Book Club 2008.
We meet in the store the first Thursday of each month at 7pm and the third Wednesday of each month at 9am. We usually average 5 - 10 participants, no fee, no reservations required. All are welcome. Call us for any other information you need: 425-775-2789.See just below for the current book club choices; see the bottom of the page for books from 2008 and 2009; and see here for a partial list of books we have chosen in earlier years.
2010 Book Club Books.
August 5 & 18, 2010. Border Songs by Jim Lynch.
Set in the previously sleepy hinterlands straddling Washington state and British Columbia, this is the story of Brandon Vanderkool, six foot eight, frequently tongue-tied, severely dyslexic, and romantically inept. Passionate about bird-watching, Brandon has a hard time mustering enthusiasm for his new job as a Border Patrol agent guarding thirty miles of largely invisible boundary. But to everyone's surprise, he excels at catching illegals, and as drug runners, politicians, surveillance cameras, and a potential sweetheart flock to this scrap of land, Brandon is suddenly at the center of something much bigger than himself.
A magnificent novel of birding, smuggling, farming and extraordinary love, Border Songs welcomes us to a changing community populated with some of the most memorable characters in recent fiction.
And yes! Mr. Lynch will join us Live! and In Person! Thursday, August 19 at 7pm.
September 2 & 15, 2010. Little Bee: A Novel by Chris Cleave.
From the publisher:
WE DON'T WANT TO TELL YOU TOO MUCH ABOUT THIS BOOK.
It is a truly special story and we don't want to spoil it.
Nevertheless, you need to know something, so we will just say this:
It is extremely funny, but the African beach scene is horrific.
The story starts there, but the book doesn't.
And it's what happens afterward that is most important.
Once you have read it, you'll want to tell everyone about it. When you do, please don't tell them what happens either. The magic is in how it unfolds.
October 7 & 20, 2010. Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life by Adam Gopnik.
In this captivating twin portrait, Adam Gopnik searches for the men behind the icons of emancipation and evolution. Born by cosmic coincidence on the same day in 1809 and separated by an ocean, Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin coauthored our sense of history and our understanding of man's place in the world. Here Gopnik reveals these two men as they really were: family men and social climbers, ambitious manipulators and courageous adventurers, grieving parents and brilliant scholars. Above all we see them as thinkers and writers, making and witnessing the great changes in thought that mark truly modern times.
November 4 & 17, 2010. Peace by Richard Bausch.
This novel is a taut, poignant tale of war, trust, and salvation. In Italy, near Cassino, in the terrible winter of 1944, an icy rain, continues unabated for days. Guided by a seventy-year-old Italian man in rope-soled shoes, three American soldiers are sent on a reconnaissance mission up the side of a steep hill that they discover, before very long, to be a mountain. As they climb, the old man's indeterminate loyalties only add to the terror and confusion that engulf them. Peace is a feat of storytelling from one of America's most acclaimed novelists: a powerful look at the corrosiveness of violence, the human cost of war, and the redemptive power of mercy.
No meeting in December, as usual.
January 6 & 19, 2011. The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea.
The prizewinning writer Luis Alberto Urrea's long-awaited novel is an epic mystical drama of a young woman's sudden sainthood in late 19th-century Mexico. It is 1889, and civil war is brewing in Mexico. A 16-year-old girl, Teresita, illegitimate but beloved daughter of the wealthy and powerful rancher Don Tomas Urrea, wakes from the strangest dream--a dream that she has died. Only it was not a dream. This passionate and rebellious young woman has arisen from death with a power to heal--but it will take all her faith to endure the trials that await her and her family now that she has become the Saint of Cabora. This is a vast, hugely satisfying novel of love and loss, joy and pain. Two decades in the writing, this is the masterpiece that Luis Alberto Urrea has been building up to.
Books we have discussed so far in 2010:
July 2010. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery.
June 2010: The English Major by Jim Harrison.
May 2010: Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell.
April 2010: Guernica by Dave Boling.
March 2010: Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal by Ben MacIntyre.
February 2010: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.
January 2010: A Fine Balance by Robinton Mistry.
Books we discussed in 2009:
November 2009: Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor.
October 2009: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.
September 2009: Justinian's Flea: The First Great Plague and the End of the Roman Empire by William Rosen.
August 2009: People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks.
July 2009: Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
June 2009: Run: A Novel by Ann Patchett.
May 2009: The Street of a Thousand Blossoms by Gail Tsukiyama.
April 2009: The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America's Deadliest Avalanche by Gary Krist.
March 2009: Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin.
February 2009: The Last Chinese Chef: A Novel by Nicole Mones.
January 2009: The Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo.
Books we discussed in 2008:
November 2008: Loving Frank: A Novel by Nancy Horan.
October 2008: Returning to Earth: A Novel by Jim Harrsison.
September 2008: Truck: A Love Story by Michael Perry.
August 2008: The Summer Book by Tove Jansson,
July 2008: Out Stealing Horses: A Novel by Per Petterson, translated by Anne Born.
June 2008: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close: A Novel by Jonathan Safran Foer.
May 2008: Water for Elephants: A Novel by Sara Gruen.
April 2008: Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
March 2008: Restless: A Novel by William Boyd.
February 2008: The History of Love: A Novel by Nicole Krauss.
January 2008: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.
See here for a list of even more books our book club has chosen to discuss over the past several years.
Hours
M, T, W, F
10 - 6
Thursday
10 - 8
Saturday
9 - 5
Sunday
12 - 5
Phone
425-775-2789
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