Books Read in 2015

1. From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
2. 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northrup
3. Peak by Roland Smith
4. Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick
5. Michael Vey The Prisoner of Cell 25 by Richard Paul Evans
6. Call the Nurse: True Stories of a Country Nurse on a Scottish Isle by Mary J McLeod
7. I Don't Have to Make Everything All Better by Gary and Joy Lundberg
8. The Broken Covenant by Caroll Hofeling Morris
9. Anthem by Ayn Rand
10. The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
11. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

December's Meeting

Book Club Christmas Party 

Dec 17th (3rd Thurs)
8pm at Erica S.'s 

Please bring a book, new or used for the book exchange and a treat to share.

November's Book

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
By Marie Kondo

Nov. 19th (3rd Thurs)
8pm at Lieschen's

Summary from NPR:
The guide to cleaning and organizing a living space discusses best methods for decluttering and the impact that an organized home can have on mood and physical and mental health.

Summary from PCPL:
This best-selling guide to decluttering your home from Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes readers step-by-step through her KonMari Method for simplifying, organizing, and storing.


Click here to visit the library website.

Click here to find the book on Amazon.

Click here to visit the NPR website and read an excerpt of the book.

September's book

Anthem
by Ayn Rand

Sept. 17th (3rd Thurs.)
8pm at Aimeè's

Summary:
In a chilling future world in which all individuality has been crushed, one man, Equality 7-2521, dares to defy the ideals of collectivism, make personal choices, to seek forbidden knowledge, and to love the woman of his choice.

summary from local library website

*This book comes from the sophomore English reading list, there are 2 copies of the book floating around the book club.

Click here to find it at the library.

Click here to find it on amazon.

Click here for discussion questions.

August's Book

The Broken Covenant
by Caroll Hofeling Morris

Aug. 20th (3rd Thurs.)
8pm at Janeen's 

Summary:
Publication Date: January 1, 1989 in The Broken Covenant, author Carroll Hofeling Morris tells a gripping story of sin and its aftermath, as one woman faces the possibility of estrangement from the church and the disintegration of her family until she learns to accept responsibility for her actions.

summary from amazon.com

Click here to find the book on amazon.

Click here to visit the author's website.

July's Book

I Don't Have to Make Everything All Better
by Gary & Joy Lundberg

July 16th (3rd Thurs)
8pm at Rebecca L.'s

Summary:
refreshing and powerful, this amazing book tells how to use the six principles of validation with your spouse, friends, family, and step-family; on the job, and in line at the store.  inspiring, entertaining, and timeless, this book is poised to become a classic guide to successful relationships and realistic peace of mind.

summary from Deseret Book

Click here to visit the authors' website

Click here to visit the library website

Click here to find it on amazon.com

June's Book

Call the Nurse: True Stories of a Country Nurse on a Scottish Isle
by Mary J. McLeod

June 18th (3rd Thurs)
8pm at Janice F.'s

Summary:
Tired of the pace and noise of life near London and longing for a better place to raise their young children, Mary J. MacLeod (known to all as Julia) and her husband encountered their dream while vacationing on a remote island in the Scottish Hebrides. Enthralled by its windswept beauty, they soon were the proud owners of a near-derelict croft house—a farmer’s stone cottage—on “a small acre” of land. Mary assumed duties as the island’s district nurse. Call the Nurse is her account of the first enchanted years she and her family spent there, coming to know its folk as both patients and friends.

Gaelic fortitude meets a nurse’s compassion in these wonderful true stories from rural Scotland. The remarkable debut of an author now in her eighties, Call the Nurse is a treasure of sweet nostalgia.

Summary from amazon.com

Click here to visit the library website

May's Book

Michael Vey 
The Prisoner of Cell 25
by Richard Paul Evans

May 14th (2nd Thurs)
8pm at Judy P.'s 

Summary:

To everyone at Meridian High School, fourteen-year-old Michael Vey is nothing special, just the kid who has Tourette's syndrome. But in truth, Michael is extremely special--he has electric powers. Michael thinks he is unique until he discovers that a cheerleader named Taylor has the same mysterious powers. With the help of Michael's friend, Ostin, the three of them set out to discover how Michael and Taylor ended up with their abilities, and their investigation soon brings them to the attention of a powerful group who wants to control the electric teens--and through them, the world.

Summary from the libary website

Click here to visit the book website and see the book trailer 

Click here to visit the library website 

April's Book

Nothing to Envy:  Ordinary Lives in North Korea
by Barbara Demick

April 16th (3rd Thurs)
8pm at Amanda C.'s

Summary:

In NOTHING TO ENVY, Demick follows the lives of six people: a couple of teenaged lovers courting in secret, an idealistic woman doctor,  a homeless boy, a model factory worker who loves Kim Il Sung more than her own family and her rebellious daughter.

Demick spent six years painstakakingly reconstructing life in a city off-limits to outsiders through interviews with defectors, smuggled photographs and videos. The book spans the chaotic years that saw the death of Kim Il-sung, the unchallenged rise to power of his son Kim Jong-il, the devastating effects of a famine that killed an estimated twenty percent of the population, and an increase in illegal defections.

While many books focus on the North Korean nuclear threat, NOTHING TO ENVY is one of the few that dwells on what everyday life is like for ordinary citizens.  With remarkable detail, Demick brings to life what it means to be living under the most repressive totalitarian regime in the world today.  She gives a portrait as vivid as walking oneself through the darkened streets of North Korea.

Reviewers have compared the book  to John Hersey’s Hiroshima and to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.  NOTHING TO ENVY is a groundbreaking addition to the literature of totalitarianism. Both the New Yorker and Paris Review have published excerpts of  the book.

Summary from nothingtoenvy.com

Click here for discussion questions from www.litlovers.com

Click here to visit the library website 

March's Book

Peak
by Roland Smith

March 19th (3rd Thurs)
8pm at Andi M.'s

Summary:

After Peak Marcello is arrested for scaling a New York City skyscraper, he's left with two choices: wither away in Juvenile Detention or go live with his long-lost father, who runs a climbing company in Thailand. But Peak quickly learns that his father's renewed interest in him has strings attached. Big strings. He wants Peak to be the youngest person to reach the Everest summit — and his motives are selfish at best. Even so, for a climbing addict like Peak, tackling Everest is the challenge of a lifetime. But it's also one that could cost him his life.

Roland Smith has created an action-packed adventure about friendship, sacrifice, family, and the drive to take on Everest, despite the incredible risk. Peak is a novel that readers won't be able to put down.

Summary from www.scholastic.com

Click here for discussion questions from wikibloggroup.com

Click here to visit the library website

*Emily P. picked up a library caboodle kit.  Please pick up & return books to her.

February's Book

12 Years a Slave
by Solomon Northup

February 19th (3rd Thurs)
8pm at Emily's

Summary:
Perhaps the best written of all the slave narratives, Twelve Years a Slave is a harrowing memoir about one of the darkest periods in American history. It recounts how Solomon Northup, born a free man in New York, was lured to Washington, D.C., in 1841 with the promise of fast money, then drugged and beaten and sold into slavery. He spent the next twelve years of his life in captivity on a Louisiana cotton plantation.
 
After his rescue, Northup published this exceptionally vivid and detailed account of slave life. It became an immediate bestseller and today is recognized for its unusual insight and eloquence as one of the very few portraits of American slavery produced by someone as educated as Solomon Northup, or by someone with the dual perspective of having been both a free man and a slave. (From the publisher.)

Summary from www.litlovers.com

Click here for discussion questions from www.litlovers.com

Click here to visit the library website

January's Book

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
by E.L. Konigsburg

January 15th (3rd Thurs)
8pm at Janice's

Summary:

Bored with her life, twelve-year-old Claudia Kincaid is ready for a big change. In fact, she wants to run away from home. But she doesn't like discomfort. She doesn't even like picnics. So an old-fashioned, knapsack kind of running away is out of the question. Instead of running from somewhere, she decides to run to somewhere — some place comfortable, and preferably beautiful. Where else, but the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City? Fare on the train from the suburbs takes three weeks of skipping hot fudge sundaes. Taking Jamie, the second youngest of her three brothers — the quiet one with the largest cache of money — with her, Claudia's life is immediately changed in a big way. Nights she and Jamie take baths in one of the museum's fountains and they sleep in royal beds in the museum's collection, despite the "Please do not step on the platform" sign. Every day they check out by 4:30 and reenter the museum around the back at 5:30. To remain inconspicuous, Claudia and Jamie join school-group tours by day, and when the museum closes, stand on the toilets in the bathroom stalls out of view from the guards checking for strays.

But she and Jamie's vacation from their "real" life turns into an adventure when Angel, a sculpture rumored to have been carved by Michelangelo, arrives. Will they solve a mystery that even the experts can't solve?

Author Konigsburg's tale of a young girl's escape into a search for identity — her own and Angel's — in one of the world's greatest museums was awarded a 1967 Newbery Medal, as well as named an American Library Association Notable Book, and "Best of the Best" by the School Library Journal. Illustrated by Konigsburg's own expressionistic line drawings, the book remains a modern classic.

Summary from www.scholastic.com

Discussion questions from www.scholastic.com

Click here to here to visit the library website