BOOK TALKS:
The Book Discussion Groups meets the 4th Thursday of the Month @ 7PM in the Community Room of Fletcher Memorial Library.
All are Welcome ~ Please Join Us!
All are Welcome ~ Please Join Us!
POSTPONED ~ date to be determined: The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
Synopsis
It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .
Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.
This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.
It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .
Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.
This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.
March 25th, 2010: Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
Synopsis
Through every family run memories which bind it together, despite everything. The Tulls of Baltimore were no exception. Now as Pearl lies dying, stifly encased in her pride and solitude, the past is unlocked and with it its secrets.
Through every family run memories which bind it together, despite everything. The Tulls of Baltimore were no exception. Now as Pearl lies dying, stifly encased in her pride and solitude, the past is unlocked and with it its secrets.
April 22nd, 2010: Zabelle by Nancy Kricorian
Synopsis
As Zabelle's family assembles for her funeral in present-day Massachusetts, it becomes clear that her children hardly knew her. But as this alternatively comic and heartbreaking novel unfolds—beginning with Zabelle's survival of the 1915 Armenian Genocide in Turkey and her subsequent emigration to America for an arranged marriage—an unforgettable character emerges.
As Zabelle's family assembles for her funeral in present-day Massachusetts, it becomes clear that her children hardly knew her. But as this alternatively comic and heartbreaking novel unfolds—beginning with Zabelle's survival of the 1915 Armenian Genocide in Turkey and her subsequent emigration to America for an arranged marriage—an unforgettable character emerges.
May 27th, 2010: The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Synopsis
Be prepared to meet three unforgettable women:
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.
Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.
Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town...
Be prepared to meet three unforgettable women:
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.
Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.
Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town...
June 24th, 2010: Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
Synopsis
Beginning in Paris on the eve of the Nazi occupation in 1940. Suite Française tells the remarkable story of men and women thrown together in circumstances beyond their control. As Parisians flee the city, human folly surfaces in every imaginable way: a wealthy mother searches for sweets in a town without food; a couple is terrified at the thought of losing their jobs, even as their world begins to fall apart. Moving on to a provincial village now occupied by German soldiers, the locals must learn to coexist with the enemy—in their town, their homes, even in their hearts.
When Irène Némirovsky began working on Suite Française, she was already a highly successful writer living in Paris. But she was also a Jew, and in 1942 she was arrested and deported to Auschwitz, where she died. For sixty-four years, this novel remained hidden and unknown.
Beginning in Paris on the eve of the Nazi occupation in 1940. Suite Française tells the remarkable story of men and women thrown together in circumstances beyond their control. As Parisians flee the city, human folly surfaces in every imaginable way: a wealthy mother searches for sweets in a town without food; a couple is terrified at the thought of losing their jobs, even as their world begins to fall apart. Moving on to a provincial village now occupied by German soldiers, the locals must learn to coexist with the enemy—in their town, their homes, even in their hearts.
When Irène Némirovsky began working on Suite Française, she was already a highly successful writer living in Paris. But she was also a Jew, and in 1942 she was arrested and deported to Auschwitz, where she died. For sixty-four years, this novel remained hidden and unknown.
July 22nd, 2010: Weight of Water by Anita Shreve
Synopsis
"I wonder this: If you take a woman and push her to the edge, how will she behave?" The question is posed by Jean, a photographer, who arrives on Smuttynose Island, off the coast of New Hampshire, to research a century-old crime. As she immerses herself in the details of the case—an outburst of passion that resulted in the deaths of two women—Jean herself enters precarious emotional territory. The suspicion that her husband is having an affair burgeons into jealousy and distrust, and ultimately propels Jean to the verge of actions she had not known herself capable of—actions with horrific consequences. Everywhere hailed for its beauty and power, The Weight of Water takes us on an unforgettable journey through the furthest extremes of emotion.
"I wonder this: If you take a woman and push her to the edge, how will she behave?" The question is posed by Jean, a photographer, who arrives on Smuttynose Island, off the coast of New Hampshire, to research a century-old crime. As she immerses herself in the details of the case—an outburst of passion that resulted in the deaths of two women—Jean herself enters precarious emotional territory. The suspicion that her husband is having an affair burgeons into jealousy and distrust, and ultimately propels Jean to the verge of actions she had not known herself capable of—actions with horrific consequences. Everywhere hailed for its beauty and power, The Weight of Water takes us on an unforgettable journey through the furthest extremes of emotion.
August 26th, 2010: People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
Synopsis
The "complex and moving"(The New Yorker) novel by Pulitzer Prize-winner Geraldine Brooks follows a rare manuscript through centuries of exile and war
Inspired by a true story, People of the Book is a novel of sweeping historical grandeur and intimate emotional intensity by an acclaimed and beloved author. Called "a tour de force"by the San Francisco Chronicle, this ambitious, electrifying work traces the harrowing journey of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, a beautifully illuminated Hebrew manuscript created in fifteenth-century S pain. When it falls to Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, to conserve this priceless work, the series of tiny artifacts she discovers in its ancient binding—an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair—only begin to unlock its deep mysteries and unexpectedly plunges Hanna into the intrigues of fine art forgers and ultra-nationalist fanatics.
The "complex and moving"(The New Yorker) novel by Pulitzer Prize-winner Geraldine Brooks follows a rare manuscript through centuries of exile and war
Inspired by a true story, People of the Book is a novel of sweeping historical grandeur and intimate emotional intensity by an acclaimed and beloved author. Called "a tour de force"by the San Francisco Chronicle, this ambitious, electrifying work traces the harrowing journey of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, a beautifully illuminated Hebrew manuscript created in fifteenth-century S pain. When it falls to Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, to conserve this priceless work, the series of tiny artifacts she discovers in its ancient binding—an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair—only begin to unlock its deep mysteries and unexpectedly plunges Hanna into the intrigues of fine art forgers and ultra-nationalist fanatics.
September 23rd, 2010: Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Synopsis
The wildly popular gothic novel- now in a stunning new package
"A secret's worth depends on the people from whom it must be kept," begins Carlos Ruiz Zafón's astounding novel of postwar Barcelona. But more than four years after its initial paperback publication, the secret is out-the novel remains a favorite of booksellers and readers alike.
The wildly popular gothic novel- now in a stunning new package
"A secret's worth depends on the people from whom it must be kept," begins Carlos Ruiz Zafón's astounding novel of postwar Barcelona. But more than four years after its initial paperback publication, the secret is out-the novel remains a favorite of booksellers and readers alike.
October 28th, 2010: Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel G. Marquez
Synopsis
Set in an unnamed Caribbean seaport, Garcia Marquez's extraordinary Love in the Time of Cholera (1988) relates one of literature's most remarkable stories of unrequited love. "This shining and heartbreaking novel," Thomas Pynchon wrote in The New York Times Book Review, is one of those few rare works "that can even return our worn souls to us."
Mary Wesley on Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera:
"This is the funniest, most moving book I have read and re-read. Each reading discovers fresh delights, a true classic. Garcia Marquez is the greatest South American writer who doesn't hesitate to write of the spiritual and mundane in the same paragraph."
Set in an unnamed Caribbean seaport, Garcia Marquez's extraordinary Love in the Time of Cholera (1988) relates one of literature's most remarkable stories of unrequited love. "This shining and heartbreaking novel," Thomas Pynchon wrote in The New York Times Book Review, is one of those few rare works "that can even return our worn souls to us."
Mary Wesley on Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera:
"This is the funniest, most moving book I have read and re-read. Each reading discovers fresh delights, a true classic. Garcia Marquez is the greatest South American writer who doesn't hesitate to write of the spiritual and mundane in the same paragraph."
BOOK TALK - n - Movie
All book discussions and Movies are @ 12PM
Bring a sandwich, beverage and dessert provided.
March 9th, 2010: Time Travelers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
SynopsisA dazzling novel in the most untraditional fashion, this is the remarkable story of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who travels involuntarily through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare's passionate love affair endures across a sea of time and captures the two lovers in an impossibly romantic trap, and it is Audrey Niffenegger's cinematic storytelling that makes the novel's unconventional chronology so vibrantly triumphant.
An enchanting debut and a spellbinding tale of fate and belief in the bonds of love, The Time Traveler's Wife is destined to captivate readers for years to come.
March 23rd, 2010: Movie as above
An enchanting debut and a spellbinding tale of fate and belief in the bonds of love, The Time Traveler's Wife is destined to captivate readers for years to come.
March 23rd, 2010: Movie as above