Books Read in 2011

1. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
2. A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain
3. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
4. Eyes at the Window by Evie Yoder Miller
5. John Adams by David G. McCullough
6. Sarah by Orson Scott Card
7. Left to Tell by Immaculée Ilibagiza
8. Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin
9. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
10. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
11. The Birth Order Book by Kevin Leman
    

December's Book

White Elephant Gift
(Book) Exchange
New or Used, Any Genre

Dec. 21st (3rd Wed.)
8pm at Joy's

The month of December has the potential for being crazy and hectic. Instead of meeting to discuss a specific book, we'll be meeting to chat, munch, & enjoy a white elephant (book) gift exchange. The book may be new or used and any genre. Perhaps we can discuss other books we've been reading outside of book club selections. Happy Reading!

November's Book

The Birth Order Book
by Kevin Leman

Nov. 16th (3rd Wed.)
8pm at Shelly's

Summary:
Firstborn? Only child? Middle child? Baby of the family?

Find out what it means to you, your relationships, and your career.

Do you realize that of the first twenty-three astronauts in space, twenty-one were firstborns and the other two were the only child in their family?

Are you aware that many successful entrepreneurs are middle children?

Is it any surprise that most comedians are the youngest child in their family?

It's all about birth order.

Birth order powerfully influences who you are, whom you marry, the job you choose, and the kind of parent you are. And Dr. Kevin Leman's The Birth Order Book will help you understand yourself, get along better with others, overcome ingrained tendencies you never thought you could get rid of, and be more successful in the workplace. This revised and updated edition of Dr. Leman's classic book includes more than thirty years of experience and research, current examples, and fascinating stories to show how birth order impacts your life.

Thousands of people have unlocked the secrets of birth order already. Shouldn't you be one of them?

Dr. Kevin Leman is an internationally known psychologist, humorist, and New York Times bestselling author of more than 35 books, including Have a New Kid by Friday, Have a New Husband by Friday, and Born to Win. He is former consulting psychologist for Good Morning America and a frequent guest on Fox & Friends, The View, Today, The Early Show, and Focus on the Family. He and his wife, Sande, live in Tucson, Arizona. They have five children and two grandchildren.

summary from www.goodreads.com

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October's Book

Gulliver's Travels
by Jonathan Swift

Oct. 19th (3rd Wed.)
8pm at Emily's

Pick any edition of the book to read, several are available at the public library.

Summary:
Shipwrecked castaway Lemuel Gulliver's encounters with the petty, diminutive Lilliputians, the crude giants of Brobdingnag, the abstracted scientists of Laputa, the philosophical Houyhnhnms, and the brutish Yahoos give him new, bitter insights into human behavior. Swift's fantastic and subversive book remains supremely relevant in our own age of distortion, hypocrisy, and irony.

summary from www.goodreads.com

Click on the picture to go to the library web site

September's Book

The Help
by Kathryn Stockett

Sept 21st (3rd Wed.)
8pm at Judy's

There is quite the hold list at the library, however, there are a few copies of the book available to borrow from friends.

Summary:
Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.

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 to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women - mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends - view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.

summary from www.goodreads.com

Click on the picture to go to the library web site

August's Book

Lavinia
by Ursula K. Le Guin

Aug. 17th (3rd Wed.)
8pm at Erin's

Summary:
In The Aeneid, Vergil’s hero fights to claim the king’s daughter, Lavinia, with whom he is destined to found an empire. Lavinia herself never speaks a word. Now, Ursula K. Le Guin gives Lavinia a voice in a novel that takes us to the half-wild world of ancient Italy, when Rome was a muddy village near seven hills.

Lavinia grows up knowing nothing but peace and freedom, until suitors come. Her mother wants her to marry handsome, ambitious Turnus. But omens and prophecies spoken by the sacred springs say she must marry a foreigner—that she will be the cause of a bitter war—and that her husband will not live long. When a fleet of Trojan ships sails up the Tiber, Lavinia decides to take her destiny into her own hands. And so she tells us what Vergil did not: the story of her life, and of the love of her life.

Lavinia is a book of passion and war, generous and austerely beautiful, from a writer working at the height of her powers.

summary from www.goodreads.com

Click on the picture to go to the library web site

July's Book

Left to Tell:
Discovering God Amidst The Rwandan Holocaust
by Immaculée Ilibagiza
with Steve Erwin

July 20th (3rd Wed.)
8pm at Aimeè's

Summary:
Immaculee Ilibagiza grew up in a country she loved, surrounded by a family she cherished. But in 1994 her idyllic world was ripped apart as Rwanda descended into a bloody genocide. Immaculee’s family was brutally murdered during a killing spree that lasted three months and claimed the lives of nearly a million Rwandans.

Incredibly, Immaculee survived the slaughter. For 91 days, she and seven other women huddled silently together in the cramped bathroom of a local pastor while hundreds of machete-wielding killers hunted for them.

It was during those endless hours of unspeakable terror that Immaculee discovered the power of prayer, eventually shedding her fear of death and forging a profound and lasting relationship with God. She emerged from her bathroom hideout having discovered the meaning of truly unconditional love—a love so strong she was able seek out and forgive her family’s killers.
The triumphant story of this remarkable young woman’s journey through the darkness of genocide will inspire anyone whose life has been touched by fear, suffering, and loss.

summary from www.goodreads.com

Click on the picture to go to the library web site

June's Book

Sarah
By Orson Scott Wells

June 15th (3rd Wed.)
8pm at Janei's

Summary:
A novel about the life of Sarah, daughter of a king, wife of a prophet, faithful follower of the God of Abraham, recipient of a miracle, and a mother of nations.

summary from www.librarycatalog.pima.gov

Click on the picture to go to the library web site

May's Book

John Adams
by David G. McCullough

May 18th (3rd Wed)
8pm at Janeen's

Summary:
In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot who spared nothing in his zeal for the American Revolution; who rose to become the second president of the United States and saved the country from blundering into an unnecessary war; who was learned beyond all but a few and regarded by some as "out of his senses"; and whose marriage to the wise and valiant Abigail Adams is one of the moving love stories in American history.

This is history on a grand scale -- a book about politics and war and social issues, but also about human nature, love, religious faith, virtue, ambition, friendship, and betrayal, and the far-reaching consequences of noble ideas. Above all, John Adams is an enthralling, often surprising story of one of the most important and fascinating Americans who ever lived.

summary from www.librarycatalog.pima.gov

Click on the picture to go to the library web site

April's Book

Eyes at the Window
by Evie Yoder Miller

April 20, 2011 (3rd Wed.)
8pm at Trina's

Trina said:
"I have a book that I REALLY enjoyed...It was a long read, but very thought provoking. I think it would make for a good discussion. I don't think there are many copies at the library, but maybe we could schedule the book for a ways out, and rotate it around?"

The library has 9 copies and considering the book discussion isn't for a few more months, hopefully we'll all be able to read the book. Happy Reading!

Summary:
*Starred Review* Miller's Eyes at the Window is a sturdy saga reaching from 1810 until the Civil War, set mostly in an Amish pioneer community in Ohio. Miller uses eight points of view to show the rise and fall of patriachs, the devoutness of women, and the privations of all as gradually the wilderness is tamed. She's particularly skilled at conjuring the internal lives of people who might seem stoical but, upon deeper examination, prove as passionate as anyone. Their passion is united over the murder of a baby in its crib, an event that transforms them all. The identity of the murderer isn't known for 50 years, making the life of one Reuben Hershberger an agony, since he is shunned as the putative culprit. The story is based on a true incident, and Miller has done a fine job with her research, avoiding anachronisms entirely. John Mort
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

summary from www.amazon.com

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March's Book

The Joy Luck Club
by Amy Tan

March 16, 2011 (3rd Wed)
8pm at Kristi's

Please note the library only has 4 copies.

Summary:
The Joy Luck Club, published by G. P. Putnam's Sons in 1989, presents the stories of four Chinese-immigrant women and their American-born daughters. Each of the four Chinese women has her own view of the world based on her experiences in China and wants to share that vision with her daughter. The daughters try to understand and appreciate their mothers' pasts, adapt to the American way of life, and win their mothers' acceptance. The book's name comes from the club formed in China by one of the mothers, Suyuan Woo, in order to lift her friends' spirits and distract them from their problems during the Japanese invasion. Suyuan continued the club when she came to the United States—hoping to bring luck to her family and friends and finding joy in that hope.
summary found at http://www.enotes.com/joy-luck-club

Click on the picture to go to the library web site

February's Book

A Tramp Abroad
by Mark Twain

Feb. 16th (3rd Wed)
8pm at Emily's

Summary:
A humorous account of Mark Twain's later travels in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy mixes memory and invention, history and exaggeration.

Click on the picture to go to the library web site

January's Book

The Hunger Games
by Suzanne Collins

Jan. 19, 2011 (3rd Wed.)
8pm at Judy's

Judy said:
There is a wait at the library but most books were due before Christmas, so that should give us all time to read.

Summary:
In a future North America, where the rulers of Panem maintain control through an annual televised survival competition pitting young people from each of the twelve districts against one another, sixteen-year-old Katniss's skills are put to the test when she voluntarily takes her younger sister's place.

Click on the picture to go to the library web site