A Long Petal of the Sea Book Club Kit

A very nice book club kit from the author's website, including drink recipes! (sorry we won't be doing that at the library though!)

 

July title

 

 

July book discussion

Wednesday July 28th at 1pm

at the library

 

A Long Petal of the Sea

by Isabel Allende 

Copies of the book are available at the library.  Also available in Large Print and audio formats and as an Overdrive ebook and audiobook. 

 

  

In the late 1930s, civil war grips Spain. When General Franco and his Fascists succeed in overthrowing the government, hundreds of thousands are forced to flee in a treacherous journey over the mountains to the French border. Among them is Roser, a pregnant young widow, who finds her life intertwined with that of Victor Dalmau, an army doctor and the brother of her deceased love. In order to survive, the two must unite in a marriage neither of them desires.

Together with two thousand other refugees, Roser and Victor embark for Chile "the long petal of sea and wine and snow" on the SS Winnipeg, a ship chartered by the poet Pablo Neruda.  As unlikely partners, the couple embraces exile as the rest of Europe erupts in world war. Starting over on a new continent, they face trial after trial, but they will also find joy as they patiently await the day when they might go home. Through it all, their hope of returning to Spain keeps them going. Destined to witness the battle between freedom and repression as it plays out across the world, Roser and Victor will find that home might have been closer than they thought all along.

A masterful work of historical fiction about hope, exile, and belonging, A Long Petal of the Sea shows Isabel Allende at the height of her powers.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the author of The House of the Spirits, this epic novel spanning decades and crossing continents follows two young people as they flee the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War in search of a place to call home.

"One of the most richly imagined portrayals of the Spanish Civil War to date, and one of the strongest and most affecting works in [Isabel Allende's] long career."--The New York Times Book Review

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Esquire * Good Housekeeping * Parade

June title

 And now for something completely different!
Our June title will be Before the coffee gets cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi.

Here are the meeting details:

Wednesday June 30th at 1pm

IN PERSON! Under the library's new tent!

Reading options:

Hardcover copies! (available soon)

Hoopla audiobook (always available)

Hoopla ebook (always available)

Hoopla Spotlight book club resources

Overdrive ebook 

 

Here's a bit more about the book:
Heartwarming, wistful, and delightfully quirky, Before the Coffee Gets Cold explores the intersecting lives of four women who come together in one extraordinary café, where the service may not be quick, but the opportunities are endless.

Japanese playwright Kawaguchi’s evocative English-language debut is set in a tiny Tokyo café where time travel is possible. In four connected tales, lovers and family members take turns sitting in the chair that allows a person to travel back in time for only as long as it takes a single cup of coffee to cool. In “Husband and Wife,” a nurse goes back in time to visit her husband before his Alzheimer’s erased her from his memory; in “The Sisters,” a woman visits her younger sister, who died in an accident while trying to visit her, to apologize for not seeing her. Kawaguchi’s characters embark on lo-fi, emotional journeys unburdened by the technicalities often found in time travel fiction—notably, they are unable to change the present. The characters learn, though, that even though people don’t return to a changed present, they return “with a changed heart.” Kawaguchi’s tender look at the beauty of passing things, adapted from one of his plays, makes for an affecting, deeply immersive journey into the desire to hold onto the past. This wondrous tale will move readers.  ....Publisher's Weekly Review

Hopkinton READS! How to Make a Slave

Please join us for a discussion of How to Make a Slave and Other Essays on Thursday May 20th. You can join us at either 12 noon or 7pm.  Registration is required. The discussion will be led by Dr. Dottie Morris of Keene State College. Copies of the book are available to borrow OR purchase for $5.

The book is a bracing and often humorous examination by an acclaimed essayist of what it is to grow, parent, write, and exist as a black American male. Walker urges readers to do better as they consider, through his eyes, how to be a good citizen, how to be a good father, how to live, and how to love.

Discussion questions and more for The Dutch House

We'll be zooming on Wednesday April 28th at 1pm to discuss The Dutch House by Ann Patchett. Email kdixon@hopkintontownlibrary.org if you would like an invitation to the zoom meeting.  If so inclined you can check out discussion questions here.

April title

 

April's title is The Dutch House by Ann Patchett.  We'll meet (probably via zoom but possibly outside!) on April 28th at 1pm. This book is available in lots of formats including:

• hardcover copies, including large print editions (email kdixon@hopkintontownlibrary.org to reserve a copy for curbside pickup)
• hoopla audiobook
• hoopla ebook
• Overdrive/Libby audiobook
• Overdrive/Libby ebook

From the author's website:

THE DUTCH HOUSE
Ann Patchett, the New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth and State of Wonder, returns with her most powerful novel to date: a richly moving story that explores the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go.

“Do you think it’s possible to ever see the past as it actually was?” I asked my sister. We were sitting in her car, parked in front of the Dutch House in the broad daylight of early summer.”

At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves.

The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakeable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures.

Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.

The Dutch House is the story of a paradise lost, a tour de force that digs deeply into questions of inheritance, love and forgiveness, of how we want to see ourselves and of who we really are. Filled with suspense, you may read it quickly to find out what happens, but what happens to Danny and Maeve will stay with you for a very long time.

More on Disappearing Earth

I hope you are enjoying reading Disappearing Earth for the 3/31 discussion.  I'll be sending out the Zoom link early next week.  In the meantime, Now Read This (a book club from PBS NewsHour and The New York Times) has some great links to material about the book and the author, as well as background information and discussion questions that can all be found here.

March title

 

 

Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips

The Library Book Group will meet on Wednesday March 31st at 1pm via Zoom. Please email or call the library to reserve a copy of the book.  Also available as an ebook or audiobook via Overdrive/Libby. 

 

One of The New York Times 10 Best Books of 2019

National Book Award Finalist
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize
Finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
Finalist for the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award
National Best Seller

 

Spellbinding, moving—evoking a fascinating region on the other side of the world—this suspenseful and haunting story announces the debut of a profoundly gifted writer.
One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the Kamchatka peninsula at the northeastern edge of Russia, two girls—sisters, eight and eleven—go missing. In the ensuing weeks, then months, the police investigation turns up nothing. Echoes of the disappearance reverberate across a tightly woven community, with the fear and loss felt most deeply among its women.
Taking us through a year in Kamchatka, Disappearing Earth enters with astonishing emotional acuity the worlds of a cast of richly drawn characters, all connected by the crime: a witness, a neighbor, a detective, a mother. We are transported to vistas of rugged beauty—densely wooded forests, open expanses of tundra, soaring volcanoes, and the glassy seas that border Japan and Alaska—and into a region as complex as it is alluring, where social and ethnic tensions have long simmered, and where outsiders are often the first to be accused.
In a story as propulsive as it is emotionally engaging, and through a young writer's virtuosic feat of empathy and imagination, this powerful novel brings us to a new understanding of the intricate bonds of family and community, in a Russia unlike any we have seen before. 

February title

 Library Book Group

Wednesday February 24th at 1pm

via zoom

The Henna Artist 

by Alka Joshi

 Copies of the book are available.  

Call 746-3663 or email info@hopkintontownlibrary.org 

to reserve a copy.

Also available on Overdrive/Libby and hoopla.

hoopla audio

Overdrive/Libby ebook

Overdrive/Libby audio

Vivid and compelling in its portrait of one woman's struggle for fulfillment in a society pivoting between the traditional and the modern, The Henna Artist opens a door into a world that is at once lush and fascinating, stark and cruel.

Escaping from an abusive marriage, seventeen-year-old Lakshmi makes her way alone to the vibrant 1950s pink city of Jaipur. There she becomes the most highly requested henna artist--and confidante--to the wealthy women of the upper class. But trusted with the secrets of the wealthy, she can never reveal her own...

Known for her original designs and sage advice, Lakshmi must tread carefully to avoid the jealous gossips who could ruin her reputation and her livelihood. As she pursues her dream of an independent life, she is startled one day when she is confronted by her husband, who has tracked her down these many years later with a high-spirited young girl in tow--a sister Lakshmi never knew she had. Suddenly the caution that she has carefully cultivated as protection is threatened. Still she perseveres, applying her talents and lifting up those that surround her as she does.

Reading Group Guide and more for This Tender Land

Join us this Wednesday at 1pm for a discussion of This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger.

Check out the Reading Group Guide with discussion questions, a Q&A with the author, a Spotify playlist, and a map of the characters' journey.  Here are some photos that inspired the author.

Email kdixon@hopkintontownlibrary.org for the meeting link.

William Kent Krueger discusses THIS TENDER LAND with Barbara Peters

January title

   

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

Wednesday January 27th at 1pm via zoom 

Print copies will be available for pickup starting on Tuesday December 29th. There will be large print and audio CD copies too.

Other options for access:

hoopla audiobook

Overdrive/Libby ebook

Ovedrive/Libby audiobook

    (Hint: make sure you are logged in to Overdrive to see copies available to you)

                       

"For fans of Before We Were Yours and Where the Crawdads Sing, a magnificent novel about four orphans on a life-changing odyssey during the Great Depression.

1932, Minnesota—the Lincoln School is a pitiless place where hundreds of Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to an orphan named Odie O’Banion, a lively boy whose exploits earn him the superintendent’s wrath. Forced to flee, he and his brother Albert, their best friend Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call their own.

Over the course of one unforgettable summer, these four orphans will journey into the unknown and cross paths with others who are adrift, from struggling farmers and traveling faith healers to displaced families and lost souls of all kinds. With the feel of a modern classic, This Tender Land is an en­thralling, big-hearted epic that shows how the magnificent American landscape connects us all, haunts our dreams, and makes us whole". ...https://williamkentkrueger.com/standalone/this-tender-land/#about

 

 Email kdixon@hopkintontownlibrary for more information or the zoom login info.

 

November/December title

 

Our next title is Apeirogon by Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin and TransAtlantic. 

As in previous years, we are combining our November/December book group meeting.  We'll meet (via zoom) on December 9th at 1pm. 

 

We will have copies of the hardcover book (as well as a large print edition and audio CD edition) to borrow from the library - just email or call if you'd like to reserve one.

Or use the links below to access the online versions.

Overdrive/Libby audiobook

Overdrive/Libby ebook 

 

 

About Apeirogon: A Novel

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A quite extraordinary novel. Colum McCann has found the form and voice to tell the most complex of stories, with an unexpected friendship between two men at its powerfully beating heart.”—Kamila Shamsie, author of Home Fire
 
LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • From the National Book Award–winning and bestselling author of Let the Great World Spin comes an epic novel rooted in the unlikely real-life friendship between two fathers.
 
Bassam Aramin is Palestinian. Rami Elhanan is Israeli. They inhabit a world of conflict that colors every aspect of their lives, from the roads they are allowed to drive on to the schools their children attend to the checkpoints, both physical and emotional, they must negotiate.
 
But their lives, however circumscribed, are upended one after the other: first, Rami’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Smadar, becomes the victim of suicide bombers; a decade later, Bassam’s ten-year-old daughter, Abir, is killed by a rubber bullet. Rami and Bassam had been raised to hate one another. And yet, when they learn of each other’s stories, they recognize the loss that connects them. Together they attempt to use their grief as a weapon for peace—and with their one small act, start to permeate what has for generations seemed an impermeable conflict.
 
This extraordinary novel is the fruit of a seed planted when the novelist Colum McCann met the real Bassam and Rami on a trip with the non-profit organization Narrative 4. McCann was moved by their willingness to share their stories with the world, by their hope that if they could see themselves in one another, perhaps others could too.
 
With their blessing, and unprecedented access to their families, lives, and personal recollections, McCann began to craft Apeirogon, which uses their real-life stories to begin another—one that crosses centuries and continents, stitching together time, art, history, nature, and politics in a tale both heartbreaking and hopeful. The result is an ambitious novel, crafted out of a universe of fictional and nonfictional material, with these fathers’ moving story at its heart.

www.penguinrandomhouse.com

 

 

More on The Bear

Here are some links to further explore The Bear by Andrew Krivak:

• From Bellevue Literary Press
  

• Reading Group Guide
• Andrew Krivak's Playlist for The Bear  

•  From hoopla
  

• Discussion Guide
• 13 Questions with Andrew Krivak
• Recommended Next Reads

 

• Reviews via Bookmarks.com

 

October title

 

Our October title is The Bear by Andrew Krivak. We'll meet via zoom on Wednesday October 28th at 1pm. Email the library if you would like the zoom login information. And good news for 'real' book lovers - we will have multiple copies of the book available for loan.  Just let us know if we should hold one for you!
Online access links below. FYI - hoopla books are always available - Overdrive/Libby books may have hold lists.

hoopla ebook

hoopla audiobook

Overdrive/Libby ebook

Overdrive/Libby audiobook

 ....and print copies available too! 

 

 The description of the book sounds like a bit of a departure from our usual reads, so hopefully this will inspire you to read something in a new genre!

In an Edenic future, a girl and her father live close to the land in the shadow of a lone mountain. They possess a few remnants of civilization: some books, a pane of glass, a set of flint and steel, a comb. The father teaches the girl how to fish and hunt, the secrets of the seasons and the stars. He is preparing her for an adulthood in harmony with nature, for they are the last of humankind. But when the girl finds herself alone in an unknown landscape, it is a bear that will lead her back home through a vast wilderness that offers the greatest lessons of all, if she can only learn to listen.

A cautionary tale of human fragility, of love and loss, The Bear is a stunning tribute to the beauty of nature's dominion.

 

September title

 

September Book Group

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek

by Kim Michele Richardson

 

Wednesday 

September 23rd at 1pm

via zoom

 

Available formats include 1 hardcover, 1 CD audiobook, ebook and eaudiobook.

 Reserve the hardcover or audio CD version in our catalog. Click on the links below to access the digital versions.

 

hoopla ebook

hoopla audiobook

Overdrive/Libby ebook

Overdrive/Libby audiobook

 

 

Please let us know if you need help with any of our online resources!  

 

Author information, discussion questions, videos, reviews and more can be found here!

 

 

 

 

 The hardscrabble folks of Troublesome Creek have to scrap for everything—everything except books, that is. Thanks to Roosevelt’s Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project, Troublesome’s got its very own traveling librarian, Cussy Mary Carter.

Cussy’s not only a book woman, however, she’s also the last of her kind, her skin a shade of blue unlike most anyone else. Not everyone is keen on Cussy’s family or the Library Project, and a Blue is often blamed for any whiff of trouble. If Cussy wants to bring the joy of books to the hill folks, she’s going to have to confront prejudice as old as the Appalachias and suspicion as deep as the holler.

Inspired by the true blue-skinned people of Kentucky and the brave and dedicated Kentucky Pack Horse library service of the 1930s, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is a story of raw courage, fierce strength, and one woman’s belief that books can carry us anywhere—even back home.

August title

August title!   
Writers & Lovers by Lily King
Group will meet on Wednesday August 26th at 1pm 
Available formats include 1 hardcover, 1 CD audiobook, ebook and eaudiobook (links below).


hoopla ebook (always available)

hoopla audiobook (always available)

Overdrive/Libby ebook

Overdrive/Libby audiobook

Discussion Questions and more

Q & A with Lily King

 

 

Following the breakout success of her critically acclaimed and award-winning novel Euphoria, Lily King returns with an unforgettable portrait of an artist as a young woman.

Blindsided by her mother's sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she's been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey's fight to fulfill her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink.

Writers & Lovers follows Casey--a smart and achingly vulnerable protagonist--in the last days of a long youth, a time when every element of her life comes to a crisis. Written with King's trademark humor, heart, and intelligence, Writers & Lovers is a transfixing novel that explores the terrifying and exhilarating leap between the end of one phase of life and the beginning of another.  Goodreads.com

Book club resources for The Mountains Sing

Since Hoopla recently featured The Mountains Sing in their Spring Spotlight, they have some awesome links to background information, discussion questions and recommended next reads.  You'll find links to all this and more here.

July title

July's title is The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai. The meeting will be on July 22nd at 1pm via zoom.  
Email Karen at kdixon@hopkintontownlibrary.org if you would like to be included in the email list for book group news or would like the zoom link.

Here are the available formats for the book:
~1 hardcover copy available via curbside pickup (reserve via our catalog) 
~1 mp3-cd available via curbside pickup (not here yet but on order)
~ebook from hoopla (always available)
~audiobook from hoopla (always available) 
~ebook from Overdrive/Libby (there is presently a reserve list)

 “An epic account of Việt Nam’s painful 20th century history, both vast in scope and intimate in its telling . . . Moving and riveting.” —VIET THANH NGUYEN, author of The Sympathizer, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

With the epic sweep of Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko or Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing and the lyrical beauty of Vaddey Ratner’s In the Shadow of the Banyan, The Mountains Sing tells an enveloping, multigenerational tale of the Trần family, set against the backdrop of the Việt Nam War. Trần Diệu Lan, who was born in 1920, was forced to flee her family farm with her six children during the Land Reform as the Communist government rose in the North. Years later in Hà Nội, her young granddaughter, Hương, comes of age as her parents and uncles head off down the Hồ Chí Minh Trail to fight in a conflict that tore not just her beloved country, but her family apart.

Vivid, gripping, and steeped in the language and traditions of Việt Nam, The Mountains Sing brings to life the human costs of this conflict from the point of view of the Vietnamese people themselves, while showing us the true power of kindness and hope.

The Mountains Sing is celebrated Vietnamese poet Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s first novel in English.                                                                                       Goodreads.com

Christina's World and A Piece of the World Links

Christina's World links

• Christina's World at MoMA

• A Closer Look at Christina's World  Inside/Out A MoMA/MoMA PS Blog

• Christina's World on wikipedia

• The Story Behind 'Christina’s World' by Andrew Wyeth   ThoughtCo.com

A Piece of the World links

• From the author's website - lots of great links including "What became of the real life Walton Hall?" 
• Book discussion questions from the author's website
• Online discussion from BookBrowse

June title - A Piece of the World

The group will meet on Wednesday June 24th at 1pm via zoom.  If you'd like to participate email Karen at kdixon@hopkintontownlibrary.org and I will send you a zoom invitation. 

Here are links to A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline. As always, hoopla editions are always available; Overdrive audiobook may be checked out.

hoopla ebook https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/12456000

hoopla audiobook https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/11782112

Overdrive audiobook https://nh.overdrive.com/media/2733093

.....a stunning and atmospheric novel of friendship, passion, and art, inspired by Andrew Wyeth’s mysterious and iconic painting Christina’s World.

"Later he told me that he’d been afraid to show me the painting. He thought I wouldn’t like the way he portrayed me: dragging myself across the field, fingers clutching dirt, my legs twisted behind. The arid moonscape of wheatgrass and timothy. That dilapidated house in the distance, looming up like a secret that won’t stay hidden."

To Christina Olson, the entire world was her family’s remote farm in the small coastal town of Cushing, Maine. Born in the home her family had lived in for generations, and increasingly incapacitated by illness, Christina seemed destined for a small life. Instead, for more than twenty years, she was host and inspiration for the artist Andrew Wyeth, and became the subject of one of the best known American paintings of the twentieth century.

As she did in her beloved smash bestseller Orphan Train, Christina Baker Kline interweaves fact and fiction in a powerful novel that illuminates a little-known part of America’s history. Bringing into focus the flesh-and-blood woman behind the portrait, she vividly imagines the life of a woman with a complicated relationship to her family and her past, and a special bond with one of our greatest modern artists.

Told in evocative and lucid prose, A Piece of the World is a story about the burdens and blessings of family history, and how artist and muse can come together to forge a new and timeless legacy.
---goodreads.com 

May title - O Pioneers!

May's book choice is O Pioneers! by Willa Cather.  Somehow I feel we are pioneers in our own right in our new world order.  We will meet on Wednesday May 27th at 1pm via zoom. If you would like to be included in the zoom invitation just send me an email at kdixon@hopkintontownlibrary.org. 
Access the ebook or audiobook through these links:

hoopla link (in ebook or audiobook format; titles are always available; read or listen in hoopla app)
Project Gutenberg ebook link (in multiple formats including online, kindle, epub)
Librivox audiobook link

About O Pioneers!

The novel that first made Willa Cather famous—a powerfully mythic tale of the American frontier told through the life of one extraordinary woman....
No other work of fiction so vividly evokes the harsh beauty and epic sweep of the Nebraska prairies that Cather knew and loved. The heroine of O Pioneers!, Alexandra Bergson, is a young Swedish immigrant at the turn of the twentieth century who inherits her father’s windblasted land and, through years of hard work, turns it into a prosperous farm. Fiercely independent, Alexandra sacrifices love and companionship in her passionate devotion to the land, until tragedy strikes and brings with it the chance for a new life.
One of our most beloved classics, one of the great heroines of American literature.
--from PenguinRandomHouse.com

Emma discussion

Don't forget to get in touch with me if you would like to join the Zoom meeting on April 29th at 1pm to discuss Emma.  If you haven't used Zoom before it is quite user friendly!  You just need a computer or mobile device with audio capabilities (it doesn't have to have a camera or video capabilties). Email me at kdixon@hopkintontownlibrary.org for more details.

April showers.......

....bring cancellations and hopefully beautiful May flowers!! So we are going to try something different in April - an online meeting to discuss Emma by Jane Austen. The book is readily available online and you may even have a copy hanging around on your bookshelves.  Links to online access are below.  If you need help with any of these let me know. On hoopla if you haven't created an account yet there is white "sign up" button on the top right hand side of the screen; you will need your library card number.  I can supply if needed.  Then I thought we could "meet" the last Wednesday in April (4/29) at 1pm by trying a zoom meeting (or possibly another videoconferencing platform).   More instructions will come later if you let me know that you have an interest in participating. Just email me at kdixon@hopkintontownlibrary.org.

Happy reading and let me know if you have any questions!  Karen

hoopla link (in ebook or audiobook format; titles are always available; read or listen in hoopla app)

Project Gutenberg ebook link (in multiple formats including online, kindle, epub, pdf)

Librivox audiobook link