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2024
Reading Group Selections
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Tuesday,
January 2, 2024 Virtual Discussion
The
Bandit Queens
by Parini Shroff
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Instructions
Five
years ago, Geeta lost her no-good husband. As in, she actually
lost himhe walked out on her and she has no idea where
he is. But in her remote village in India, rumor has it that
Geeta killed him. And its a rumor that just wont
die.
It turns
out that being known as a self-made widow comes
with some perks. No one messes with her, harasses her, or
tries to control (ahem, marry) her. Its even been good
for business; no one dares to not buy her jewelry.
Freedom
must look good on Geeta, because now other women are asking
for herexpertise, making her an unwitting consultant
for husband disposal.
And not
all of them are asking nicely.
With Geetas
dangerous reputation becoming a double-edged sword, she has
to find a way to protect the life shes builtbut
even the best-laid plans of would-be widows tend to go awry.
What happens next sets in motion a chain of events that will
change everything, not just for Geeta, but for all the women
in their village.
Filled
with clever criminals, second chances, and wry and witty women,
Parini Shroffs The Bandit Queens is a razor-sharp debut
of humor and heart that readers wont soon forget.
SOURCE:
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Tuesday,
February 6, 2024 Virtual Discussion
The
Book of Form and Emptiness
by Ruth Ozeki
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Instructions
One
year after the death of his beloved musician father, thirteen-year-old
Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things
in his housea sneaker, a broken Christmas ornament,
a piece of wilted lettuce. Although Benny doesn't understand
what these things are saying, he can sense their emotional
tone; some are pleasant, a gentle hum or coo, but others are
snide, angry and full of pain. When his mother, Annabelle,
develops a hoarding problem, the voices grow more clamorous.
At first,
Benny tries to ignore them, but soon the voices follow him
outside the house, onto the street and at school, driving
him at last to seek refuge in the silence of a large public
library, where objects are well-behaved and know to speak
in whispers. There, Benny discovers a strange new world. He
falls in love with a mesmerizing street artist with a smug
pet ferret, who uses the library as her performance space.
He meets a homeless philosopher-poet, who encourages him to
ask important questions and find his own voice amongst the
many.
And he
meets his very own Booka talking thingwho narrates
Bennys life and teaches him to listen to the things
that truly matter.
With its
blend of sympathetic characters, riveting plot, and vibrant
engagement with everything from jazz, to climate change, to
our attachment to material possessions, The Book of Form and
Emptiness is classic Ruth Ozekibold, wise, poignant,
playful, humane and heartbreaking.
SOURCE:
Copyright ©2021 Ruth Ozeki. © Amazon.com. All rights
reserved.
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Tuesday,
March 5, 2024 Virtual Discussion
Kindred
by Octavia Butler
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Instructions
The
first science-fiction written by a Black woman, Kindred has
become a cornerstone of African-American literature. This
combination of slave memoir, fantasy, and historical fiction
is a novel of rich literary complexity.
Having
just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana,
an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched
through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning
White boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel
of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in
time to save her life.
During
numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man,
she realizes the challenge she's been given: to protect this
young slaveholder until he can father her own great-grandmother.
Author
Octavia E. Butler skilfully juxtaposes the serious issues
of slavery, human rights, and racial prejudice with an exciting
science-fiction, romance, and historical adventure. Kim Staunton's
narrative talent magically transforms the listener's earphones
into an audio time machine.
SOURCE:
Copyright ©2000 Octavia Butler © Amazon.com. All
rights reserved.
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Tuesday,
April 2, 2024 Virtual Discussion
Better
Luck Next Time
by Julia Claiborne Johnson
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Instructions
Its
1938 and women seeking a quick, no-questions split from their
husbands head to the divorce capital of the world,
Reno, Nevada. Theres one catch: they have to wait six-weeks
to become residents. Many of these wealthy, soon-to-be
divorcees flock to the Flying Leap, a dude ranch that caters
to their every need.
Twenty-four-year-old
Ward spent one year at Yale before his family lost everything
in the Great Depression; now hes earning an honest living
as a ranch hand at the Flying Leap. Admired for his dashing
good looksCary Grant in cowboy bootsWard
thinks hes got the Flying Leaps clients all figured
out. But two new guests are about to upend everything he thinks
he knows: Nina, a St Louis heiress and amateur pilot back
for her third divorce, and Emily, whose bravest moment in
life was leaving her cheating husband back in San Francisco
and driving herself to Reno.
A novel
about divorce, marriage, and everything that comes in between
(money, class, ambition, and opportunity), Better Luck Next
Time is a hilarious yet poignant examination of the ways friendship
can save us, love can destroy us, and the family we create
can be stronger than the family we come from.
SOURCE:
Copyright © Amazon.com. All rights reserved
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Tuesday,
May 7, 2024 Virtual Discussion
Mrs.
Dalloway
by Virginia Woolf
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Instructions
"Mrs.
Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself." It's
one of the most famous opening lines in literature, that of
Virginia Woolf's beloved masterpiece of time, memory, and
the city. In the wake of World War I and the 1918 flu pandemic,
Clarissa Dalloway, elegant and vivacious, is preparing for
a party and remembering those she once loved. In another part
of London, Septimus Smith is suffering from shell-shock and
on the brink of madness. Their days interweave and their lives
converge as the party reaches its glittering climax. In a
novel in which she perfects the interior monologue and recapitulates
the life cycle in the hours of the day, from first light to
the dark of night, Woolf achieves an uncanny simulacrum of
consciousness, bringing past, present, and future together,
and recording, impression by impression, minute by minute,
the feel of life itself.
This edition
is collated from all known proofs, manuscripts, and impressions
to reflect the author's intentions, and includes a catalog
of emendations, an illuminating introduction and endnotes
by the distinguished feminist critic Elaine Showalter, and
a map of Mrs. Dalloway's London.
For more
than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher
of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With
more than 2,000 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global
bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across
genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide
authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by
distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as
up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
SOURCE:
Copyright © Penguin. All rights reserved
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Tuesday,
June 4, 2024 Virtual Discussion
How
Can I Help You
by Laura Sims
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Instructions
A
BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
The New York Times Book Review Publishers Weekly
CrimeReads Book Riot
A LibraryReads
Pick
The lives
of two librarians become dangerously intertwined in this razor-sharp
exploration of human nature and the lure of artistic obsession.
No one
knows Margos real name. Her colleagues and patrons at
a small-town public library know only her middle-aged normalcy,
congeniality, and charm. They have no reason to suspect that
she is, in fact, a former nurse with a trail of premature
deaths in her wake. She has turned a new page, so to speak,
and the library is her sanctuary, a place to quell old urges.
That is,
at least, until Patricia, a recent graduate and failed novelist,
joins the library staff. Patricia quickly notices Margos
subtly sinister edge, and watches her carefully. When a tragic
incident in the library bathroom gives her a hint of Margos
mysterious past, Patricia cant resist digging deepereven
as her new fixation becomes all-consuming and sends both women
hurtling toward disaster.
Chilling,
incisive, and darkly humorous, How Can I Help You is a propulsive
work of psychological suspense that asks how far we might
go to justify our most monstrous desires.
SOURCE:
Copyright © Amazon.com. All rights reserved
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Tuesday,
July 2, 2024 Virtual Discussion
Horse
by Geraldine Brooks
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Instructions
Kentucky,
1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge
a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting
victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil
war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings
of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous
night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far
from the glamor of any racetrack.
New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated
for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed
with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious
provenance.
Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia,
and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves
unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the
horseone studying the stallions bones for clues
to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost
history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to
his racing success.
Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking
thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science,
love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.
SOURCE:
Copyright © Amazon.com. All rights reserved
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Tuesday,
August 6, 2024 Virtual Discussion
Still
Life
by Sarah Winman
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Instructions
A
captivating, bighearted, richly tapestried story of people
brought together by love, war, art, flood, and the ghost of
E. M. Forster, by the celebrated author of Tin Man.
Tuscany,
1944: As Allied troops advance and bombs sink villages, a
young English soldier, Ulysses Temper, finds himself in the
wine cellar of a deserted villa. There, he has a chance encounter
with Evelyn Skinner, a middle-aged art historian intent on
salvaging paintings from the ruins. In each other, Ulysses
and Evelyn find a kindred spirit amidst the rubble of war-torn
Italy, and paint a course of events that will shape Ulyssess
life for the next four decades.
Returning
home to London, Ulysses reimmerses himself in his crew at
The Stoat and Parota motley mix of pub crawlers and
eccentricsall the while carrying with him his Italian
evocations. So, when an unexpected inheritance brings him
back to where it all began, Ulysses knows better than to tempt
fate: he must return to the Tuscan hills.
With beautiful
prose, extraordinary tenderness, and bursts of humor and light,
Still Life is a sweeping portrait of unforgettable individuals
who come together to make a family, and a deeply drawn celebration
of beauty and love in all its forms.
SOURCE:
Copyright © Amazon.com. All rights reserved
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Tuesday,
September 3, 2024 Virtual Discussion
Lessons
in Chemistry
by Bonnie Garmus
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Instructions
Chemist
Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth
Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such
thing as an average woman. But its the early 1960s and
her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very
unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans;
the lonely, brilliant, Nobelprize nominated grudge-holder
who falls in love withof all thingsher mind. True
chemistry results.
But like
science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later
Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but
the reluctant star of Americas most beloved cooking
show Supper at Six. Elizabeths unusual approach to cooking
(combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of
sodium chloride) proves revolutionary. But as her following
grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth
Zott isnt just teaching women to cook. Shes daring
them to change the status quo.
Laugh-out-loud
funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast
of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original
and vibrant as its protagonist.
SOURCE:
Copyright © Amazon.com. All rights reserved
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Tuesday,
October 1, 2024 Virtual Discussion
The
Swan House
by Elizabeth Musser
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Instructions
Mary
Swan Middleton has always taken for granted the advantages
of her family's wealth. But a tragedy that touches all of
Atlanta sends her reeling in grief. When the family maid challenges
her to reach out to the less fortunate as a way to ease her
own pain, Mary Swan meets Carl--and everything changes. For
although Carl is her opposite in nearly every way, he has
something her privileged life could not give her. And when
she seeks his help to uncover a mystery, she learns far more
than she ever could have imagined.
SOURCE:
Copyright © Amazon.com. All rights reserved
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Tuesday,
November 5, 2024 Virtual Discussion
Little
Fires Everywhere
by Celeste Ng
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Instructions
From
the bestselling author of Everything I Never Told You and
Our Missing Hearts comes a riveting novel that traces the
intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family
and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives.
In Shaker
Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything
is plannedfrom the layout of the winding roads, to the
colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents
will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than
Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the
rules.
Enter
Mia Warrenan enigmatic artist and single motherwho
arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter
Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and
Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children
are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with
her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that
threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.
When old
family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American
baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the
townand puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious
of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the
secrets in Mias past. But her obsession will come at
unexpected and devastating costs.
Little
Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature
of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhoodand
the danger of believing that following the rules can avert
disaster.
SOURCE:
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Tuesday,
December 3, 2024 Virtual Discussion
Night
by Elie Wiesel
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Instructions
Night
is Elie Wiesel's masterpiece, a candid, horrific, and deeply
poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager
in the Nazi death camps. This new translation by Marion Wiesel,
Elie's wife and frequent translator, presents this seminal
memoir in the language and spirit truest to the author's original
intent. And in a substantive new preface, Elie reflects on
the enduring importance of Night and his lifelong, passionate
dedication to ensuring that the world never forgets man's
capacity for inhumanity to man.
Night
offers much more than a litany of the daily terrors, everyday
perversions, and rampant sadism at Auschwitz and Buchenwald;
it also eloquently addresses many of the philosophical as
well as personal questions implicit in any serious consideration
of what the Holocaust was, what it meant, and what its legacy
is and will be.
SOURCE:
Copyright © Amazon.com. All rights reserved
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