Please see the book choices below to be selected at the June
meeting for discussion during the August 2019 meeting. If you will not
be at the next meeting, please let me know your choices.
Thanks, Lori
The Inn at Lake
Devine by Elinor Lipman, 2012,
324 pages
It
was not
complicated, and, as my mother pointed out, not even personal: They had a
hotel; they didn't want Jews; we were Jews...It's the early 1960s and
Natalie Marx is stunned when her mother inquires about vacation
accommodations
in Vermont and receives a response that says, "The Inn at Lake Devine is
a
family-owned resort, which has been in continuous operation since 1922.
Our guests
who feel most comfortable here, and return year after year, are
Gentiles." So begins Natalie's fixation with the Inn and the family who
owns
it. And when Natalie finagles an invitation to join a friend on
vacation there, she sets herself upon a path that will inextricably link
her
adult life into this peculiar family and their once-restricted hotel.
Things Fall Apart
(African Trilogy, Book 1) by Chinua Achebe, 2010, 215 pages
Things Fall Apart is the first of three novels
in Chinua Achebe's critically acclaimed African Trilogy. It is a classic
narrative about Africa's cataclysmic encounter with Europe as it establishes a
colonial presence on the continent. Told through the fictional experiences of
Okonkwo, a wealthy and fearless Igbo warrior of Umuofia in the late 1800s, Things
Fall Apart explores one man's futile resistance to the devaluing of
his Igbo traditions by British political andreligious forces and his despair as
his community capitulates to the powerful new order. With more than 20 million copies sold and translated into fifty-seven
languages, Things Fall Apart provides one of the most
illuminating and permanent monuments to African experience. Achebe does not
only capture life in a pre-colonial African village, he conveys the tragedy of
the loss of that world while broadening our understanding of our contemporary
realities.
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah, 2018, 435 pages
Alaska, 1974. Ernt Allbright came home from the Vietnam War
a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes the
impulsive decision to move his wife and daughter north where they will live off
the grid in America’s last true frontier. Cora will do anything for the man she loves, even if means
following him into the unknown. Thirteen-year-old Leni, caught in the riptide
of her parents’ passionate, stormy relationship, has little choice but to go
along, daring to hope this new land promises her family a better future. In a wild, remote corner of Alaska, the Allbrights find a
fiercely independent community of strong men and even stronger women. The long,
sunlit days and the generosity of the locals make up for the newcomers’ lack of
preparation and dwindling resources. But as winter approaches and darkness descends, Ernt’s
fragile mental state deteriorates. Soon the perils outside pale in comparison
to threats from within. In their small cabin, covered in snow, blanketed in
eighteen hours of night, Leni and her mother learn the terrible truth: they are
on their own.
The Radium Girls: The
Dark Story of America's Shining Women
by Kate Moore, 2017, 496 pages
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. But the factories that once offered golden opportunities are
now ignoring all claims of the gruesome side effects, and the women's cries of
corruption. And as the fatal poison of the radium takes hold, the brave shining
girls find themselves embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of America's
early 20th century, and in a groundbreaking battle for workers' rights that
will echo for centuries to come.
Still Alice by Lisa Genova, 2009, 353 pages
Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children and
a house on the Cape, is a celebrated Harvard professor at the height of her
career when she notices a forgetfulness creeping into her life. As confusion
starts to cloud her thinking and her memory begins to fail her, she receives a
devastating diagnosis: early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Fiercely independent,
Alice struggles to maintain her lifestyle and live in the moment, even as her
sense of self is being stripped away. In turns heartbreaking, inspiring, and
terrifying, Still Alice captures in remarkable detail what it’s like to
literally lose your mind.
