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November 1, 2013, 7 pm

Salvage The Bones – Jesamyn Ward

Winner of the 2011 National Book Award

A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch’s father is growing concerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn’t show concern for much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn’t much to save. Lately, Esch can’t keep down what food she gets; she’s fourteen and pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pitbull’s new litter, dying one by one in the dirt. Meanwhile, brothers Randall and Junior try to stake their claim in a family long on child’s play and short on parenting. As the twelve days that make up the novel’s framework yield to their dramatic conclusion, this unforgettable family-motherless children sacrificing for one another as they can, protecting and nurturing where love is scarce-pulls itself up to face another day. A big-hearted novel about familial love and community against all odds, and a wrenching look at the lonesome, brutal, and restrictive realities of rural poverty, Salvage the Bones is muscled with poetry, revelatory, and real.

December, 2013 – Date and TIme TBD

Transatlantic – Colum McCann

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE

In the National Book Award–winning Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann thrilled readers with a marvelous high-wire act of fiction that The New York Times Book Review called “an emotional tour de force.” Now McCann demonstrates once again why he is one of the most acclaimed and essential authors of his generation with a soaring novel that spans continents, leaps centuries, and unites a cast of deftly rendered characters, both real and imagined. Newfoundland, 1919. Two aviators—Jack Alcock and Arthur Brown—set course for Ireland as they attempt the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, placing their trust in a modified bomber to heal the wounds of the Great War. Dublin, 1845 and ’46. On an international lecture tour in support of his subversive autobiography, Frederick Douglass finds the Irish people sympathetic to the abolitionist cause—despite the fact that, as famine ravages the countryside, the poor suffer from hardships that are astonishing even to an American slave. New York, 1998. Leaving behind a young wife and newborn child, Senator George Mitchell departs for Belfast, where it has fallen to him, the son of an Irish-American father and a Lebanese mother, to shepherd Northern Ireland’s notoriously bitter and volatile peace talks to an uncertain conclusion.  These three iconic crossings are connected by a series of remarkable women whose personal stories are caught up in the swells of history. Beginning with Irish housemaid Lily Duggan, who crosses paths with Frederick Douglass, the novel follows her daughter and granddaughter, Emily and Lottie, and culminates in the present-day story of Hannah Carson, in whom all the hopes and failures of previous generations live on. From the loughs of Ireland to the flatlands of Missouri and the windswept coast of Newfoundland, their journeys mirror the progress and shape of history. They each learn that even the most unassuming moments of grace have a way of rippling through time, space, and memory.  The most mature work yet from an incomparable storyteller, TransAtlantic is a profound meditation on identity and history in a wide world that grows somehow smaller and more wondrous with each passing year.

2103

Salvage the Bones: Colum McAnn (11/13) – Current Read
Garden of Evening Mists – Tan Twan Eng (9/13)
Rules of Civility: Amor Towles (8/13)
Gold Boy, Emerald Girl (7/13)
Sense of An Ending: Julian Barnes (5/13)
In The Garden of Beasts: Erik Larson (3/13)

2012 

The Tiger’s Wife: Tea Obreht (11/12)
Dubliners:James Joyce (10/12)
Let the Great World Spin – Colum McCann (06/12)
Secret Life of Henrietta Lacks: Rebecca Skloot (04/12)
Cutting for Stone: Abraham Verghese (3/12)
Outliers: Malcolm Gladwell (01/12)

Dew Breaker: Edwidge Dandicat (11/06)
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: Anne Fadiman (10/06)
In Cold Blood: Truman Capote (08/06)
The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings: Amy Tan (07/06)
Hidden Camera: Zoran Zivkovik (06/06)
The Constant Gardener : John le Carre (05/06)
Autobiography of a Face: Lucy Grealy (04/06)
Truth & Beauty : A Friendship: Ann Patchett (04/06)
Snow: Orhan Pamuk: (03/06)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: Mark Haddon (2/06)
Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx : Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (2/06)
Bel Canto: Ann Patchett (1/06)
Suite Francaise: Irene Nemirovsky (12/07)
An Obvious Enchantment: Tucker Malarkey (11/07)
Water for Elephants: Sarah Gruen (10/07)
The Memory Keepers Daughter: Kim Edwards (09/07)
Age of Innocence: Edith Wharton (08/07)
The Namesake: Jhumpa Lahiri (06/07)
The Year of Magical Thinking: Joan Didion (05/07)
On Beauty – Zadie Smith (04/07)
The Gang That Wouldn’t Write Straight: Wolfe, Thompson, Didion, Capote and the New
The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary: Simon Winchester (3/07)
Journalism Revolution: Marc Weingarten (02/07)
Jesus Land: A Memoir: Julia Scheeres (1/07)
Sin in the 2nd City: Karen Abbott (12/08)
The Yiddish Policeman’s Union: A Novel P.S.:Michael Chabon (11/08)
Second Glance: Jodi Picault (10/08)
The Road: Cormack McCarthy (9/08)
Those Who Save Us: Jenna Blum (7/08)
An American Childhood: Annie Dillard (6/08)
Under the Banner of Heaven: Jon Krakauer (5/08)
Favorite Cookbooks – Misc Authors (2/08)
East of Eden: John Steinbeck (1/08)
Olive Kittridge: Elizabeth Stout (12/09)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Stieg Larsson (11/09)
The Plan of Chicago: Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of the American City: Carl Smith (10/09)
Bridge of Sighs: Richard Russo (2/09)
An Unfinished Season: Ward Just (1/09)
This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women by Jay Allison, Dan Gediman, and Studs Terkel(11/10)
Currency: Zoe Zolbrod (10/10)
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society:Mary Ann Shaffer(9/10)
The Help: Kathryn Stockett (8/10)
Three Cups of Tea: Greg Mortenson (5/10)
Amy and Isabelle: A novel: Elizabeth Strout (3/10)
Story of Edgar Sawtelle: David Wrobewlski (1/10)
Wuthering Heights: Emily Bronte (6/11)
Blindness: Jose Saramago (5/11)
Little Bee: Chris Cleve (3/11)
The Hunger Games & Catching Fire: Suzanne Collins (2/11)
Brooklyn: A Novel: Colm Toibin (1/11)

To Kill a Mockingbird: Harper Lee (12/00)
The End of the Affair: Graham Greene (10/00)
The Shawl: Cynthia Ozeck (9/00)
Midwives: Chris Bohjalian (8/00)
Corelli’s Mandolin: Louis De Bernieres(7/00)
Elegy for Iris: John Bayley(6/00)
The Hours: Michael Cunningham (5/00)
Birds in America: Lorrie Moore (4/00)
The Collector: John Fowles (3/00)
Last Train to Memphis: Peter Guralnick (2/00)
Poinsonwood Bible: Barbara Kingsolver (1/00)
Disgrace: J. M. Coetzee (11/01)
Pride & Prejudice: Jane Austen (10/01)
Optimist’s Daughter: Eudora Welty (9/01)
Memoirs of a Geisha: Arthur S. Golden (8/01)
Feast of Love: Charles Baxter (7/01)
Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America: Stephen Bloom (6/01)
Catcher In The Rye: J.D. Salinger (5/01)
A Gesture Life: Chang-Rae Lee (4/01)
For The Relief of Unbearable Urges: Nathan Englander (3/01)
The Red Tent: Anita Diamant (2/01)
Vamps & Tramps: Camille Paglia (1/01)
My Antonia: Willa Cather (11/02)
Death of Vishnu: Manil Suri (10/02)
Things Fall Apart: Chinua Achebe (9/02)
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in
Girl in Hyacinth Blue: Susan Vreeland (8/02)
America: Barbarba Ehrenreich(7/02)
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse: Louise Erdrich(6/02)
A Heart of Stone: Renate Dorrestein (4/02)
Slaves in the Family: Edward Ball (3/02)
All The Little Live Things: Wallace Stegner (2/02)
Shopgirl: Steve Martin (1/02)
The Piano Tuner: Daniel Mason (12/03)
Life of Pi: Yann Martel (11/03)
Running With Scissors, A Memoir: Augusten Burroughs (10/03)
Bee Season: Maya Goldberg (9/03)
Map of Love: Ahdaf Soueif (8/03)
Three Junes: Julia Glass (7/03)
Breaking Clean: Judy Blunt (6/03)
Empire Falls: Richard Russo (5/03)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay: Michael Chabon (03/03)
Lovely Bones: Alice Seabold (2/03)
Tell Me: Thirty Stories: Mary Robison (1/03)
The Known World: Edward P. Jones (11/04)
Everything is Illuminated: Jonathan Safran Froer (10/04)
Alice in Wonderland: Lewis Carroll (8/04)
Atonement, Ian McEwan (7/04)
Middlesex: Jeffrey Eugenides (6/04)
I Capture The Castle: Dodie Smith (5/04)
Reading Lolita in Tehran: Azar Nafisi (4/04)
Emperor of Ocean Park: Stephen L. Carter (3/04)
Man With the Golden Arm: Nelson Algren (2/04)
Child of My Heart: Alice McDermott (1/04)
Random Family: Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (10/05)
In the Time of Butterflies: Julia Alvarez (07/05)
Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas: Hunter Thompson (7/05)
The Eyre Affair: Jasper Fforde (06/05)
Time Traveller’s Wife: Audrey Niffenegger (04/05)
I Am Madame X: A Novel: Gioia Diliberto (2/05)
Housekeeping: Marilynne Robinson (1/05)

1995 – 1999

The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne (11/95)
The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje (10/95)
Red Azalea – Anchee Min (9/95)
On the Road – Jack Kerouac (8/95)
Pluto Animal Lover – Laren Stover (6/95)
The House on Mango Street – Sandra Cisneros (5/95)
A Civil Action: Jonathan Harr (11/96)
Stilllife With Woodpecker – Tom Robbins (10/96)
Striptease – Carl Hiaasen (9/96)
Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison (8/96)
Day of the Locust – Nathaniel West (7/96)
To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf (6/96)
Snow Falling on Cedars – David Guterson (5/96)
Gaudy Night – Dorothy Sayers (4/96)
The Snow Leopard – Peter Mathiessen (3/96)
Aquamarine – Carol Anshaw (2/96)
The Volcano Lover – Susan Sontag (1/96)
Farenheit 451: Ray Bradbury (12/97)
An Experiment In Love: Hillary Mantel (11/197
Into The Wild: Jon Krakauer (10/97)
The Bone People: Kerry Hulme (9/97)
Color of Water: James McBride (8/97)
Prayer for Owen Meenie: John Irving (7/97)
Sophie’s World: Jonstein Gaardner (5/97)
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Raymond Carver (4/97)
Pillars of Hercules: Paul Theroux (3/97)
The Son Also Rises: Ernest Hemingway (2/97)
East is East: T. Coraghessan Boyle (1/97)
Kate Vaiden: Reynolds Price (11/98)
The Bluest Eye: Toni Morrison (10/98)
Women in Love: D.H. Lawrence (9/98)
The Talented Mr. Ripley: Patricia Highsmith (8/98)
Last Orders: Graham Swift (7/98)
Mrs. Dalloway: Virginia Woolf (6/98)
Geek Love: Katherine Dunne (5/98)
The Great Gatsby: F. Scott Fitzgerald (4/98)
Martin Dressler: Steven Millhauser (3/98)
Lolita (Annotated): Vladamir Nabakov (2/98)
Reservation Blues: Sherman Alexie (1/98)
Harry Potter (Vol. 1): RK Rolfing (12/99)
Angela’s Ashes: Frank McCourt (11/99)
Cold Mountain: Charles Frazier (9/99 & 10/99)
Everything the Rises Must Converge: Flannery O’Connor (8/99)
Moor’s Last Sign: Salmon Rushdie (5/99 & 6/99)
Gideon’s Trumpet: Anthony Lewis (4/99)
A Simple Plan: Scott Smith (3/99)
Dead Souls: Nikolai Gogol (2/99)

We began in late 1993, but didn’t start keeping a date based log until 1995. These are what we read the first year+….

Animal Dreams – Barbara Kingsolver (9/93)
My Dinner With Andre – Wallace Shawn
All the Pretty Horses – Cormack McCarthy
Thousand Acres – jane Smiley
Palace Walk – Naquib Mafouz
100 Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Jazz – Toni Morrison
Vindication – Frances Sherwood
Nude Men – Amanda Filipachi
Einstein’s Dreams – Alan Lightman
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
Crossing to Safety – Wallace Stegner