Hello,
As we prepare to find titles for 2014, the OC Public Library system has Book Club kits, comprised of several copies of the title that were donated by other clubs after their discussion. Take a quick look and if they are of interest, let us know in the January 13 meeting (Jan. 20 is a holiday). This list will also be posted on the BookBite Blog.
Book Club Kits
**Kits 1-20 are stored at Ladera Ranch and can be requested through the adult services librarian**
Book Club 1--Deer hunting with Jesus: dispatches from America's class wars by Joe Bageant (305.50973 Bageant J) “A raucous, truth-telling look at the white working poor-and why they hate liberalism.”
Book Club 2--Carter beats the devil: a novel by Glen David Gold (Fic Gold G) 12 copies “Carter Beats the Devil is a complex and illuminating story of one man's journey through a magical and sometimes dangerous world, where illusion is everything.”
Book Club 3--A border passage: from Cairo to America - a woman's journey by Leila Ahmed (92 Ahmed L) “Leila Ahmed movingly recounts her Egyptian childhood [in the 1940s & 50s] growing up in a rich tradition of Islamic women and describes how she eventually came to terms with her identity as a feminist living in America.
Book Club 4--To kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee (Fic Lee H)
Book Club 5--Little bee : a novel by Chris Cleave (Fic Cleave C)--stored at WM “All you should know going in to Little Bee is that what happens on the beach is brutal, and that it braids the fates of a 16-year-old Nigerian orphan and a well-off British couple--journalists trying to repair their strained marriage with a free holiday--who should have stayed behind their resort's walls.”
Book Club 6--To kill a mockingbird (a second kit) by Harper Lee (Fic Lee H)
Book Club 7--Life studies : stories by Susan Vreeland (Fic Vreeland S) “In a collection of short stories, Vreeland explores the transcendent power of art through the eyes of ordinary people”
Book Club 8--At the drop of a veil : the true story of an American woman's years in a Saudi Arabian harem by Marianne Alireza (915.35 Alireza M) “Californian Alireza arrived in Arabia in 1945 with her husband Ali. Shew grew to love her expanded family and the harem.”
Book Club 9--Happens every day: an all-too true story by Isabel Gillies (92 Gillies I) “Isabel Gillies had a wonderful life—a handsome, intelligent, loving husband; two glorious toddlers; a beautiful house. Suddenly, the life Isabel had made crumbled. Her husband announced that he was leaving her and their two young sons.”
Book Club 10--In other rooms, other wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin (Fic Mueenuddin D) “Passing from the mannered drawing rooms of Pakistan’s cities to the harsh mud villages beyond, Daniyal Mueenuddin’s linked stories describe the interwoven lives of an aging feudal landowner, his servants and managers, and his extended family, industrialists who have lost touch with the land.”
Book Club 11--There is no me without you : one woman's odyssey to rescue Africa's children by Melissa Fay Greene (362.732 Greene M) “Two-time National Book Award nominee Melissa Fay Greene puts a human face on the African AIDS crisis. After losing her husband and daughter, Haregewoin Teferra, an Ethiopian woman of modest means, opened her home to some of the thousands of children in Addis Ababa who have been left as orphans.”
Book Club 12--Burro genius : a memoir by Victor Villasenor (92 Villasenor V)
Book Club 13--Outliers: the story of success by Malcolm Gladwell “Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?”
Book Club 14--Secret son by Laila Lalami (Fic Lalami L) “Raised by his mother in a one-room house in the slums of Casablanca, Youssef El Mekki has always had big dreams of living another life in another world. Suddenly his dreams are within reach when he discovers that his father—whom he’d been led to believe was dead—is very much alive.”
Book Club 15--The big necessity : the unmentionable world of human waste and why it matters by Rose George(363.72 George R)
Book Club 16--Eat, pray, love : one woman's search for everything across Italy, India, and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert (910.4 Gilbert E)
Book Club 17--Songs for the butcher's daughter: a novel by Peter Manseau (Fic Manseau P) “In this acclaimed fiction debut, "a rich, often ironic homage to Yiddish culture and language" (Publishers Weekly), Peter Manseau weaves 100 years of Jewish history, the sad fate of an ancient language, and a love story shaped by destiny into a truly great American novel.”
Book Club 18—The quickening: a novel by Michelle Hoover (Fic Hoover M) “Enidina and Mary live on neighboring farms in the flat, hard country of the upper Midwest during the early 1900s. Despite having little in common, Eddie and Mary need one another for survival and companionship. But as the Great Depression threatens, the delicate balance of their reliance on one another tips, pitting neighbor against neighbor, exposing the dark secrets they hide from one another, and triggering a series of disquieting events that threaten to unravel not only their friendship but their families as well”
Book Club 19—The tiger’s wife: a novel by Tea Obreht (Fic Obreht T) “Natalia Stefanovi, a doctor living in an unnamed country that's a ringer for Obreht's native Croatia, crosses the border in search of answers about the death of her beloved grandfather, who raised her on tales from the village he grew up in, and where, following German bombardment in 1941, a tiger escaped from the zoo in a nearby city and befriended a mysterious deaf-mute woman.”
Book Club 20—The secret river by Kate Grenville (Fic Grenville K) “Deported to New South Wales, this is a tale of William and Sal’s deep love for their small, exotic corner of the new world, and William’s gradual realization that if he wants to make a home for his family, he must forcibly take the land from the people who came before him.”
**Kits 21-30 are stored at La Habra and can be requested through the branch manager**
Book Club 21—Emily, alone by Stewart O’Nan (Fic O’Nan S) “A sequel to the bestselling, much-beloved Wish You Were Here, O'Nan's intimate novel follows Emily Maxwell, a widow whose grown children have long departed. When her sister-in-law and sole companion, Arlene, faints at their favorite breakfast buffet, Emily's life changes in unexpected ways.”
Book Club 22—The mistress’s daughter by A.M. Homes (362.734092 Homes A) “Given up for adoption at birth, this is the ruthlessly honest account of what happened when, thirty years later, her birth parents came looking for her.”
Book Club 23— My stroke of insight: a brain scientist’s personal journey by Jill Bolte Taylor (362.19681 Taylor J) 10 copies “The astonishing New York Times bestseller that chronicles how a brain scientist's own stroke led to enlightenment”
Book Club 24—Assassination vacation by Sarah Vowell (973.099 Vowell S) 14 copies “Vowell takes us on a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage.”
Book Club 25—The death of Vishnu by Manil Suri (Fic Suri M) “Vishnu, the odd-job man, lies dying on the staircase of an apartment building while around him unfold the lives of its inhabitants: warring housewives, lovesick teenagers, a grieving widower. In a fevered state, Vishnu looks back on his love affair with the seductive Padmini and wonders if he might actually be the god Vishnu, guardian of the entire universe.”
Book Club 26—The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey (Fic Suri M) 14 copies “Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone—but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees. This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods. In this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.”
Book Club 30—The Grass Is Singing by Doris Lessing (FIC LESSING D) 14 copies “Lessing’s first book is set in Southern Rhodesia under white rule. It is a riveting chronicle of human disintegration, a beautifully understated social critique, and a brilliant depiction of the quiet horror of one woman's struggle against a ruthless fate.”
Updated 26 November 2013
Thank you,
Nancy Pe’a
Librarian
OC Public Libraries | Tustin Branch
