The Book Club discussion

The Orphan Collector (2020, 304 pp) by Ellen Marie Wiseman

How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House (2021, 288 pp) by Cherie Jones

Girl, Woman, Other (2019, 453 pp) by Bernardine Evaristo

The Murmur of Bees (2015, 471 pp) by Sofía Segovia

Exit West (2017, 231 pp) by Mohsin Hamid

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz (2020, 546 pp) by Erik Larson

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania (2015, 430 pp) by Erik Larson

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin (2011, 448 pp) by Erik Larson

The Midnight Library (2020, 288 pp) by Matt Haig (Carol suggests this is similar to one already chosen and not as good as it.)

The Heart's Invisible Furies (2017, 582 pp) by John Boyne I liken this to Fielding's Tom Jones, a Foundling


Reservoir 13 (2017, 291 pp) by Jon McGregor Fascinating for the method used to write the story of a town layered across the years since a young girl went missing.

Theodore Dreiser

Bookstores:
Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, VT. I knew about this one for years before my path through New England took me close enough to visit. It's multiple, well-organized floors of books are a delight, and include used as well as new books, and a pleasant deli-like eating area. Checking its site now, I see it is transitioning ownership. May it continue to be a success.

There were several little basement bookstores on the walk from World Trade Center to almost Battery Park that I once frequented. I suspect most of those are long gone. I miss too, the variety of chains once available in New Jersey malls and shopping centers, including Dalton's well-stocked shelves. With Covid, it has been well over a year since in a Barnes and Noble, about the only large bookseller still standing here. A little specialty bookstore, The Bookworm, near me is good for gift books, both adult and children, and for various Indie bookstore suggestions.

A close friend is especially fond of used book stores. She will always find one if visiting an area, whether Vermont or Long Beach Island or... A favorite in Vermont is The Country Bookshop. One waiting for those still browsing can read and watch the waterfall on the Winooski River across the street.

Oh, yes, I forgot to mention Labyrinth Books in Princeton. If you look closely at that alternative choice on Amazon, you may be sourced from here. More fun is to peruse the tables, inside and outside, on site, encountering that book (and author) you had no idea existed -- or recognized immediately.

July: Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
Hardcover, 341 pages
Published September 8th 2020 by Atria Books (first published April 25th 2019)

August: Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen by Sarah Bird
Hardcover, 399 pages
Published September 4th 2018 by St. Martin's Press

October: The Murmur of Bees by Sofía Segovia; Translator: Simon Bruni
Kindle Edition, 471 pages
Published April 16th 2019 by Amazon Crossing (first published March 1st 2015)

December: Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker
Hardcover, 262 pages
Published April 3rd 2008 by Quercus Books (first published January 1st 2008)

Other candidates:

The Great Mistake by Jonathan Lee
Hardcover, 304 pages
Published June 15th 2021 by Knopf Publishing Group

The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott
Kindle Edition, 368 pages
Published September 17th 2019 by Knopf (first published September 3rd 2019)

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
Hardcover, 372 pages
Published March 31st 2020 by Tinder Press

Title confusion, still probably an interesting book:
The Secrets We Kept by Lily O. Velez

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League by Jeff Hobbs
Hardcover, 406 pages
Published September 23rd 2014 by Scribner

2021 Pulitzer for fiction: The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
Hardcover, 453 pages
Published March 3rd 2020 by Harper

A Registry of My Passage upon the Earth: Stories by Daniel Mason
Hardcover, 240 pages
Published May 5th 2020 by Little, Brown and Company

Telephone by Percival Everett
Paperback, 216 pages
Published May 5th 2020 by Graywolf Press

Stranger in the Shogun's City: A Japanese Woman and Her World by Amy Stanley
Hardcover, 352 pages
Published July 14th 2020 by Scribner

Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman's Search for Justice in Indian Country by Sierra Crane Murdoch
Hardcover, 379 pages
Published February 25th 2020 by Random House

The Chicken Sisters by K.J. Dell'Antonia

This one was on Reese’s book club. “The comfort food of novels, 3 generations, 2 chicken shacks, 1 recipe for disaster.”


The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A Memoir of Friendship, Loyalty, and War by John "Chick" Donohue

“Chickie takes us thousand of miles on a hilarious quest laced with sorrow, but never dull. You will laugh and cry, but you will not be sorry you that you read this rollicking story.” Malachy McCourt

This is the story of that epic beer run, told in Chick’s own words and the men he visited in Vietnam.

The Chicken Sisters by K.J. Dell'Antonia

This one was on Reese’s book club. “The comfort food of novels, 3 generations, 2 chicken shacks, 1 recipe for disaster.”

The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A Memoir of Friendship, Loyalty, and War by John "Chick" Donohue

Listed under Father’s Day books.

“Chickie takes us thousand of miles on a hilarious quest laced with sorrow, but never dull. You will laugh and cry, but you will not be sorry you that you read this rollicking story.” -- Malachy McCourt

This is the story of that epic beer run, told in Chick’s own words and the men he visited in Vietnam.

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict

Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli

The Personal Librarian Marie Benedict

Valeria Luiselli

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich

Outline, Transit, Kudos by Rachel Cusk. Her 2021 new release is Second Place .

The Red Queen by Dame Margaret Drabble.

Things I've Been Silent About (2009) by Azar Nafisi
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books (2003)

Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil (2007) by Deborah Rodriguez

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson

Stones Into Schools: Promoting Peace With Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

José Saramago, William Faulkner, James Joyce

The Decameron

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

The Great Mistake by Jonathan Lee

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Why didn't they leave? by Eva Hnizdo

The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning, by Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham.

2/12/21 from Ellen

The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning by Ernest Kurtz

The Spirituality of Imperfection; Storytelling and the Journey to Wholeness by Ernest Kurtz and katherrine Ketcham

The Spirituality of Imperfection

The Spirituality of Imperfection

Tracks by Louise Erdrich