Join a Book Club!

Expand your reading horizons this year by joining one of our four

book discussion groups. Book discussion groups are a great way for book-lovers to enjoy reading and the pleasure of each other's company. They can be a useful discipline for encouraging you to read more, to read outside the genres you normally read, or simply as a way to make new friends and meet like-minded readers.

The current book discussion groups cover a wide range of topics and cross between fiction and non-fiction books. The groups are geared towards different lifestyles and therefore meet at various times and locations. Working individuals can attend our evening book discussion group newly named All Over the Page on the second Tuesday of every month at 7 p.m. alternating our meetings between Village Inn and Panera Bread.  Our newest group, Unshelved, meets on the second Wednesday of each month at 1:30 PM, and is taking book discussions to new horizons with their selected titles.  If you have free time during the day you can participate in the Bookies daytime group, which meets at 1:30 p.m. on the first Wednesday of the month.  Or, join the Literary Angles book discussion group; this group meets at 1:30 p.m. on the third Tuesday of the month and often has a film presentation following the discussion. 

Call 223-1309 ext. 502 to sign up for an Adult Book Discussion Group or ext. 220 for a Children's or Teen book discussion group.

What we're reading...
 

Unshelved

Meetings are held the second Wednesday of each month in the Friends of the Library Conference Room.

January 13, 1:30 PM--Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer

Jon Krakauer's chronicles of lives conducted at the outer limits shifts from extreme adventure to extreme religious beliefs, taking readers inside communities where Mormon Fundamentalists still practice polygamy. Defying civil authorities and the LDS establishment, the leaders of these theocracies are zealots who answer only to God.
At the core of the book are Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a commandment from God to kill a woman and her baby. Beginning with an account of this appalling murder, Krakauer constructs a multi-layered narrative of delusion, polygamy, violence, and unyielding faith. Along the way he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America's fastest growing religion, and questions the nature of religious beliefs. 

February 10, 1:30 PM-- Shanghai Girls by Lisa See 

In 1937, Shanghai is full of wealth and glamour, home to millionaires & beggars, patriots & revolutionaries, artists & warlords. Pearl and May Chin are having the time of their lives. Pearl is a Dragon sign, strong and stubborn; May is a true Sheep, adorable and placid. Both are beautiful, modern, and carefree ... until their father tells them he has gambled away their wealth, and to repay his debts he must sell the girls to suitors from Los Angeles who have come to find Chinese brides.

As Japanese bombs fall, Pearl and May set out, through villages in China, into the clutch of soldiers, and across the Pacific. In Los Angeles, they begin again, trying to love their husbands and striving to embrace American life, as they fight against discrimination and find themselves hemmed in by Chinatown’s rules.

March 10, 1:30 PM--The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard by Erin McGraw

Unfortunately for Nell Plat she is a whiz with a needle, but a failure in the kitchen. While she makes a name for herself sewing dresses in Grant Station, Kansas, her lack of kitchen prowess is crippling her marriage.  She leaves her husband and two daughters for Hollywood, where she becomes Madame Annelle, modiste to the fine ladies of Pasadena. She marries George Curran, and has a daughter, Mary. As she realizes her dream, cutting fabric alongside an established seamstress, her past arrives on her doorstep—her two grown daughters, flappers calling themselves Lisette and Aimée in an attempt at sophistication. Nell claims them as her sisters, but the lie only delays the unraveling of her California dream. Inspired by her grandmother's story, McGraw captures the lonely rigor of life on the plains and the invigorating lure of reinvention.

Literary Angles

Meetings are held the third Tuesday of each month in the Friends of the Library Conference Room. 

January 19, 1:30 PM--Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

Waverleys are endowed with gifts that make them outsiders in Bascom, North Carolina. Even their garden has a reputation--apple trees bear prophetic fruit, edible flowers have special powers. Waverleys tend their garden; their history is in the soil.  Claire, a caterer, cooks with her mystical plants—nasturtiums keep secrets and snapdragons discourage unwanted attention. Claire’s cousin, Evanelle, distributes gifts with uncanny uses. They are the last Waverleys—except for Sydney, who fled Bascom years ago.  When Sydney returns with her daughter, Claire’s life is turned upside down. In the house they grew up in, Sydney takes stock of all she left, as Claire struggles to heal past wounds. The sisters must deal with their legacy if they are to feel at home in Bascom—or with each other. 

February 16, 1:30 PM--The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

January 1946: London is emerging from World War II, and Juliet Ashton is looking for a new book subject. She finds it in a letter from Guernsey, a man who found her name inside a book….
As Juliet and her new friend exchange letters, she is drawn into the world of this man and his friends. The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society --- born as an alibi when its members broke the German-imposed curfew --- boasts a charming cast of characters, pig farmers and phrenologists, literature lovers all.  Juliet corresponds with the society’s members, learning about the island, their taste in books, and the impact the German occupation had on their lives. Captivated, she sets sail for Guernsey; what she finds will change her forever.

March 16, 1:30 PM--The Great Influenza by John Barry

At the height of WWI, history's most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with the troops, then exploded, killing an estimated 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in twenty-four months than AIDS killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision of science and epidemic disease. With broad perspective and depth of research the book reflects the danger of future flu strains. The Great Influenza is a tale of triumph amid tragedy, providing us with a precise and sobering model as we confront epidemics on our horizon.

All Over the Page

Meetings are held the second Tuesday of each month at 7:00 PM.  Meeting locations alternate between Panera Bread (3720 Broadway) and Village Inn (200 N. 36th St.).  

January 12, 7:00 PM at Panera Bread --As Nature Made Him by John Colapinto

In 1967, after a twin baby boy suffered a botched circumcision, his family agreed to a radical treatment that would alter his gender. The case would become one of the most famous in modern medicine -- and a total failure. As Nature Made Him tells the extraordinary story of David Reimer, who, when finally informed of his medical history, made the decision to live as a male. A macabre tale of medical arrogance, it is first and foremost a human drama of one man's -- and one family's -- amazing survival in the face of terrible odds.

February 9, 7:00 PM at Village Inn --Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie

Min Dobbs knows happily-ever-after is a fairy tale, especially with Cal Morrisey, who asked her to dinner on a bet. Cal knows commitment is impossible, especially with a woman as cranky as Min. When they say good-bye at the end of their evening, they cut their losses and agree never to see each other again.

But Fate has other plans, and it’s not long before Min and Cal are dealing with meddling friends, wedding cake, a jealous ex-boyfriend, Krispy Kremes, , chaos theory, a mutant cat, great shoes, and more risky propositions than either of them ever dreamed of including the biggest gamble of all–unconditional love. 

March 9, 7:00 PM at Panera Bread--The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti

Twelve year-old Ren is missing his left hand. How it was lost is a mystery.  Red is also trying to discover who his parents are and why he was abandoned at Saint Anthony’s Orphanage. He longs for a family and is terrified of the day he will be sent into the world alone.
Then Benjamin Nab appears, claiming to be Ren’s brother, and his tale of how Ren lost his hand and his parents persuades the monks release Ren. But is Benjamin really who he says he is? Journeying through New England, Ren is introduced to a hardscrabble world filled with scam artists, grave robbers, and petty thieves. If he stays, Ren becomes one of them. If he goes, he’s lost again. As Ren finds clues to his parentage he suspects Benjamin holds the key to his future and his past.

Bookies

Meetings are held on the first Wednesday of each month in the Library Meeting Room. 

January 6, 1:30 PM--Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

Maladies accurately diagnosed and misinterpreted, matters temporary and life changing, unexpected blessings and sudden calamities—these are among the themes of Jhumpa Lahiri's extraordinary debut story collection. Traveling from India to New England and back, Lahiri charts the emotional voyages of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations, cultures, religions, and generations. With sensual details of Indian and American cultures, they also speak to everyone who has felt like an outsider. Like the interpreter of the title story, Lahiri translates the ancient traditions of her ancestors and the baffling prospects of the New World. 

February 3, 1:30 PM--The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway

One day a shell lands in a bread line and kills twenty-two people as a cellist watches from his flat. He vows to sit where the mortar fell and play Albinoni’s Adagio once a day for each of the twenty-two victims. The Adagio had been re-created from a fragment after the score was firebombed in the Dresden Music Library, but the fact that it had been rebuilt by a different composer into something new gives the cellist hope.
Meanwhile, Kenan steels himself for his weekly walk through the streets to collect water for his family, and Dragan makes his way toward the free meal he knows is waiting. Both men are fearful, uncertain when the next shot will land. Then there is “Arrow,” the gifted female sniper, asked to protect the cellist from a hidden shooter as he plays his memorial to the victims. 

March 3, 1:30 PM--Hearts of Horses by Molly Gloss  

In the winter of 1917 many of the ranch hands in eastern Oregon have been called to war. When 19-year-old Martha Lessen shows up at George Bliss's doorstep looking for work breaking horses, George glimpses a shy young woman with a serious knowledge of horses beneath her showy rodeo costume.  Martha's unusual way of breaking horses wins her additional work among Bliss's neighbors.  Over the winter she helps a family whose wagon and horses have tipped into a ravine; she gentles a horse for a man who knows he is dying—a last gift to his young son; and she clashes with a hired hand who has been abusing horses. Martha comes to feel enveloped by a community and family she's never had before. And against her best intentions for a solitary life, she falls in love.