The Book Club meets by zoom on the 3rd Tuesday of the month from 1- 2:30 p.m. The zoom link is https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83362245715
The leader is currently Brenda Tindel
March 21, 2023 – Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver – A coming of age novel, a re-imagining of David Copperfield, set in modern day rural Appalachia.
Feb 21, 2023 – Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng – A novel set in 1990s Shaker Heights, Ohio before Sept 11, 2001, before Obama, before Trump, before Black Lives Matter – centering on two families and their teen age children, an interracial adoption, secrets, and motherhood.
January 17, 2023 – Haunted by Slavery: A Memoir of a Southern White Woman in the Freedom Struggle by Gwendolyn Midlo Hall – The story of a white activist, born in 1929 New Orleans to left-wing Jewish parents, an activist from her teen years on, married to an African American author and communist leader, the author of this memoir is an important scholar who also established digital slave databases.
December 20, 2022 – The Marriage Portrait by Magie O’Farrell – An historical fiction set in 1550s, based on the short life of a real person, Lucrezia de Medici, in Florence, Italy, who is suddenly to be wed when her older sister dies and Lucrezia is chosen as the new bride. A story of a resilient young woman’s struggle for survival.
November 15 – The Book of Form & Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki. After his father dies and his mother develops mental illness, a youth seeks refuge in a public library.
October 18 – Four Treasurers of the Sky by Jenny Tinghui Zhang. A young women born in China is smuggled into 1880’s California against her will.
September 20 – The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah. A Texas family joins the Dust Bowl Migration in the 1930’s.
August 16 – Mercy Street by Jennifer Haigh. A novel about abortion told from inside and outside a clinic. The New York Times says “far from being depressing, the book is wonderfully entertaining, boasting a large, varied cast of vividly drawn characters whose company readers will find deeply rewarding.
July 19 – French Braid by Anne Tyler. This novel covers six decades of family life, with some shrewd observations on becoming a man.
June 21 – Brick Lane by Monica Ali. This novel is the story of one women, born in a Bangladeshi village and transported at age 18 to London to enter into an arranged marriage.
May 17 – My Broken Language by Quiera Alegria Hudes. A memoir of her childhood from the Pulitzer prize winning playwright.
December 21 – How the Penguins Saved Veronica by Hillary Prior Light & fun fiction. Veronica is 85 and lives by the sea. She is trying to decide who to leave her money to, and goes to Antartica to see the research on penguins.
January 18 – The Narrowboat Summer by Anne Youngson. The author’s first book was published at age 70, this is her second novel. Three women take a break to decide where their lives should go next “in this easygoing road-trip tale.”
February 15 – Matrix by Lauren Geoff. Historical fiction based loosely on the lives of 12th century poet Marie de France and Eleanor of Aquitaine. An orphans is cast out of the royal court at age 17 and put in charge of an impoverished abbey. (Matrix comes from Latin for mother and is associated with Eve and the Virgin Mary.) The themes are ambition and power.
Books we have read
| Month | Title | Author | Publication date |
| Jan 2020 | The Testaments | Margaret Atwood | 2019 |
| Feb 2020 | Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead | Olga Tokarczuk (winner of Nobel Prize for Literature) | 2009 in Polish, 2018 in English translation |
| March 2020 | Did not meet due to COVID, | switched to zoom in April | |
| April 2020 | The Yellow House (memoir) | Sarah Broom | 2019 National Book Award |
| May 2020 | Where the Crawdads Sing | Delia Owens | 2018 |
| June 2020 | Bowlaway | Elizabeth McCracken | 2019 |
| July 2020 | A Long Petal of the Sea | Isabel Allende | 2019 |
| August 2020 | A Vanishing Half | Brit Bennett | NY Times Notable Book of 2020 |
| Sept 2020 | A Burning | Megha Majumdar | NY Times Notable Book of 2020 |
| Oct 2020 | Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood (memoir) | Alexandra Fuller | 2001 |
| Nov 2020 | Sad Janet | Lucie Britsch | 2020 |
| Dec 2020 | The Guest List | Lucy Foley | 2020 |
| January 2021 | Luster | Raven Leilani | 2020 |
| February 2021 | Unsheltered | Barbara Kingsolver | 2018 |
| March 2021 | Tomorrow Will Be Better | Betty Smith (author of A Tree Grows in Booklyn) | 1948 |
| April 2021 | Homegoing | Yaa Gyasi | 2017 |
| May 2021 | Hamnet | Magie O’Farrell | 2020 |
| June 2021 | Wives of Los Alamos | Tarashea Nesbit | 2014 |
| July 2021 | Still Life | Louise Penny | 2006 |
| August 2021 | Bina: A Novel in Warnings | Anakana Schofield | 2019 |
| September 21, 2021 | Calling Me Home | Julie Kibler | 2013 |
| October 19, 2021 | House of Spirits | Isabel Allende | 1982 |
| November 16, 2021 | The Night Watchman | Louise Erdrich | 2020 (We began hybrid meetings in-person & zoom) |
| December 21, 2021 | How the Penguins Saved Veronica | Hazel Prior | 2020 |
| January 18, 2022 | The Narrowboat Summer (in England published as Three Women and a Boat) | Anne Youngson | 2020 England, 2021 USA |
| Feb 15, 2022 | Matrix | Lauren Goff | 2021 |
| Mar 15, 2022 | |||
| April 19, 2022 |