Book Discussion Group

Book titles for the next nine months.

October 11, 2017:        “The Women in the Castle” – Jessica Shattuck  Three women, haunted by the past and the secrets they hold. Set at the end of World War II, in a crumbling Bavarian castle that once played host to all of German high society, a powerful and propulsive story of three widows whose lives and fates become intertwined—an affecting, shocking, and ultimately redemptive novel.

November 8, 2017:      “The Light Between Oceans” – M. L. Stedman – Tom is a lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, a tiny island a half-day boat journey from the coast of Western Australia. When a baby washes up in a rowboat, he and his young wife Isabel decide to raise the child as their own. The baby seems like a gift from God, and the couple’s reasoning for keeping her seduces the reader into entering the waters of treacherous morality even as Tom–whose moral code withstood the horrors of World War I–begins to waver.

December 13, 2017:     “Beatrix Potter (1866–1943) is still one of the world’s best-selling and best-loved children’s authors. She wrote and illustrated 28 books that have been translated into more than 35 languages and sold over 100 million copies. Born in Kensington, London, she later moved to Hill Top Farm in Cumbria and on her death bequeathed it, along with 13 other farms and over 4000 acres of land, to the National Trust. Choose one of her books to read and  share with the others.

January 10, 2018:      “Lilac Girls” – Martha Hall KellyNew York socialite Caroline Ferriday has her hands full with her post at the French consulate and a new love on the horizon. But Caroline’s world is forever changed when Hitler’s army invades Poland in September 1939—and then sets its sights on France.

February 14, 2018:      “Lilacs still Bloom” – Jane Kirkpatrick         One woman, an impossible dream, and the faith it took to see it through, inspired by the life of Hulda Klager.

March 14, 2018:      “Radium Girls” – Kate Moore                 The Curies’ newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright in the otherwise dark years of the First World War. Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe: they light up the night like industrious fireflies. With such a coveted job, these “shining girls” are the luckiest alive ? until they begin to fall mysteriously ill.

April 11, 2018:           “The Shoemaker’s Wife” – Adriana Trigiani Beloved New York Times bestselling author Adriana Trigiani returns with the most epic and ambitious novel of her career—a breathtaking multigenerational love story that spans two continents, two World Wars, and the quest of two star-crossed lovers to find each other again.

May 9, 2018:              “The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir” –Jennifer Ryan    As England becomes enmeshed in the early days of World War II and the men are away fighting, the women of Chilbury village forge an uncommon bond. They defy the Vicar’s stuffy edict to close the choir and instead “carry on singing,” resurrecting themselves as the Chilbury Ladies’ Choir.

June 13, 2018:      “A Long Way Home” – Saroo Brierley At only five years old, Saroo Brierley got lost on a train in India. Unable to read or write or recall the name of his hometown or even his own last name, he survived alone for weeks on the rough streets of Calcutta before ultimately being transferred to an agency and adopted by a couple in Australia. FREQ=MONTHLY;UNTIL=20190508T235959Z;BYDAY=2WE