Upton Library Book Group

Upcoming Bookgroup Selections

2012-01-31T10:24:00.000-08:00

February 29th - Lost in Shangri-La / Zukoff
March 28th - Caleb's Crossing / Brooks
April 25th - We All Fall Down / Sheff
May 30th - Bringing Out The Dead / Connelly
June 27th - The End of Country / McGraw
July 25th - A Game of Thrones / Martin
August 29th - Cleopatra: a Life / Schiff
September 26th - Family Tree / Delinsky
October 31st - The Professor and the Madman / Winchester
November 28th - The Winter Palace / Stachniak
December - No Meeting
January 30th - How the World Makes Love / Wisner

Fiction Nominations for 2012

2012-01-20T10:02:00.000-08:00

The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd, a New Jersey romantic who dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the fuku - the ancient curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still dreaming of his first kiss, is only its most recent victim - until the fateful summer that he decides to be its last.
Junot Diaz immerses us in the uproarious lives of our hero Oscar, his runaway sister Lola, and their ferocious beauty-queen mother Belicia, and in the family's epic journey from Santo Domingo to Washington Heights to New Jersey's Bergenline and back again.

Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks
Once again, Geraldine Brooks takes a remarkable shard of history and brings it to vivid life. In 1665, a young man from Martha's Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Upon this slender factual scaffold, Brooks has created a luminous tale of love and faith, magic and adventure.
The narrator of Caleb's Crossing is Bethia Mayfield, growing up in the tiny settlement of Great Harbor amid a small band of pioneers and Puritans. Restless and curious, she yearns after an education that is closed to her by her sex. As often as she can, she slips away to explore the island's glistening beaches and observe its native Wampanoag inhabitants. At twelve, she encounters Caleb, the young son of a chieftain, and the two forge a tentative secret friendship that draws each into the alien world of the other.

The Confession by John Grisham
Travis Boyette, recently paroled and suffering from an inoperable brain tumor, resolves to confess that he committed a murder nine years earlier for which another man was convicted and awaits execution, but finds it difficult to convince lawyers and judges of their error. Features John Grisham’s signature courtroom twists and turns that imperil legal defenders caught in a web of corruption and betrayal.

Family Tree by Barbara Delinsky
Dana Clarke has always longed for the stability of home and family - her own childhood was not an easy one. Now she has married a man she adores who is from a prominent New England family, and she is about to give birth to their first child. But what should be the happiest day of her life becomes the day her world falls apart. Her daughter is born beautiful and healthy, but no one can help noticing the African American traits in her appearance. Dana's husband, to her great shock and dismay, begins to worry that people will think Dana has had an affair.
The only way to repair the damage done is for Dana to track down the father she never knew and to explore the possibility of African American lineage in his family history. Dana's determination to discover the truth becomes a poignant journey back through her past and her husband's heritage that unearths secrets rooted in prejudice and fear.

A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin
An ancient cataclysm has thrown the seasons into disarray, and the royal house of Starks is thrust into the center of the conflict, in a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and saviors, and the game of thrones.
Here is the first volume in George R. R. Martin's magnificent cycle of novels that includes A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords. As a whole, this series comprises a genuine masterpiece of modern fantasy, bringing together the best the genre has to offer. Magic, mystery, intrigue, romance, and adventure fill these pages and transport us to a world unlike any we have ever experienced. Already hailed as a classic, George R. R. Martin's stunning series is destined to stand as one of the great achievements of imaginative fiction.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
When artifacts from Japanese families sent to internment camps during World War II are uncovered during renovations at Seattle's Panama Hotel, Henry Lee embarks on a personal quest that leads to memories of growing up Chinese in a city rife with anti-Japanese sentiment and of Keiko, a Japanese girl whose love transcended cultures and generations
Set during one of the most conflicted and volatile times in American history, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is an extraordinary story of commitment and enduring hope. In Henry and Keiko, Jamie Ford has created an unforgettable duo whose story teaches us of the power of forgiveness and the human heart.

Nightwoods by Charles Frazier
The extraordinary author of Cold Mountain and Thirteen Moons returns with a dazzling new novel of suspense and love set in small-town North Carolina in the early 1960s. Named the guardian of her murdered sister's troubled twins, Luce struggles to build a family with the children before being targeted by the twins' father - her sister's killer, who believes that the children are in possession of a stolen cache of money.

Once Upon a Time, There Was You by Elizabeth Berg
From the beloved New York Times bestselling author of Home Safe and The Last Time I Saw You comes a beautiful and moving novel about a man and woman, long divorced, who rediscover the power of love and family in the midst of an unthinkable crisis. Sharing nothing in common except their sixteen-year-old daughter, divorced parents John and Irene reconnect in the wake of a devastating tragedy and discover things about each other that they had not revealed during their marriage.

The Submission by Amy Waldman
A jury gathers in Manhattan to select a memorial for the victims of a devastating terrorist attack. Their fraught deliberations complete, the jurors open the envelope containing the anonymous winner's name—and discover he is an American Muslim. Instantly they are cast into roiling debate about the claims of grief, the ambiguities of art, and the meaning of Islam. Their conflicted response is only a preamble to the country's.
In this deeply humane novel, the breadth of Amy Waldman's cast of characters is matched by her startling ability to conjure their perspectives. A striking portrait of a fractured city striving to make itself whole, The Submission is a piercing and resonant novel by an important new talent.

Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner
The plans of four women--including a college student egg donor, a working-class surrogate mother, a wealthy woman, and her stepdaughter--are thrown into turmoil when the wealthy woman's husband suddenly dies and names the stepdaughter the unborn baby's guardian. With startling tenderness and laugh-out-loud humor, Jennifer Weiner once again takes readers into the heart of women's lives in an unforgettable, timely tale that interweaves themes of class and entitlement, surrogacy and donorship, the rights of a parent and the measure of motherhood.

Time and Again by Jack Finney
Simon Morley is selected by a secret government agency to test Einstein's theory of the past co-existing with the present and is transported back to 1880s New York. "Sleep. And when you awake everything you know of the twentieth century will be gone from your mind. Tonight is January 21, 1882. There are no such things as automobiles, no planes, computers, television. 'Nuclear' appears in no dictionary. You have never heard the name Richard Nixon." Did illustrator Si Morley really step out of his twentieth-century apartment one night -- right into the winter of 1882? The U.S. Government believed it, especially when Si returned with a portfolio of brand-new sketches and tintype photos of a world that no longer existed -- or did it?
Published in 1970.

The Winter Palace by Eva Stachniak
The Winter Palace tells the epic story of Catherine the Great's improbable rise to power—as seen through the ever-watchful eyes of an all-but-invisible servant close to the throne.
Her name is Barbara, nimble-witted and attentive, she's allowed into the employ of the Empress Elizabeth, amid the glitter and cruelty of the world's most eminent court. Under the tutelage of Count Bestuzhev, Chancellor and spymaster, Varvara will be educated in skills from lock picking to lovemaking, learning above all else to listen—and to wait for opportunity. That opportunity arrives in a slender young princess from Zerbst named Sophie, a playful teenager destined to become the indomitable Catherine the Great

January 25th - The Help

2012-01-10T13:04:00.001-08:00

Join us at Memorial Elementary School on January 25th at 8:00pm to discuss "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett, the bestselling exploration of racial divides in 1962 Jackson Mississippi. We will also be selecting our fiction titles for the upcoming year!

November 30th - Highest Duty

2011-10-25T14:06:00.000-07:00

Join us on November 30th to discuss “Highest duty : my search for what really matters” by Chelsey Sullenberger, the airline pilot who crash-landed flight 1549 on the Hudson river in 2009.
Also at the November meeting we will select our non-fiction titles for the next year, send any nominations to Matthew mbachtol@cwmars.org before November 19th
Meeting: Nov 30th, 8pm, Memorial Elementary School

October 26th - The Housekeeper and the Professor

2011-09-26T10:00:00.001-07:00

Join us on October 26th to discuss “The Housekeeper and the Professor” by Yoko Ogama, a novel about a brilliant math professor suffering from short-term memory problems following a traumatic head injury and the young housekeeper, the mother of a ten-year-old son, hired to care for him.
October 26th, 8pm-9pm, Memorial Elementary School

September 28th - State of Jones

2011-08-22T11:26:00.000-07:00

Join us on September 28th to discuss “The State of Jones” by Sally Jenkins, a fascinating bit of Civil War history that examines anti-slavery white southerners in Mississippi who rebelled against the Confederacy and declared Jones county pro-union territory.
September 28th, 8pm-9pm, Memorial Elementary School room 117

August 31st - Let the Great World Spin

2011-07-25T14:05:00.000-07:00

Join us on August 31st 8pm-9pm to discuss “Let the Great World Spin” by Colum McCann, historical fiction about life in New York City in the 1970s.

June 29th - Room

2011-05-26T11:34:00.000-07:00

Our next meeting is June 29th 8pm at Memorial Elementary School to discuss “Room” by Emma Donoghue, a controversial novel told in the voice of a five year old boy who has been held captive in a single room for his entire life.

Book for Next Year

2011-05-26T11:32:00.000-07:00

Our discussion of Franz Wisner's "Honeymoon with My Brother" was lively and well attended.

Franz has a second book that has been nominated for our selections next year:
How the world makes love : and what it world taught a jilted groom / Franz Wisner.

Meeting April 27, 7pm

2011-04-16T10:35:00.000-07:00

Our next meeting is April 27th, to discuss "Oryx and Crake" by Margaret Atwood. "Oryx and Crake" is a novel of the future explores a world that has been devastated by ecological and scientific disasters. Its narrator, who calls himself "Snowman", believes himself to be the sole surviving member of the human race.

This meeting will be our last one at 7pm before we switch to our later time of 8pm-9pm.

Also, this meeting will be held in room 114 instead of 117.

Upcoming Bookgroup Selections

2011-04-10T10:41:00.000-07:00

January 26th, 2011 - Beautiful Boy by David Sheff NF
February 23rd, 2011 - Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer F
March 30th, 2011 - Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen NF Memoir
April 27th, 2011 - Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood F - Sci Fi
May 25th, 2011 - Honeymoon with my Brother by Franz Wisner NF
June 29th, 2011 - Room by Emma Donoghue F
July 27th, 2011 - Bright-sided by Barbara Ehrenrich NF
August 31st, 2011 - Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann F
September 28th, 2011 - The State of Jones by Sally Jenkins NF
October 26th, 2011 - The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa F
November 30th, 2011 - Highest Duty by Chelsey Sullenberger NF
January 25th, 2012 - The Help by Kathryn Stockett F

Previous Bookgroup Selections

2011-04-10T10:39:00.000-07:00