph sickens but doesn't die, and their story unfolds in ways neither they nor the reader expect. This darkly nuanced psychological tale builds to a strong and satisfying close. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This book is available through the following:
Amazon.com:
$8.54 (Paperback, new)
From $1.49 (Used)
$16.29 (Hardback, new)
From $2.52 (used)
$6.19 (Kindle edition)
Also available as an audio CD (unabridged)

Audible.com:
$17.14 or 1 Credit (Member)
$24.49 (Non-member)
8 hrs & 58 min

Barnes & Noble:
$8.51 (Paperback, new)
From $1.99 (Used)
$16.36 (Hardback, new)
From $1.99 (Used)
$6.19 (Nook ebook)
Also available in Large Print ($12.50 new & from $4.98 used), as an MP3 download (unabridged) and as an Audio CD (unabridged)

HI Library System:
Available as a book (many copies, 2 requests)
Also available in large print (1 copy, 2 requests) and as an Audio CD (2 copies, 0 requests - unabridged)

December 15: No Book
Due to the Christmas holiday, we will not discuss a book but just get together to enjoy each others company and celebrate the season.
**NOTE: This meeting will be held 1 week early due to the Christmas Holiday**
Host & Discussion Leader: Host Needed