This Month's Selection: I've Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella

I've Got Your Number

 

by Sophie Kinsella

 

Tuesday, September 15

 

1:00 p.m.

“Utterly charming . . . Put Sophie Kinsella’s Number on speed dial.”—USA Today

 
Poppy Wyatt has never felt luckier. She is about to marry her ideal man, Magnus Tavish, but in one afternoon her “happily ever after” begins to fall apart. Not only has she lost her engagement ring in a hotel fire drill, but in the panic that follows, her phone is stolen. As she paces shakily around the lobby, she spots an abandoned phone in a trash can. Finders keepers! Now she can leave a number for the hotel to contact her when they find her ring. Perfect!
 
Well, perfect except that the phone’s owner, businessman Sam Roxton, doesn’t agree. He wants his phone back and doesn’t appreciate Poppy reading his messages and wading into his personal life.
 
What ensues is a hilarious and unpredictable turn of events as Poppy and Sam increasingly upend each other’s lives through emails and text messages. As Poppy juggles wedding preparations, mysterious phone calls, and hiding her left hand from Magnus and his parents, she soon realizes that she is in for the biggest surprise of her life.

Summer Pot Luck Selection: The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz

All three of the Holmes Public Library book clubs will come together in one big group on Tuesday, August 18, at 6 p.m. to share a pot luck supper and talk about The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz, a fun summer read. Hope you can make it!

This Month's Selection: The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman

The Story Sisters

by Alice Hoffman

Tuesday, May 12

1:00 p.m.

Alice Hoffman’s previous novel, The Third Angel, was hailed as "an unforgettable portrait of the depth of true love" (USA Today), "stunning" (Jodi Picoult), and "spellbinding" (Miami Herald). Her new novel, The Story Sisters, charts the lives of three sisters–Elv, Claire, and Meg. Each has a fate she must meet alone: one on a country road, one in the streets of Paris, and one in the corridors of her own imagination. Inhabiting their world are a charismatic man who cannot tell the truth, a neighbor who is not who he appears to be, a clumsy boy in Paris who falls in love and stays there, a detective who finds his heart’s desire, and a demon who will not let go.

What does a mother do when one of her children goes astray? How does she save one daughter without sacrificing the others? How deep can love go, and how far can it take you? These are the questions this luminous novel asks.

This Month's Selection: Still Life with Bread Crumbs by Anna Quindlen

Still Life with Bread Crumbs

Anna Quindlen

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Still Life with Bread Crumbs begins with an imagined gunshot and ends with a new tin roof. Between the two is a wry and knowing portrait of Rebecca Winter, a photographer whose work made her an unlikely heroine for many women. Her career is now descendent, her bank balance shaky, and she has fled the city for the middle of nowhere.

Brilliantly written, powerfully observed, Still Life with Bread Crumbs is a deeply moving and often very funny story of unexpected love, and a stunningly crafted journey into the life of a woman, her heart, her mind, her days, as she discovers that life is a story with many levels, a story that is longer and more exciting than she ever imagined.

We'd love it if you'd join us for the discussion by commenting here on the blog, even if you're nowhere near us in geographical terms!

This Month's Selection: The Movement of Stars by Amy Brill

Afternoon Readers

 

The Movement of Stars

by Amy Brill

Tuesday, Sept. 16, 1:00 p.m.

 

It is 1845, and Hannah Gardner Price has lived all twenty-four years of her life according to the principles of the Nantucket Quaker community in which she was raised, where simplicity and restraint are valued above all, and a woman’s path is expected to lead to marriage and motherhood. But up on the rooftop each night, Hannah pursues a very different—and elusive—goal: discovering a comet and thereby winning a gold medal awarded by the King of Denmark, something unheard of for a woman.

 

-- from the author's Web site

Have you read this book? What did you think? Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!

This Month's Selection: The Hearts of Horses by Molly Gloss

Afternoon Readers Book Club

The Hearts of Horses
by Molly Gloss

Tuesday, July15
1:00 p.m.

From the publisher:

Set in eastern Oregon in the winter of 1917, The Hearts of Horses tells the story of nineteen-year-old Martha Lessen, a tall, big-boned young woman whose shyness around other people is in sharp contrast to her tender yet confident manner with horses—and her fierce advocacy on their behalf.

There’s not a cliché to be found in Gloss’s lyric, literary prose, which sets Martha’s story in an unvarnished, un-romanticized World War I–era American West. This West isn’t filled with brave, uncomplicated cowboys; rather, it’s peopled with individuals whose everyday lives are fraught with the stark realities of war, cancer, death, alcoholism, and the agony of unrealized dreams. But Gloss’s writing is realistic, not pessimistic, and she weaves the elements of The Hearts of Horses together to form a one-of-a-kind story about the connections between people and animals that is moving and heartfelt, with an abundance of historical detail.

Sound good?

Read along with the Afternoon Readers Book Club and post your comments here any time, or on the discussion post after July 22nd!

This Month's Selection: Supreme Courtship by Christopher Buckley

Afternoon Readers
Tuesday, June 17, 1:00 p.m.

Supreme Courtship
Christopher Buckley
Hachette/Twelve, 2008

President of the United States Donald Vanderdamp is having a hell of a time getting his nominees appointed to the Supreme Court. After one nominee is rejected for insufficiently appreciating To Kill A Mockingbird, the president chooses someone so beloved by voters that the Senate won't have the guts to reject her -- Judge Pepper Cartwright, the star of the nation's most popular reality show, Courtroom Six.

Will Pepper, a straight-talking Texan, survive a confirmation battle in the Senate? Will becoming one of the most powerful women in the world ruin her love life? And even if she can make it to the Supreme Court, how will she get along with her eight highly skeptical colleagues, including a floundering Chief Justice who, after legalizing gay marriage, learns that his wife has left him for another woman?

Soon, Pepper finds herself in the middle of a constitutional crisis, a presidential reelection campaign that the president is determined to lose, and oral arguments of a romantic nature. Supreme Courtship is another classic Christopher Buckley comedy about the Washington institutions most deserving of ridicule. 

Have you read Supreme Courtship? Please share your thoughts in the comments below, or on the discussion post to come!

This Month's Selection: Sunset Park by Paul Auster

Sunset Park
by Paul Auster

Tuesday, April 22, 2014
1:00 p.m.

From the Publisher:

New York native Miles Heller now cleans out foreclosed south Florida homes, but after falling in love with an underage girl and stirring the wrath of her older sister, he flees to Brooklyn and shacks up with a group of artists squatting in the borough's Sunset Park neighborhood. As Miles arrives at the squat, the narrative broadens to take in the lives of Miles's roommates--among them Bing, "the champion of discontent," and Alice, a starving writer--and the unlikely paths that lead them to their squat. Then there's the matter of Miles's estranged father, Morris, who, in trying to save both his marriage and the independent publishing outfit he runs, may find the opportunity to patch things up with Miles. The fractured narrative takes in an impressive swath of life and history--Vietnam, baseball trivia, the WWII coming-home film The Best Years of Our Lives--and even if a couple of the perspectives feel weak, Auster's newest is a gratifying departure from the postmodern trickery he's known for, one full of crisp turns of phrase and keen insights.

Have you read this book? Let us know what you thought, or read it along with the group and add your comments to the discussion post after the face-to-face group meets!

This Month's Selection: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

by Rachel Joyce

From Random House:

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST

“[Rachel] Joyce’s beguiling debut is [a] modest-seeming story of ‘ordinary’ English lives that enthralls and moves you as it unfolds.”—People (four stars)
 
Meet Harold Fry, recently retired. He lives in a small English village with his wife, Maureen, who seems irritated by almost everything he does. Little differentiates one day from the next. Then one morning a letter arrives, addressed to Harold in a shaky scrawl, from a woman he hasn’t heard from in twenty years. Queenie Hennessy is in hospice and is writing to say goodbye. But before Harold mails off a quick reply, a chance encounter convinces him that he absolutely must deliver his message to Queenie in person. In his yachting shoes and light coat, Harold Fry embarks on an urgent quest. Determined to walk six hundred miles to the hospice, Harold believes that as long as he walks, Queenie will live. A novel of charm, humor, and profound insight into the thoughts and feelings we all bury deep within our hearts, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry introduces Rachel Joyce as a wise—and utterly irresistible—storyteller.

Have you read this book, or are you reading it now? Tell us your thoughts in a comment!

This Month's Selection: The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

Combined Book Club Potluck
Tuesday, February 4 (Snow Date)

Dinner at 6:00 p.m.

Discussion at 6:30 p.m.

The Age of Miracles

by Karen Thompson Walker

On an ordinary Saturday, Julia awakes to discover that something has happened to the rotation of the earth. The days and nights are growing longer and longer, gravity is affected, the birds, the tides, human behavior and cosmic rhythms are thrown into disarray. In a world of danger and loss, Julia faces surprising developments in herself, and her personal world—divisions widening between her parents, strange behavior by her friends, the vulnerability of first love, a sense of isolation, and a rebellious new strength.

With a voice as distinctive and original as that of The Lovely Bones, and for the fans of the speculative fiction of Margaret Atwood, Karen Thompson Walker’s The Age of Miracles is a luminous and unforgettable debut novel about coming of age set against the backdrop of an utterly altered world.

This Month's Selection: The Last Child by John Hart

The Afternoon Readers Book Club will discuss The Last Child by John Hart on Tuesday, November 12, at 1:00 p.m.

 

Read along with the group and add your thoughts to the discussion in the comments!

From the publisher:

John Hart’s New York Times bestselling debut, The King of Lies, announced the arrival of a major talent. With Down River, he surpassed his earlier success, transcending the barrier between thriller and literature and winning the 2008 Edgar Award for best novel. Now, with The Last Child, he achieves his most significant work to date, an intricate, powerful story of loss, hope, and courage in the face of evil.

Thirteen year-old Johnny Merrimon had the perfect life: a warm home and loving parents; a twin sister, Alyssa, with whom he shared an irreplaceable bond. He knew nothing of loss, until the day Alyssa vanished from the side of a lonely street. Now, a year later, Johnny finds himself isolated and alone, failed by the people he’d been taught since birth to trust. No one else believes that Alyssa is still alive, but Johnny is certain that she is---confident in a way that he can never fully explain.

Determined to find his sister, Johnny risks everything to explore the dark side of his hometown. It is a desperate, terrifying search, but Johnny is not as alone as he might think. Detective Clyde Hunt has never stopped looking for Alyssa either, and he has a soft spot for Johnny. He watches over the boy and tries to keep him safe, but when Johnny uncovers a dangerous lead and vows to follow it, Hunt has no choice but to intervene.

Then a second child goes missing . . .

This Month's Selection: Swim Back to Me: Stories by Ann Packer

Swim Back to Me: Stories

by Ann Packer

Ann Packer is a talented archivist of family life, with its hidden crevasses and unforeseeable perils. In this collection of stories, Packer explores the moral predicaments that define our lives, the frailty of ordinary grace, and the ways in which we are shattered and remade by loss.

This collection is framed by two novellas. In the opener, "Walk for Mankind," Teenager Richard describes his bittersweet relationship with a rebellious, risk-taking 14-year-old Sasha, who has a clandestine affair with a drug dealer. Sasha's behavior is a reaction to her controlling father, an English professor who's spiraling downward professionally and personally. "Things Said or Done" is set three decades later, when Sasha, now 51 and divorced, has become Richard's caretaker, forced to deal with his self-destructive, narcissistic personality while recognizing the ways in which they are alike. 

With Swim Back to Me, Packer delivers shimmering psychological precision and page-turning drama: her most enticing work yet.

-- From the publisher's description
 

Have you read this? Read along with the Afternoon Book Club and comment anytime!

This Month's Selection: The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty

This month is the special Combined Book Club Potluck meeting, when Evening Readers and Afternoon Readers get together for supper and conversation. The Combined Book Club Potluck is Tuesday, August 20, at 6:00 p.m.

 

Bring a dish to share that night, or join us on the blog the next day!

 

This month's selection is The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty. Here's what some reviewers have said about this debut novel:

 

"Smithy is an American original, worthy of a place on the shelf just below your Hucks, your Holdens, your Yossarians." —Stephen King
"Endearing . . . it’s a ride worth taking." —USA Today
"In The Memory of Running, professional actor and long aspiring novelist Ron McLarty has invented a character so fully and elegantly defined that the book soars with originality and life." —San Francisco Chronicle
"Captivating . . . McLarty unspools passage after passage of devastating grace and melancholy, and his taciturn hero hooks himself to your heart." —Entertainment Weekly
"Riders who hop onto the back of Smithy Ide's bike and ride America with him will cherish the journey. I loved this sad, funny, life-affirming novel." —Wally Lamb

 

Click here to read an excerpt from The Memory of Running.

This Month's Selection: The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje

The Cat's Table

by Michael Ondaatje

In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy in Colombo boards a ship bound for England. At mealtimes he is seated at the “cat’s table”—as far from the Captain’s Table as can be—with a ragtag group of “insignificant” adults and two other boys, Cassius and Ramadhin. As the ship crosses the Indian Ocean, the boys tumble from one adventure to another, bursting all over the place like freed mercury. But there are other diversions as well: they are first exposed to the magical worlds of jazz, women, and literature by their eccentric fellow travelers, and together they spy on a shackled prisoner -- his crime and fate a galvanizing mystery that will haunt them forever.

By turns poignant and electrifying, The Cat’s Table is a spellbinding story about the magical, often forbidden, discoveries of childhood, and a lifelong journey that begins unexpectedly with a spectacular sea voyage.

Have you read this? Read along with the Afternoon Book Club and comment on the discussion post next week!

This Month's Selection: The Columbus Affair by Steve Berry

This month we are reading The Columbus Affair by Steve Berry.

Join us May 14th at 1 pm for a face-to-face discussion or read along with us and add your comments to the discussion online starting May 15th.

From Random House:

A family’s secret, a ruthless fanatic, and a covert arm of the American government—all are linked by a single puzzling possibility: What if everything we know about the discovery of America was a lie? What if that lie was designed to hide the secret of why Columbus sailed in 1492? And what if that 500-year-old secret could violently reshape the modern political world?

Read an excerpt to see how you like the beginning. Pick up your copy at the Holmes Public Library and share your thoughts!