Evening Book Discussion

~~Evening Book Discussions

Emma S. Clark Memorial Library~~

The Evening Book Discussion meets from 7:30-9 p.m., the 4 th Wednesday in the Meeting Room, *except for November and December, when it meets the 3 rd Wed. in the Board Room. Copies of the books are provided for cardholders. They are available at the preceding discussion or at the Reference Desk, unless noted. Members of the group lead the discussions.

Books are presented by members of the group. Background materials
are available for each book at the Reference Desk.

~~2011-2012~~

Wed. October 5 The Lost City of Z by David Grann

After stumbling upon a hidden trove of diaries, acclaimed New Yorker writer David Grann set out to solve "the greatest exploration mystery of the twentieth century": what happened to the British explorer Percy Fawcett and his quest for the Lost City of Z? In 1925, Fawcett ventured into the Amazon to find an ancient civilization, hoping to make one of the most important discoveries in history, but he and his expedition vanished. For decades, scientists and adventurers have searched for evidence of Fawcett’s party and the lost City of Z.

Wed. October 26 The Virginian by Owen Wister

Not until 1902 did the cowboy become a fully realized article of American culture when Owen Wister, a native of Philadelphia, published the novel that established the conventions of the western. Suddenly there was the natural aristocrat, the Virginian, who faced down the archetypal villain. There was the eastern schoolteacher, Molly, far from being a wilted flower. They moved in the raw, bracing atmosphere that generations of readers and moviegoers would come to expect from westerns. To read The Virginian, again or for the first time, is to enter a cultural phenomenon.

Wed. November 16 Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout in the Board Room

Isabel Goodrow had settled in the mill town of Shirley Falls when her daughter Amy was an infant, reluctantly admitting to those who asked that both her husband and her parents were dead. Amy has grown up knowing little about her father and, thanks to her closeness to Isabel, also knowing little about the rough give-and-take of life. Now, Amy's innocence is under assault from various quarters, and her mother finds herself losing touch with the daughter who has been the focus of her existence. Kirkus Reviews

Wed. December 21 Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin in the Board Room

This gloriously written tale set in modern-day Rwanda introduces one of the most singular and engaging characters in recent fiction: Angel Tungaraza mother, cake baker, keeper of secrets a woman living on the edge of chaos, finding ways to transform lives, weave magic, and create hope amid the madness swirling all around her. In Kigali, Angel runs a bustling business: baking cakes for all occasions-- cakes filled with vibrant color, buttery richness, and, most of all, a sense of hope only Angel can deliver.

Wed. Jan. 25 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Henrietta Lacks was buried in an unmarked grave sixty years ago. Yet her cells - taken without her knowledge - became one of the most important tools in medical research. Known to science as HeLa, the first "immortal" human cells grown in culture are still alive today, and have been bought and sold by the millions. Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey from the "colored" ward of Johns Hopkins hospital in the 1950s to East Baltimore today, where Henrietta's family struggles with her legacy. Barnes & Noble

Wed. February 22 Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson

A novel of goings-on in a thin, gimcrack England that is, alas, only too recognizable…The real pleasure of this book derives not from its village conventions but from its beautiful little love story, which is told with skill and humor…Major Pettigrew's Last Stand is refreshing in its optimism and its faith in the transformative possibilities of courtesy and kindness. Although pitched toward those wanting a gentle read, it also slides a powerful moral message into the interstices of village politics. And as for happy endings, it deserves all available prizes. Alexander McCall Smith, The New York Times

Wed. March 28 Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother’s death and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Moving from Addis Ababa to New York City and back again, an unforgettable story of love and betrayal, medicine and ordinary miracles about two brothers whose fates are forever intertwined.

Wed. April 25 The Help by Kathryn Stockett **pick up at Circulation Desk

Southern whites' guilt for not expressing gratitude to the black maids who raised them threatens to become a familiar refrain. But don't tell Kathryn Stockett because her first novel is a nuanced variation on the theme that strikes every note with authenticity. In a page-turner that brings new resonance to the moral issues involved, she spins a story of social awakening as seen from both sides of the American racial divide. The Washington Post - Sybil Steinberg

Wed. May 23 Little Bee by Chris Cleave **pick up at Circulation Desk

Two strangers, a British woman and a Nigerian girl, meet on a lonely African beach and become inextricably bound through the horror imprinted on their encounter. Rather than focusing on postcolonial guilt or African angst, Cleave uses his emotionally charged narrative to challenge his readers' conceptions of civility, of ethical choice. Caroline Elkins, The New York Times

Wed. June 27 Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

Fifth-grade scholarship students and best friends Henry and Keiko are the only Asians in their Seattle elementary school in 1942. Henry is Chinese, Keiko is Japanese, and Pearl Harbor has made all Asians-even those who are American born-targets for abuse. Because Henry's nationalistic father has a deep-seated hatred for Japan, Henry keeps his friendship with and eventual love for Keiko a secret. When Keiko's family is sent to an internment camp in Idaho, Henry vows to wait for her. Forty years later, Henry comes upon an old hotel where the belongings of dozens of displaced Japanese families have turned up in the basement, and his love for Keiko is reborn. Joanna M. Burkhardt - Library Journal

~~2010-2011~~

Wednesday Sept. 22 Zelda by Nancy Milford

Zelda Sayre began as a Southern beauty, became an international wonder, and died by fire in a madhouse. With her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, she moved in a golden aura of excitement, romance, and promise. The epitome of the Jazz Age, together they rode the crest of the era: to its collapse and their own. From years of exhaustive research, Nancy Milford brings alive the tormented, elusive personality of Zelda and clarifies as never before her relationship with Scott Fitzgerald. *Pick up Aug. 25 at Reference Desk

Wednesday October 27 Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann Pool Book

The famous 1974 tightrope walk between the World Trade Center towers is a central motif in this paean to the adopted city of Dublin-born McCann. Told by a succession of narrators representing diverse social strata, McCann's take on the grittier, 1970s city is deadly earnest. On the day that "the tightrope walker" (never named, but obviously modeled on Philippe Petit) strolls between the Twin Towers, other New Yorkers are performing quieter acts of courage.

*Wednesday Nov. 17 Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin Pool Book

Semiautobiographical novel by James Baldwin, published in 1953. Based on the author's experiences as a teenage preacher in a small revivalist church, the novel describes two days and a long night in the life of the Grimes family, particularly the 14-year-old John and his stepfather Gabriel. It is a classic of contemporary African-American literature. Baldwin's description of John's descent into the depths of his young soul was hailed as brilliant, as was his exploration of Gabriel's complex sorrows. **Meeting in the Board Room

Wednesday Dec. 15 Brooklyn by Colm Toibin Pool Book

Tóibín has revived the Brooklyn of an Irish-Catholic parish in the '50s, a setting appropriate to the narrow life of Eilis Lacey. Before Eilis ships out for a decent job in America, her village life in Ireland is sketched in detail. The shops, pub, the hoity-toity and plainspoken people of Enniscorthy have such appeal on the page, it does seem a shame to leave. But how will we share the girl's longing for home, if home is not a gabby presence in her émigré tale? ** Meeting in the Board Room

Wednesday January 26 A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick Pool Book

It's a frigid mid-October night in 1907 and Ralph Truitt, a wealthy industrialist living near the Canadian border, is meeting the train. It carries Catherine Land, his mail-order bride, who answered his newspaper ad for a "reliable wife." As happens in all small towns, Truitt's private business has become public. Waiting on the railroad platform, he's surrounded by curious neighbors, most of whom his mills or mines employ. With the arrival of the train, both Truitt and Catherine Land are in for a surprise.

Wednesday February 23 The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar Pool Book

Each morning, Bhima, a domestic servant in contemporary Bombay, leaves her own small shanty in the slums to tend to another woman's house. In Sera Dubash's home, Bhima scrubs the floors of a house in which she remains an outsider. She cleans furniture she is not permitted to sit on. She washes glasses from which she is not allowed to drink. Yet despite being separated from each other by blood and class, she and Sera find themselves bound by gender and shared life experiences.

Wednesday March 23 The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell Pool

In the middle of tending to the everyday business at her vintage clothing shop and sidestepping her married boyfriend's attempts at commitment, Iris Lockhart receives a stunning phone call: Her great-aunt Esme, whom she never knew existed, is being released from Cauldstone Hospital—where she has been locked away for over sixty years. Iris’s grandmother Kitty always claimed to be an only child. To her surprise, Iris is now responsible for Esme, having been appointed power of attorney by her Alzheimer’s-afflicted grandmother.

Wednesday April 27 The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion Pool Book

Didion's journalistic skills are displayed as never before in this story of a year in her life that began with her daughter in a medically induced coma and her husband unexpectedly dead due to a heart attack. This powerful and moving work is Didion's "attempt to make sense of the weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness . . . about marriage and children and memory . . . about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself." With vulnerability and passion, Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience of love and loss.

Wednesday May 25 The Zookeeper’s Wife: a war story by Diane Ackerman

Ackerman tells the remarkable WWII story of Jan Zabinski, the director of the Warsaw Zoo, and his wife, Antonina, who, with courage and coolheaded ingenuity, sheltered 300 Jews as well as Polish resisters in their villa and in animal cages and sheds. Using Antonina's diaries, other contemporary sources and her own research in Poland, Ackerman takes us into the Warsaw ghetto and the 1943 Jewish uprising and also describes the Poles' revolt against the Nazi occupiers in 1944. Interlibrary loan: pick up at Circulation Desk

Wednesday June 22 Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

At some point, we've all had an Olive Kitteridge in our lives. Some of us might even be Olive Kitteridge, though our vanity prevents us from seeing it. It's that kind of familiarity with the Olives of the world which makes Elizabeth Strout's work of fiction such a rich, absorbing reading experience. In Olive Kitteridge, we often bump into pieces of ourselves or people we've known. Just as she did in her previous two novels, Amy and Isabelle and Abide with Me, Strout distills universal human behavior down to the miniature scale of one particular town and its residents. Interlibrary loan: pick up at Circulation Desk

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