Book Club 2024
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Jan 16 | Ginny | The Red Lotus | Chris Bohjallian | an American man vanishes in Vietnam and his girlfriend, an ER doctor, follows a path that leads her home to where they met. |
Feb 20 | Kay | The Engineer's Wife | Tracey Enerson Wood | The true story of the Brooklyn Bridge and Emily Roebling who helped her injured husband complete the building of the bridge. |
Mar 19 | Nancy | West With Giraffes | Lynda Rutledge | Humorous story of two giraffes transported cross country during the Dust Bowl, depression, and WWII. |
Apr 16 | Penny | Code Name Eidelweiss | Stephanie Landsem | The true story of Jewish lawyer Leon Lewis who helped to foil Nazi plots in America in the 1930s. |
May 21 | Phylis | Miss Benson's Beetle | Rachel Joyce | Two post WWII spinsters set off to prove the existence of a golden beetle. |
June 18 | Marcia | The Woman In Cabin 10 | Ruth Ware | In this mystery thriller, Lo Blacklock, a neurotic travel writer, is assigned to a luxury five-star cruise to Norway. |
Jul 16 | Ginny | The Women | Kristin Hannah | In the 1960's, Frankie McGrath deals with the upheavals of the Vietnam War. |
Aug 22 (Change of date) | Kay | The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo | Taylor Jenkins Reid | A disposed Hollywood Legend offers a young producer, Monique, the opportunity to tell her story. |
Sept 17 (Lunch) | Nancy | The Measure | Nikki Erlick | The residents of a small town receive a box telling how long they will live. |
Oct 15 | Phylis | The Inmate | Freida McFadden | Brooke Sullivan is a nurse practitioner at a maximum security prison where her ex-boyfriend is incarcerated for life. |
Nov 19 | Marcia | Widow Of The South | Robert Hicks | Story of the Confederate woman whose house was commandeered as a field hospital following the Battle of Franklin, TN |
Dec 17 | Penny | Familiaris, The Story Of Edgar Sawtelle | David Wroblewski | The origin story of the Sawtelle family and the remarkable dogs that carry the Sawtelle name. |
Book Club 2023
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Jan 17 | Ginny | Caleb's Crossing | Geraldine Brooks | Set in colonial New England, mostly during the 1660s, it tells the story of English puritan, Bethia, and her friendship with Native American Caleb. |
Feb 21 | No Book Club | | | |
Mar 21 | Nancy | Lessons In Chemistry | Bonnie Gamus | A single mother Elizabeth Zott, is a brilliant chemist in a man's world in the1960s |
Apr 18 | Penny | The Midnight Library | Matt Haig | You are permitted to choose any book from the shelves and each book contains an alternative life. Each life is what would have resulted if you changed a single decision you regretted. |
May 16 | Phylis | The Bluegrass Conspiracy | Sally Denton | Kentucky history of the Cocaine Epidemic involving some of the top leaders of KY. |
June 20 | Marcia | David Copperfield | Charles Dickens | The novel traces the life of David Copperfield from the time of his birth to his mature manhood, when he is married and familiar with the vicissitudes of life. |
Jul 18 | Ginny | David Copperfiled, con't | | |
Aug 15 | Kay | The Other Einstein | Marie Benedict | The story of Albert Einstein's first wife who helped shape many of his theories but never received credit. |
Sept 11 | Nancy | Remarkably Bright Creatures | Shelby Van Pelt | Cleaning lady, Tova Sullivan, strikes up a friendship with octopus named Marcellus, and saves his life. |
Oct 17 | Phylis | Just A Regular Boy | Catherine Ryan Hyde
| An orphaned boy raised by a survivalist wends his way into the real world in a newly found family. |
Nov 21 | Penny | The Secret Life Of Sunflowers | Marta Molnar | A young prostitute seeks refuge, and is befriended by Van Gogh. |
Dec 19 | Marcia | These Precious Days | Ann Patchet | Ann Patchett’s excellent collection of essays, in which she recalls her own father, an L.A. cop who scorned her writing ambitions and encouraged her to be a dental hygienist. |
Book Club 2022
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Jan 11 | Ginny | Piece Of The World | Christina Baker Kline | Biographical fiction about Christina Olson, the subject in the painting titled "Christina's World" by American artist, Andrew Wyeth. Christina was afflicted with a degenerative muscular disorder and the story is based around that. |
Feb 8 | no book club | | | |
Mar 15 | Nancy | Bad Blood (note author) | John Carreyrue | This book covers 3 1/2 yrs of investigation into Theranos, its founder Elizabeth Holmes and her meteoric rise and spectacular fall in the obsessive pursuit of a dream. |
Apr 19 | Penny | Under The Gilded Moon | Joy Jordan-Lake | Historical fiction.
In the 1800,
young George Washington Vanderbilt II has built Biltmore House in the Appalachian Mountains. |
May 24 | Kay | River Of Doubt | Candice Millard | The true story of Theodore Roosevelt’s harrowing exploration of the Amazon after his failed presidential bid. |
Jun 21 | Phylis | The Stranger In The Lifeboat | Mitch Albom | A luxury yacht encounters a disaster for all but a small group of survivors, whose lives plummeted into thirst, hunger and death depending on their belief of a redeeming Lord. |
Jul 19 | Ginny | Invisible Child | Andrea Elliott | Excellent portrayal of the trials and tribulations of African\ American family with inner city poverty, homelessness,and drug addiction and a system that fails them. |
Aug 23 | Nancy | America For Beginners | Leah Franqui | Bengali widow embarks on a road trip of the U.S. with a Bangladeshi guide and a young American woman after the death of her son who was banished from the family. |
Sep 20 | Penny | The Bookseller's Secret | Michelle Gable | A dual-protagonist story of Katie Cabot, an American author visiting London, and Nancy Mitford, the oldest of the famous Mitford sisters. |
Oct 18 | Phylis | Horse - canceled | Geraldine Brooks | Story of a discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history |
Nov 15 | Marcia | Horse | Discussion | |
Dec 20 | Kay | A Trick of the Light | Louise Penny | During the Great depression, Elsa Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, homicide investigator, leads the investigation of murder involving art, marriage, friendship and more in Quebec. |
| | | | |
Book Club 2021 (If whole table does not display, click on "Next" at the bottom of this table.)
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Jan 12 | Cancelled | COVID | | |
Feb 9 | Cancelled | COVID | | |
Mar 9 | Cancelled | COVID | | |
Apr 14 | Kay | The Lighthouse Keepers Daughter | Hazel Gaynor | The story is divided between the historical Victorian heroine, Grace Darling, and a young pregnant girl of 100 years later. |
May 11 | Penny | The Dutch House | Ann Patchett | Maeve and Danny are abandoned by their mother when their father buys a mansion for their mother who abandons them. They are force to leave by their step mother, and spend their lives returning to look at the mansion that was once theirs. |
Jun 8 | Phylis | The Nickel Boys | Colson Whitehead | Elwood and Turner are in a reform school for boys, where they suffer cruel treatment and racial discrimination.
|
Jul 13 | Cancelled | cancelled | | |
Aug 10 | Ginny | The Vanishing Half | Brit Bennett | Twin girls grow up in the segregated South, and rebel by choosing different life styles, one with a black husband, and one with a white husband. |
Sep 21 | Nancy | Sons of Blackbird Mountain | Joanne Bischof | Two handsome brothers. An age-old Appalachian feud. And a love that may tear the Norgaard family apart. |
Oct 12 | Penny | The Paris Library | Janet Skeslien Charles | Women in Paris keep the American Library in Paris open during WW II. |
Nov 9 | Kay | The Book of Lost Friends | Lisa Wingate | Story of three young women searching for family post–Civil War, and a modern-day teacher who learns of their story. |
Dec 14 | Phylis | Sullivan's Island | Dorothea Benton Frank | Susan Hayes navigated through her turbulent childhood with humor, spunk, and Southern sass. But years later, she is a conflicted woman with an unfaithful husband, and a resentful teenage daughter. |
Book Club 2020 (If whole table does not display, click on "Next" at the bottom of this table.)
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Jan 14 | Kay | What The Wind Knows | Amy Harmon | On the death of her grandfather, a young author goes to Ireland to discover the story of her family's past during the Irish rebellion. |
Feb 11 | Pat | Dinner with Pat | | |
Mar, Apr, May, June, all canceled because of COVID-19 | | | | |
July 21 | Phylis | A Gentleman In Moscow | Amor Towles | Follows the story of Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov and his life in the Hotel Metropol where he has been under house arrest for thirty-two years. |
Aug 11 | Nancy | The Giver of Stars | JoJo Moyes | During the Great Depression, the WPA employed women who could ride horses as traveling KY librarians. |
Sept 8 | Clare | American Dirt | Jeanine Cummins | A Mexican bookseller escapes cartel-related violence with her son, fleeing to the US. |
Oct 13 | Ginny | A Far Piece To Canaan | Sam Halpern | Samuel Zelinsky, a former professor, reluctantly returns after his wife’s death to the Kentucky hills where he lived as a to make good on a forgotten promise. |
Nov 10 | Phyils | The Pull of the Stars | Emma Donoghue | In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new Flu are quarantined together |
Dec 8 | Cancelled | COVID | | |
Book Club 2019 (If whole table does not display, click on "Next" at the bottom of this table.)
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Jan 8, 2019 | Kay | Remarkable Creatures | Tracy Chevalier | Based on real characters, the story of two young women who discover ancient fossils in southern England. |
Feb 12, 2019 | Pat | no book club this month. | '------ | '------ |
Mar 12, 2019 | Penny | Next Year In Havana | Chanel Cleeton | Two women, decades apart, grow up in Cuba in the last half of the 20th century. |
Apr 9, 2019 | Clare | Where The Crawdads Sing | Delia Owens | Abandoned by her parents in very poor surroundings, nature-loving Kya eventually learns to interact with those around her. |
May 14, 2019 | Ginny | Pachinko | Min Jin Lee | Family saga about four generations of a Korean family that is set in Korea and Japan. |
June 11, 2019 | Kay | The Art Forger | B.A. Shapiro | Almost twenty-five years after the infamous art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, one of the stolen Degas paintings is delivered to the Boston studio of a young artist, Claire Roth. h |
July 9, 2019 | Phylis | party for Jerry O. | | |
Aug 13, 2019 | Nancy | The Baker's Secret | Stephen P. Kiernan | A baker's apprentice during the Nazi occupation keeps her townspeople alive. |
Sept 10, 2019 | Pat | Dinner with Pat | ----------- | ------------- |
Oct 8, 2019 | Penny | The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt | Andrea Bobotis | Two women review scandal and hard times that befell a family over 60 years. Historical fiction. |
Nov 12, 2019 | Clare | The Silent Patient | Alex Michaelides | Psychological thriller about an artist who shoots her husband and then refuses to speak. |
Dec 10, 2019 | Ginny | News of the World | Paulette Jiles | After the Civil War, two women make their way through perils both natural (swollen rivers) and human (Indians and male predators) on the lengthy trip from Wichita Falls to San Antonio. |
Book Club 2018 (If whole table does not display, click on "Next" at the bottom of this table.)
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Jan 9, 2018 | Pat | Hidden Figures | Margot Lee Shetterly | The story of the African-American women who helped build NASA |
Feb 13, 2018 | Ginny | The Truth According To Us | Annie Barrows | The secrets of a small Depression-era West Virginia town through the eyes of 12 year old Willa, and Layla, a who was assigned by Roosevelt's Writer Project. |
Mar 13, 2018 | Clare | Lilac Girls | Martha Hall Kelly | The book is written from the perspective of 3 individuals in WW II -- a woman in NYC trying to help the French children; a Polish woman and her family who were sent to one of the worst "re-education camps"; and from a female German doctor who worked at that re-education camp. |
Apr 10, 2018 | Kay | Sgt. Reckless: America's War Horse | Robin Hutton | Reckless, a Korean pony conscripted into the Marines to carry ammunition, is the only animal ever to be given official rank in the U.S. Armed Forces. |
May 8, 2018 | Penny | The Alice Network | Kate Quinn | Set in two times - 1915 and 1947, the story of two women whose paths intersect. |
Jun 12, 2018 | Nancy | The Handmaids Tale | Margaret Atwood | Futuristic novel about a post-nuclear-war world in which women are breeding stock. |
Jul 10, 2018 | Phylis | Rabbit A Memoir | Patricia Williams | Humorous telling of the author's escape from her background of poverty. |
Aug 14, 2018 | Pat | The President Is Missing | Bill Clinton & James Patterson | The President of the US goes into a secure place to fight an internet terrorist attack. |
Sep 11, 2018 | Ginny | The Last Suppers | Mandy Mikulencak | A woman's quest to provide meals for death row prisoners leads her into the secrets of her own past. |
Oct 9, 2018 | Clare | Crazy Rich Asians | Kevin Kwan | Man's extremely rich family is worried that he is going to propose to someone who is not from a “good” family. |
Nov 13, 2018 | Nancy | And Then There Were None | Agatha Christie | A murder mystery in which ten people are invited to an Island and are murdered one by one according to an old nursery rhyme. |
Dec 11, 2018 | Phylis | The French For Christmas | Fiona Valpy | Evie is heartbroken after a year grief and loss. The offer of her neighbor's holiday cottage in France help her find friendship, consolation and a new confidence in herself. |
Book Club 2017
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Jan 10, 2017 | Kay | The Good Earth | Pearl S. Buck | A Chinese man fulfills his desire for land. |
Feb 14, 2017 | NA | No Meeting | | |
Mar 14, 2017 | Nancy | The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay | Michael Chabon | Kavalier and his friend Sammy Clay are instrumental in the of creating comic books in 1939 in NY. |
Apr 11, 2017 | Penny | The Garden of Evening Mists | Tan Twan Eng | A privileged Japanese woman survives a prisoner of war camp in the 1980's and builds a memorial garden. |
May 9, 2017 | Phylis | An Invisible Thread | Laura Schroff | A successful NY winab executive helps a poor young man as he is growing up. |
Jun 13, 2017 | Pat | The Night Circus
Hidden Figures (for next time) | Eric Morgenstern
(for next time): Margot Lee Shetterly | Magic and fantasy as a circus appears and disappears over the years.
(for next time) Black women mathematicians help win the space race in the 1960's |
Jul 11, 2017 | Ginny | The Secret Wisdom of the Earth | Christopher Scotton | A troubled teenager's coming of age in an equally troubled town in Appalachia. |
Aug 8, 2017 | Clare | Pure Heart | Troy Ball | Raising 3 sons, two with special needs, the author makes the most of her southern town experience. |
Sep 12, 2017 | Phylis | Small Great Things | Jodi Picoult | The true story of a nurse who was prohibited from caring for a newborn by its bigoted father. |
Oct 10, 2017 | Kay | Hillbilly Elegy | J.D. Vance | The author goes from poverty in Appalachia and Ohio to Yale. |
Nov 14, 2017 | Nancy | The Light Between Oceans | M.L. Stedman | The Light Between Oceans tells the story about an Australian lighthouse keeper and his wife who have their world turned upside one day when a boat containing a body and a baby wash up on their island. |
Dec 12, 2017 | Penny | A Man Called Ove | Fredrik Backman | A cranky man's sour view of the world changes when he gets new neighbors. |
Book Club 2016
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Dec 13, 2016 | Clare | A Prayer for Owen Meany | John Irving | The memoir of a dwarf who believes he is the instrument of God. |
Nov8, 2016 | Trish | The Throwaway Children | Diney Costeloe | Sad story of two children who are taken from their abusive home and sent to Australia. |
Oct 11, 2016 | Phylis | Spilled Milk | K L Randis | Heroic story of Brooke, a young girl who survives domestic abuse to live to a happier life. |
Sep 13, 2016 | Pat | Everything I Never Told You | Celeste NG | A Chinese father and a Caucasian mother work their way through the death of their 16-year-old daughter. |
Aug 9, 2016 | Penny | The Summer Before The War | Helen Simonson | Beatrice Nash arrives in Rye, England to teach Latin before WWI, during the time of manners and class distinction. |
Jul 12, 2016 | Ginny | Saturday | Ian McEwan | Henry Perowne, a middle-aged doctor in London struggles with terrorist anxiety after seeing an explosion in the sky. |
Jun 14 2016 | Nancy | Uncle Tom's Cabin | Harriet Beecher Stowe | The anti-slavery novel published in 1852 that changed the view of slavery. |
May 10, 2016 | Phylis | Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter | Kate Clifford Larson | The biography of the Kennedy's daughter who suffered from mental disabilities. |
Apr 12, 2016 | Kay | The Rosie Project | Graeme Simsion | A socially inept professor sets out to logically choose a wife. |
Mar 8, 2016 | Trish | Of Marriageable Age | Sharon Maas | This story of three children goes back and forth in time between India, Guyana and England as it highlights love and marriage in different cultures. |
Feb 9, 2016 | Clare | Ordinary Grace | William Kent Krueger | A 13-year-old boy comes of age in Minnesota in 1961. |
Jan 12, 2016 | Pat | All The Light We Cannot See | Anthony Doerr | A blind girl and a German boy eventually cross paths during World War II. |
Book Club 2015
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Dec. 8, 2015 | Ginny | Circling The Sun | Paula McLain | The biography of Beryl Markham, the rebellious woman who became the first horse trainer and first woman pilot from Africa. |
Nov. 10, 2015 | Penny | The Nightingale | Kristen Hannah | Two sisters resist the Nazis, each in their own way, during the occupation of France. |
Oct. 13, 2015 | Nancy | Dead Wake. The Last Crossing of the Lusitania | Erik Larson | The factual telling of the ship Lusitania, which was sunk by German torpedoes prior to WW I. |
Sep. 8, 2015 | Phylis | Ghost Boy | Martin Pistorius | A boy who, through illness, became a quadriplegic at age 12 recovers and tells of the experience. |
Aug. 11, 2015 | Kay | Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness | Pete Earley | Description of a father's efforts to find help for his mentally ill son. |
July 14, 2015 | Clare | The Girl On The Train | Paula Hawkins | Mystery involving what a girl traveling on a train sees. |
Jun 9, 2015 | Trish | Hannah Coulter | Wendell Berry |
Hannah is a twice-married woman from Port William, KY and her live during and after World War II. |
May 12, 2015 | Phylis | Secrets of a Charmed Life | Susan Meissner | Historical fiction telling of a mother who must evacuate her children from London during the WW II Blitz. |
Apr. 14, 2015 | Ginny | A Tree Grows In Brooklyn | Betty Smith | A coming of age novel about Francie Nolan that chronicles her adventures during her teen years in Brooklyn, NY |
Mar. 10, 2015 | Penny | The Invention of Wings | Sue Monk Kidd | Based loosely on the real-life story of Sarah Grimke, a Charleston aristocrat, and her slave, Handful, as they both struggle with the bonds imposed on them in the early 1800's. |
Feb. 10, 2015 | Nancy | Nothing To Envy | Barbara Demick | The book follows 6 people in North Korea in the 1990's. |
Jan. 13, 2015 | Pat | What Alice Forgot | Liane Moriarty | Alice is close to 40 when she has a fall and, waking up, can't remember the last 10 years of her life. |
Book Club 2014
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Dec. 9, 2014 | Kay | The Inferno | Dan Brown | Set in Florence, Italy, Prof. Robert Langdon tries to battle past amnesia to challenge a bio-terrorism threat. |
Nov. 11, 2014 | Clare | The Boys In The Boat | Daniel Brown | The well-researched tale of the University of Washington rowing crew that captured a gold medal in the 1936 Olympics. |
Oct. 14, 2014 | Trish | The Husband's Secret | Liane Moriarty | The lives of three women are turned upside-down when the secret of one of their husbands is revealed |
Sep. 9, 2014 | Phylis | Enrique's Journey | Sonia Nazario | The unforgettable quest of a Honduran boy looking for his mother, 11 years after she is forced to leave her starving family to find work in the United States. |
Aug. 12, 2014 | Ginny | The Fault In Our Stars | John Green | Two teens battle cancer with humor and love. |
Jul, 8, 2014 | Penny | I Am Malala | Malala Yousafzai and Christina Lamb | A young Pakastani girl, shot in the face by the Taliban, fights to recover and also for the right for an education. |
Jun. 10, 2014 | Nancy | Animal Vegetable Miracle | Barbara Kingsolver | Kingsolver details her family's move to a farm in W. Va., and their decision to eat only the food that they raise or that is local. |
May 13, 2014 | Pat | Father Mother God | Lucia Greenhouse | This book tells the horrifying story of the illness and tragic death of the author's mother, her father's involvement, and her family's attempt to deal with it all as Christian Scientests. |
Apr. 8, 2014 | Kay | And The Mountains Echoed | Khaled Hosseini | The story focuses on siblings, Abdullah and Pari, as it moves from East to West and shifts geographies, telling the story from different points of view. |
Mar. 11, 2014 | Clare | Motherland | Maria Hummel | The tragedy and triumph of a young German family trying to survive the trials and tribulations of a devastated Germany at the end of World War ll. |
Feb. 11, 2014 | Cancelled | ------------ | ------------ | ------------ |
Jan. 14, 2014 | Trish | Lookaway Lookaway | Wilton Barnhardt | The Johnston family lives off the fumes of its great past. The money is gone, the husband, Duke, is obsessed with the Civil War and his wife, Jerene, is obsessed with making sure that the family name still shines. |
Book Club 2013
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Dec. 10, 2013 | Phylis | The Orphan Train | Christina Baker Kline | The intertwined lives of two orphans - an aged Vivian Daly and a young Molly Ayers, told in juxtaposed stories. |
Nov.12, 2013 | Ginny | Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant | Anne Tyle | The novel changes perspective and uses flashbacks to give a complete view of the Tull's family relations and their struggle to connect to each other. |
Oct. 8, 2013 | Penny | The Pecan Man | Cassie Dandridge | Ora Lee Beckworth is a perfectly flawed, ornery but proper southern lady who likes to meddle but means well. The story, set in the civil rights era, centers around her and the family of the woman who helps her with her house. |
Sep. 10, 2013 | Nancy | Gillespie and I | Jane Harris | Remembrances of an elderly woman of her friendship with a volatile artist and his family, and her place in the controversy that consumes them. |
Aug. 13, 2013 | Pat | The Kitchen House | Kathleen Grissom | Tale of the South during the days of slavery, told from two different perspectives: Belle, the mulatto daughter of a plantation owner, and Lavinia, a white girl from Ireland who is sent to work in the "kitchen house" with Belle and other "nigras." |
Jul. 09, 2013 | Kay | Flight Behavior | Barbara Kingsolver | Dellarobia, a bored, poor mother of two small children witnesses an unusual gathering of Monarch butterflies in Southern Appalachia. |
Jun. 11, 2013 | Clare | Language of Flower | Vanessa Diffenbaugh | The story of Victoria, - her journey to self acceptance and love after years of being raised in the foster care system. |
May 14, 2013 | Trish | Bent Creek | Marlene Mitchell | A first hand account on how one person struggles to find a way out of poverty in a coal-mining town in Kentucky. |
Apr. 09, 2013 | Phylis | State of Wonder | Ann Patchett | After an employee of a pharmaceutical company dies in the Amazon, a fellow researcher is sent to find out exactly what happened to him. The novel deals with interesting political and ethical issues related to drug development and reproduction. |
Mar. 12, 2013 | Ginny | Passing Bells | Phillip Rock | The story follows a English Earl's family and servants as World War I and the horrors of war descends and changes everyone's way of life. |
Feb. 12, 2013 | Penny | Atlas of Unknowns | Tania James | Set in Kerala, India -- and in Queens, New York -- the novel tells about a family torn apart by betrayal and separated both geographically and by life's choices. |
Jan. 08, 2013 | Nancy | On Hallowed Ground | Robert M. Poole | History of Arlington National Cemetery |
Book Club 2012
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Dec. 11, 2012 | Pat | Catherine The Great: Portrait of a Woman -
Part 5 to the End | -- | -- |
Nov. 13, 2012 | Kay | Catherine The Great: Portrait of a Woman -
Through Part 4 | Robert K. Massie | A historical account of the 18th century Russian empress who rose from German princess to one of Russia's greatest rulers. |
Oct. 9, 2012 | Clare | Mao's Last Dancer | Cunxin Li | A poor Chinese peasant is pulled from poverty to attend the Beijing Dance Academy. He defects to the U.S., and then returns with the US troop with his wife to China as the featured dancer. |
Sep. 11, 2012 | Phylis | The Letter | Marie Tillman | A letter left by a soldier on his way to combat in Afghanistan sustains his wife after his death. |
Aug. 14, 2012 | Trish | The Snow Child | Eowyn Ivey | Dealing with the unimaginable grief that comes with the loss of a newborn child, married couple Jack and Mabel have moved to the rugged wilderness of 1920's Alaska. |
Jul. 10, 2012 | Ginny | In The Garden of Beasts | Eric Larson | Historical account of William Dodd and his family's term as ambassador to Pre-Nazi Germany in 1933. |
Jun. 12, 2012 | Nancy | Loving Frank | Nancy Horan | The fictional recreation of architect Frank Lloyd Wright's love affair and marriage to his second wife, Mamah Borthwick Cheney, and its ultimate tragic ending. Note: field trip to Chicago in Sept! |
May 8, 2012 | Pat | This I Believe: On Motherhood | Dan Gediman, Mary Jo Gediman and John Gregory | A collection of 60 essays on mothers and motherhood. |
Apr. 10, 2012 | Kay | A Walk In The Woods | Bill Bryson | Two middle-aged and out of shape men (Bryson and his buddy, Katz) decide to hike the Appalachian Trail. |
Mar. 13, 2012 | Clare | Trail of Thread | Linda Hubalek | Story of a family traveling from Kentucky to Kansas as told by Deborah Pieratt in letter form to her mother, Betsy Goodpaster. |
Feb. 21, 2012 | Trish | Death In The City of Light | David King | True story of a serial killer who terrorized Nazi-controlled Paris in 1944. |
Jan. 10, 2012 | Phylis (at Kay's) | In The Land of Invisible Women | Qanta Ahmed | A Muslim British female doctor tells of the challenges of practicing medicine in Saudi Arabia. |
Book Club 2011
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Dec.13, 2011 | Ginny | Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy | Eric Metaxas | From his early childhood to his arrest and subsequent martyrdom for his involvement in the conspiracy against Hitler, Metaxas draws from the letters of Bonhoeffer as well as his family to write this biography. |
Nov. 8, 2011 | Nancy | The Paris Wife | Paula McLain | Set mainly in Paris during prohibition, this tells of Ernest Hemmingway and his first wife, Hadley, how they met, and how their relationship eventually deteriorated. |
Oct. 11, 2011 | Pat | When Crickets Cry | Charles Martin | What happens a broken hearted man and a small child who is clinging to a thread of life connect, through an act of God. |
Sep. 13, 2011 | Kay (at Phylis's) | Major Pettigrew's Last Stand | Helen Simonson | A reserved widowed British major falls in love with a Pakistani shop keeper. |
Aug. 9, 2011 | Clare | Half Broke Horses | Jeannette Walls | The story of the author's maternal grandmother, set in the Southwest US during the women's rights movement. |
Jul. 12, 2011 | Trish | Orange Is The New Black | Piper Kerman | A woman's account of her year in prison, where she found friendship with other prisoners, love from her family and encouragement from her friends near and far. |
Jun 14, 2011 | Ginny | A Pearl In The Storm | Tori Murden McClure | Tori Murden McClure attempts to become the first woman to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean. |
May 12, 2011 | Phylis | Unbroken | Laura Hillenbrand | The story of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic athlete who endured incredible hardships during World War II when he was shot down over the ocean and then held as a Japanese prisoner of was. |
Apr. 12, 2011 | Nancy | The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks | Rebecca Skloot | The story of a poor African-American woman who unknowingly had her cervical cancer cells (dubbed HeLa) used to grow the first immortalized cells cultures. |
Mar. 8, 2011 | Pat | Strength In What Remains | Tracy Kidder | The story of Deo, a survivor of the Tutsi-Hutu genocide who escaped and went from being a homeless person in New York's Central Park to graduating from Columbia University, and building a medical clinic in his native Burundi. |
Feb. 8, 2011 | | No Meeting | | |
Jan. 11, 2011 | Clare | Roses | Leila Meacham | The multi-generational story, spanning a century, of the DuMont, the Tolliver and Warwick families, who started their empire in small town in E. Texas. |
Book Club 2010
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Dec. 14, 2010 | Kay | One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd | Jim Fergus | At a peace conference by a Cheyenne Indian Chief in 1854, it was agreed to trade white women for horses. The women would become brides and the children of these unions would make assimilation into the white mans society easier. |
Nov. 9, 2010 | Trish | Home To Big Stone Gap | Adriana Trigiani | Part of a series set in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney's beloved only daughter Etta has married an Italian and is living in his native country. Her new husband, Jack is having health problems. |
Oct. 12, 2010 | Ginny | A Parchment of Leaves | Silas House | Set in the backwoods of Kentucky at the beginning of WWI, this is a story of a young white man who falls in love with a beautiful Cherokee girl. |
Sept 14, 2010 | Phylis | The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo | Steig Larsson | A disgraced journalist and a disfunctional but brilliant young woman team up to solve an old mystery of a woman's disappearance. |
Aug. 10, 2010 | Nancy | Cutting For Stone | Abraham Verghese | The fictional story of two conjoined twins fathered by a brilliant British Surgeon and an Indian Nun. |
July 13, 2010 | Pat | The Blind Side | Michael Lewis | Story of a southern family that adopts a poor young black student who becomes a star football player. |
June 8, 2010 | Anne | Where The God Of Love Hangs Out | Amy Bloom | A collection of short stories that are journeys into the lives of very different American families who experience the common traumas of life, such as aging and death. |
May 11, 2010 | Clare | The Help | Kathryn Stockett | The Help is about a young white woman in the early 1960s in Mississippi who becomes interested in the plight of the black ladies' maids that every family has working for them. |
Apr. 13, 2010 | All | Trip with husbands to Savannah | | |
Mar. 9, 2010 | Kay | Midnight In The Garden Of Good and Evil - The Movie | John Berendt | Combined meeting with the husbands to watch the movie based on the book |
Feb. 9, 2010 | Trish | Midnight In The Garden Of Good and Evil | John Berendt | A true crime novel set in Savannah, GA. It goes behind velvet curtains and antique walls into a society where pedigree is based as much on lineage, wealth, and power as on quirky southern traditions like knowing how to serve a fine platter of tomato sandwiches. |
Jan. 12, 2010 | Nancy | Olive Kitteridge | Elizabeth Strout | A "novel" of short stories that tell of small-town Maine residents who all struggle with relationships in the small town of Maisy Mills, Maine, and who all know a common character, Olive Kitteridge. |
Book Club 2009
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Dec. 8, 2009 | Kay | People of the Book | Geraldine Brooks | In 1996, as rare book expert Dr. Hanna Heath examines the Sarajevo Haggadah, an illuminated Hebrew manuscript from 15th century Spain, she carefully removes a series of artifacts that, under laboratory examination, will offer insight into the remarkable journey of this unusual text. |
Nov. 10, 2009 | Phylis | The Kabul Beauty School | D.Rodriguez. & Kristin Ohlson | The narrator is a hairdresser from Michigan who is having a difficult time extricating herself from an abusive marriage. She gets the idea to use her beauty skills to travel to Afghanistan and help women there learn cosmetology. |
Oct. 13, 2009 | Ginny | The Art of Racing in the Rain | Garth Stein | On the eve of his death, Enzo (a dog) tells what amounts to his master's life story. |
Sept. 8, 2009 | Anne | March | Geraldine Brooks | The author takes the well known story of Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) and weaves a tale centering on the absentee father and husband, Peter March. |
Aug. 13, 2009 | Clare | The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society | Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows | A series of letters written during the post-World War II years from and to Juliet, a London-based writer, her publisher, her friends, her suitor, and a group of residents of Guernsey (in the Channel Islands) who formed a book club of sorts during the German occupation of the island. |
July 14, 2009 | Pat | We Are All Welcome Here | Elizabeth Berg | The story about an adult woman polio survivor, her adolescent daughter, and her housekeeper/friend. |
June 9, 2009 | Trish | Sarah's Key | Tatiana de Rosnay | The story of the 1942 Vel d'Hiv roundup of the Jews in Paris, seen through the eyes of eleven year old Sarah, a French Jew. It is also the story of Julia Jarmond, a journalist living in Paris in 2002 and writing the story about the roundup. |
May 12, 2009 | Phylis | Mudbound | Hillary Jordan | The end of World War II, sees two the vastly different homecomings for two returning war heroes--one black, one white--to the Jim Crow south. |
Apr. 14, 2009 | Ginny | Suite Francaise |
Irene Nemirovsky and Sandra Smith | A young mother's notes are turned into the novel she was planning to write by her daughters after her capture and execution in WW II by the Nazis. The story tells about the people who lived in occupied France. |
Mar. 10, 2009 | Nancy | Dreams From My Father | Barack Obama | Memoir written in 1995 of Obama's early years, growing up as the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Africa. |
Feb. 10, 2009 | Anne | The Story of Edgar Sawtelle | David Wroblewski | Continuing with The Story of Edgar Sawtelle |
Jan.13, 2009 | Kay | The Story of Edgar Sawtelle | David Wroblewski | A mute boy, Edgar, growing up in a family that raises a special breed of highly intelligent dogs, experiences tragedy as his father dies and an uncle steps in his place. When his father's apparitions suggests murder, its investigation precipitates even more tragedy, and Edgar runs away in the companion of his dogs |
Book Club 2008
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Dec. 9, 2008 | Clare | The Education Of Little Tree | Forrest Carter | A child learns lessons of life from his part-Cherokee grandfather. |
Nov. 11, 2008 | Pat | The Shack | William P. Young | 'Mack' Phillips's young daughter is abducted during a family trip, apparently murdered. Four years later, a mysterious note is delivered to Mack asking him to come back to 'The Shack' where she had been taken. The note was apparently from God. |
Oct. 14, 2008 | Trish | Escape | Carolyn Jessop | A woman's memoir details life as a wife in an extremist cult of the Fundamentalist Church of the Latter Day Saints. |
Sept. 9, 2008 | Phylis | Water For Elephants | Sara Gruen | A 93-year-old man reflects on his life through flashbacks, remembering his time with the circus and living through the depression. |
Aug. 12, 2008 | Nancy | The Shipping News | Annie Proulx | Quoyle decides to relocate to Newfoundland after his wife is killed in an accident. He, his two daughters and his aunt eventually find happiness living among a cast of interesting characters. |
July 8, 2008 | Ginny | Mary, Mrs. A. Lincoln | Janis Cooke Newman | A historically-based fictional account of the life of Mary Todd Lincoln. |
June 10, 2008 | Kay | The Widow's War | Sally Gunning | A newly widowed woman challenges both law and custom in Pre-Revolutionary Cape Cod. |
May 13, 2008 | Pat | Trip to Actors Theater | | The group attends "Menopause, The Musical" |
Apr. 8, 2008 | Clare | Luncheon of the Boating Party | Susan Vreeland | Based on Renoir's famous painting, the novel combines historical fact with vivid imagination as we learn how the painting came into existence and how the models were chosen, as well as Auguste Renoir's struggling even to cover the costs of purchasing paint. |
Mar.11, 2008 | Anne | The Archivist's Story | Travis Holland | Set in Russia in the 1930's, the story tells of an archivist torn between his love of literature and his desire to survive, requiring that he destroy unapproved manuscripts. |
Feb. 19, 2008 | Trish | Boom | Tom Brokaw | A TV journalist's account of the '60's in America. (We discussed this book in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, accompanied by our husbands.) |
Jan. 8, 2008 | Nancy | Thread Of Grace | Mary Doria Russell | A small group of Italian soldiers and peasants try to save the lives of Jewish refugees from Nazi soldiers by escorting them through a mountain pass and then hiding them, selflessly sacrificing their lives. |
Book Club 2007
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Dec. 11, 2007 | Phylis | The Faraday Girls | Monica Mcinerney | When 16-yr. old Clementine becomes pregnant, her father and four sisters agree to raise baby "Maggie." Twenty-six years pass, and secrets are revealed. |
Nov. 13, 2007 | Ginny | The Bean Trees | Barbara Kingsolver | A young woman strikes out on her own, is handed an abandoned baby, and sets up life in Arizona. |
Oct. 9, 2007 | Kay | The Shadow Of The Wind | Carlos Luis Zafon | A young man, Daniel Sempere, comes upon a hidden book, and becomes fascinated with, and attempts to find out more about, the life of its author, Julian Carax. |
Sept. 11, 2007 | Anne | Small Island | Andrea Levy | A Jamaican couple moves to London after World War II, and their attempts to settle in and deal with hatred. |
August 14, 2007 | Trish | A Thousand Splendid Suns | Khaled Hosseini | Two women from very different backgrounds become allies to survive the turmoil and oppression as one Muslim radical group after another takes over the government in modern day Afghanistan. |
July 10, 2007 | Pat | Midwives | Chris Bohjalian | A thoughtful and provocative look at how a home-birth gone wrong leads to a trial and the effects it has on a family and community. |
June 12, 2007 | Clare | Snow Flower and the Secret Fan | Lisa See | A novel about women in the Chinese culture of the past; Mother-daughter relationships; Foot-binding; Arranged marriage. |
May 8, 2007 | Phylis | Vanishing Acts | Jodi Picoult | A young woman finds out that, when she was very young, she was kidnapped by her father. The story tells of her relationship with him, his ex-wife, and her two best friends, to whom one of which she is engaged. |
Apr. 10, 2007 | Ginny | The Glass Castle | Jeanette Walls | How the author overcame a childhood of adversity and hardship, growing up with an alcoholic father and mentally ill mother, to become a success. |
Mar. 13, 2007 | Nancy | The Memory Keepers Daughter | Kim Edwards | The birth of fraternal twins, a healthy boy and a girl with Down syndrome, results in the father's disavowal and sending away of his newborn daughter, telling his wife the girl did not survive. |
Feb. 13, 2007 | Kay | The White | Deborah Larsen | Based on a true story of a woman kidnapped and raised by Native Americans around 1800. A short book written in poetic but Spartan style. |
Jan. 9, 2007 | Anne | The Things They Carried | Tim O'Brien | O'Brien is both able to effectively convey the raw emotions of being an American soldier in Vietnam as well as helping him exorcise his demons. |
Book Club 2006
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Dec. 12, 2006 | Trish | The Time Traveler's Wife | Audrey Niffenegger | At the heart of the story is the love of Henry and his wife Clare. Henry has the ability to transport himself in time. |
Nov. 14, 2006 | Clare | Plain Truth | Jodi Picoult | Katie Fisher, an 18-year-old Amish girl, is pregnant and unmarried. She gives birth in the barn, falls asleep and when she wakes up, the baby is gone. |
Oct. 10, 2006 | Phylis | Mountains Beyond Mountains | Tracy Kidder | The story of Dr. Paul Farmer's quest to bring modern medicine to Haiti. |
Sept. 19, 2006 | Ginny | Disgrace | J.M. Coetzee | A South African professor is forced to leave when a sexual romp with a young student no longer remains exclusively behind closed doors |
Aug. 8, 2006 | Pat | Death Benefit | David Heilbroner | A lawyer investigates the death of a Louisville woman and discovers a 20-year pattern of arson and murder. |
July 11, 2006 | Nancy | Hershey | Michael D'Antonio | The biography of Milton S. Hershey, the founder of the candy empire and the town. |
June 13, 2006 | Kay | Adventures In The Mainstream | Greg Palmer | The humorous true story of a father preparing his almost-adult son with Down Syndrome for life as an adult. |
May 9 , 2006 | Phylis | The Novelist | Angela Hunt | A adventure-series novelist teaches a class and answers the challenge of one of her students to write something deeper and more personal. Her spiritual allegory helps her deal with her troubled son. |
Apr. 11, 2006 | Clare | In The Company of the Courtesan | Sarah Dunant | A courtesan and her dwarf companion share adventures in Renaissance Italy. |
Mar. 14, 2006 | Trish | Possession, con't | | |
Feb. 7, 2006 | Anne | Possession | A.S. Byatt | Two Victorian researchers, Maud and Roland stumble upon a letter written by reputed Victorian Poet Ash, an uncontroversial figure believed to have led a smooth, rather bland, life. But further research points to a romantic relationship between Ash and a lesser known poet, Christabel. |
38727 | Ginny | Never Let Me Go | Kazuo Ishiguro | A group of cloned children grow up in an English boarding school, where the truth about their biology is both the cause and effect of some very strange happenings. |
Book Club 2005
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Dec. 13, 2005 | Pat | Sea Glass | Anita Shreve | Set on the New Hampshire coast during the depression, this is the story of Honora Beecher, a young newlywed who compulsively collects sea glass, and Francis, a boy who discovers a father figure in the of McDermott, an Irish mill worker. |
Nov. 8, 2005 | Nancy | Devil In The White City | Erik Larson | A story of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 focusing primarily on two men - the architect who was the driving force behind the fair, and a sadistic serial killer working under the cover of the busy fair. |
Oct. 11, 2005 | Kay | Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons | Lorna Landvik | The five women who comprise a small-town MN reading group do much more than eat candy--and experience many more emotions than anger--over a 30-yr period. |
Sept. 13, 2005 | Phylis | Good Grief | Lolly Winston | Sophie Stanton goes from newlywed to widow in just three short years of marriage, her competent and confident persona replaced by an Oreo-munching, robe-and-slipper-clad zombie. Sophie leaves her high-pressure, memory-laden Silicon Valley lifestyle for a laid-back Oregon village. |
Aug. 9, 2005 | Trish | The Life Of Pi | Yann Martel | A 16 year old Indian boy is adrift in a lifeboat with a 450 pound Bengal tiger and a small menagerie of expatriated zoo animals. |
July 12, 2005 | Clare | The #1 Ladies Detective Agency | Alexander McCall Smith | A series of vignettes linked to the establishment and growth of Mma Ramotswe's "No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency" both entertain also explore conditions in Botswana in a way that is both penetrating and light. |
June 14, 2005 | Anne | Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight | Alexandra Fuller | A white African girl's childhood during the Rhodesian civil war (1971-1979) Fuller describes her parents' racism and the wartime relationships between blacks and whites through a child's watchful eyes. |
May 10, 2005 | Phylis | Reading Lolita In Tehran | Azar Nafisi | Western classics are read and discussed by a group of women who met secretly with Nafisi, an instructor at the University of Tehran. She was expelled in 1997 for shunning the veil. |
Apr. 12, 2005 | Pat | One True Thing | Anna Quindlen | A daughter quits her top-dog job to care for her cancer-stricken homemaker mother, and also has to deal with her father, a chilly professor who lets the women in the family do the heavy emotional lifting dying requires. |
Mar. 8, 2005 | Nancy | The Kite Runner | Khaled Hosseini | Two young boys have their friendship challenged in war-torn Afghanistan. |
Feb. 8, 2005 | Kay | Gravesend Kid | Lionel Lindsay | True story of a boy growing up in Brooklyn, NY. |
Jan. 11, 2005 | Anne | The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time | Mark Haddon | The solution of a mystery, as told from the perspective of an adolescent with autism. |
Book Club 2004
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Dec. 14, 2004 | Ginny | All Souls | Michael Patrick MacDonald | A true story of a family in South Boston and their violent experiences in the 1970's and 80's. |
Nov. 9, 2004 | Penny | The Ladies Auxiliary | Tova Mirvis | An Orthodox Jewish group of women in Memphis, TN are disturbed when a new woman moves into their community |
Oct. 12, 2004 | Clare | Year of Wonders | Geraldine Brooks | A young housekeeper tells the story of how her town dealt with the plague of the 1600's. |
Sept. 14, 2004 | Pat | Beginners Luck | Laura Pedersen | A rebellious 16-yr-old girl runs away and lives with an eccentric woman and her son for her senior year. |
August 10, 2004 | Nancy | The Five People You Meet In Heaven | Mitch Albom | An old man dies and meets some interesting people from his past on his way to heaven. |
July 6, 2004 | Kay | Deception on His Mind | Elizabeth George | Mystery set in a seaside town outside of London involving Pakistani community |
June 8, 2004 | Phylis | The Wife | Meg Wolitzer | An aspiring author gives up her dreams of being a successful writer to support her husband's writing career. |
May 11, 2004 | Anne | Namesake | Jhumpa LaHiri | An Indian family adjusts to life in America |
April 13, 2004 | Clare | The Gates of the Alamo | Stephen Harrigan | A romance and adventure set around the battle of the Alamo |
March 9, 2004 | Pat | The Keeper's Son | Homer Hickam | A lighthouse keeper's son fights WWII German U-Boats off the coast of N.C. |
Feb. 10, 2004 | Ginny | To Kill A Mockingbird | Movie night | The VCR movie based on the novel. |
Jan. 13, 2004 | Nancy | To Kill A Mockingbird | Harper Lee | A young Southern girl sees her lawyer father fight prejudice. |
Book Club 2003
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Dec. 9, 2003 | Phylis | Secret Life of Bees | Sue Monk Kidd | Neglected girl escapes her father and finds a good life among women who are beekeepers. |
Nov. 11, 2003 | Anne | Atonement | Ian McKeon | Young aspiring author comes upon her sister and a boy, and then lies about what she saw, changing all their lives. |
Oct. 14, 2003 | Kay | The Age of Innocence | Edith Wharton | A man and woman are constrained by manners and morals in New York society in the 1870s. Also saw the movie. |
Sept. 9, 2003 | Penny | Three Junes | Julia Glass | Set in Greece, England and New York over 3 summers, this portrays the relationship between a father, his sons, the gay relationships of one son, and family relationships of the others. |
Aug. 12, 2003 | Clare | Seabiscuit | Movie Night | Date night for the movie Seabiscuit |
July 8, 2003 | Ginny | Crossing to Safety | Wallace Stegner | Two couples' friendship as the men become professors, and then one of the woman becomes ill. Set in Vermont. |
June 10, 2003 | Nancy | Poisonwood Bible | Barbara Kingsolver | A missionary family goes to the Congo in the 1960's where they deal with the difficulties of differences in culture and an insane father. |
May 13, 2003 | Pat | When The Emperor Was Divine | Julie Otsuka | A Japanese-American family is sent to an internment camp during WWII. |
Apr. 8, 2003 | Phylis | Next Of Kin | Joanna Trollope | Caro, an American wife in rural England, dies,leaving behind a husband who has long slept in a separate bedroom and an angry adopted daughter. But another young woman Zoe, arrives,and unlike Caro, she finds something compelling in the Meredith's strenuous, earthbound lifestyle--and in Robin, the husband. |
Mar. 18, 2003 | Kay | The Ditchdigger's Daughters | Yvonne Thornton | An African-American father with 5 daughters challenges them to succeed in life. |
Feb. 11, 2003 | Anne | Empire Falls (2) | Richard Russo | Story of a declining river town in upstate New York. |
Jan. 14, 2003 | Penny | Empire Falls (1) | Richard Russo | Story of a declining river town in upstate New York. |
Book Club 2002
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Dec. 10, 2002 | Clare | Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch | Alice Caldwell | A poor family growing up in Louisville in the 1800's struggles to escape poverty. This tells of the beginnings of the social work done through the Cabbabe Patch program in the poor area of Louisville. |
Nov. 12, 2002 | Nancy | Evensong | Gail Godwin | Woman Episcopal pastor clashes with female Evangelist who comes to her mountain town. |
Oct. 8, 2002 | Pat | First Mothers | Bonnie Angelo | The story of eleven 20th century mothers of US presidents |
Sept. 10, 2002 | Nancy | Clay's Quilt | Silas House | A young man's life within the culture of the KY coal mining area and his struggles to find himself after the death of his mother when he is 4. |
Aug. 13, 2002 | Phylis | Bee Season | Myla Goldberg | Young girl in a disfunctional family wins a spelling bee and her family becomes wrapped up in her compulsion. |
July 9, 2002 | Kay | Seabiscuit | Laura Hillenbrand | A horse with a poor pedigree and the three people who made him famous. |
June 11, 2002 | Clare | Nanny Diaries | Nicola Kraus and Emma McLaughlin | A young woman is hired as a nanny by a rich, disfunctional New York socialite family. |
May 14, 2002 | Anne | Kingdom Of Shadows | Nicolas Furst | An espionage tale of a Hungarian emigre attempting to keep the Balkan countries out of war in 1937. |
April 9, 2002 | Ginny | Andorra | Peter Cameron | A mythical place where a man seeks to begin his life over, but is caught up in a murder. |
Mar. 12, 2002 | Penny | The Professor's House | Willa Cather | Professor experiencing a mid-life crisis resists a move to a bigger more modern house. |
Feb. 12, 2002 | Ginny | Icebound | Jerri Nielsen and Maryanne Vollers | A doctor leaves her family and goes to the South Pole as the only doctor. While there, she discovers a lump in her breast. |
Jan. 8, 2002 | Pat | The Pact | Jodi Picoult | The story of a 17-yr-old boy, his girlfriend who may have committed suicide, and their families dealing with her death and the resulting trial. |
Book Club 2001
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Dec. 2001 | | Fools of Fortune | William Trevor | The story of a man's life as it is affected by the death of his father and sister who are killed for siding with Irish rebels |
Nov. 2001 | | Wonder Boys | Michael Chabon | A college professor and his misadventures with one of his distressed students. |
| | Diary for Nicholas | | The parents attempt to adjust to life after the death of a child. |
Sept. 2001 | | Girl With A Pearl Earring | Tracy Chevalier | Fictional story of the servant's life of the subject in a painting by Vermeer |
Aug. 2001 | | The Sot Weed Factor | John Barth | Difficult book written about a young aristocrat in Europe and how he attempts to better himself through ridiculous schemes. |
July 2001 | | Alias Grace | Margaret Atwood | Historical Fiction of a servant in Canada in 1800's accused of killing her employers |
June 2001 | | | | Book suggestions were submitted |
May 2001 | | The Red Tent | Anita Diamant | A fictional account based on the story of Rachel and Jacob in the Bible |
Apr. 2001 | | Chocolat | | Story of a shake up in the culture of a small French village dominated by the Catholic Church. |
Mar. 2001 | | Ahab's Wife | Sena Jeta Nashund | Fictional story of the wire of Capt. Ahab in Moby Dick. Written in the style of the 1800's. |
Feb. 2001 | | Clear Springs | Bobbie Ann Mason | Autobiographical piece of the author's early life in Clear Springs, KY. |
Jan.2001 | | Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind | Ann B. Ross | Story of a recently widowed southern belle who discovers her husband has had a child with another woman and the scandal that ensues. |
Book Club 2000
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Dec. 2000 | | Traveling Mercies | Anne Lamott | True story of a "New Age" woman and how she could see God through her various life choices. |
Nov. 2000 | | Open House | Elizabeth Berg | Story of a newly divorced woman and the adjustments she has to make. |
Oct. 2000 | | Jim The Boy | James Early | A 10-year old boy is raised by a widow and her brothers in rural NC in the 1930's. |
Sept. 2000 | | Pope Joan | Donna Woolfold Cross | Historical fiction about a 9th century woman who disguises herself as a man and becomes Pope. |
Aug. 2000 | | | | No meeting. |
July 2000 | | Keeping Faith | | A young girl affects a custody battle when she has visions of God. |
June 2000 | | Maybe/Maybe Not | Robert Fulgham | Observations on human nature. |
May 2000 | | The Believers | Janice Holt Giles | Fictional account of living within the Shaker culture. |
Apr. 2000 | | The Sparrow | Mary Doria Russell | A science fiction story of the one Jesuit who survived and returned to earth after visiting another planet in 2060. |
Mar. 2000 | | The Color of Water | James McBride | True story of a Jewish mother and her black children. |
Feb. 2000 | | A Map of the World | Jane Hamilton | Sad story of the aftermath of a neighbor's child drowning while in the care of her mother's friend. |
Jan. 2000 | | The Loop | Nicholas Evans | Story of the federal program to save wolves vs. ranchers in Montana |
Book Club 1999
Date | Host | Title | Author | Summary |
Dec. 1999 | | Kiss of God | Marshall Stewart Ball | Poetry of developmentally handicapped child. |
Nov. 1999 | | Night of Many Dreams | Gail Tsukiyama | Tale of two sisters growing up in Hong Kong in 1940's. |
Oct. 1999 | | Memoires of a Geisha | Arthur Golden | A geisha tells of her culture. |
Sept. 1999 | | The Odd Sea
Snow Angels | Grederick Reiken
Stewart O'Nan | Stories of adolescence. |
Aug. 1999 | | Jacob's Ladder | Donanl McCaig | Civil War story told though the eyes of a slave. |