Hi everyone, first up a reminder!

The next SSC Library Adult Book Club meeting will be held in the Conference Room at the library on Friday, May 13, 2022 from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

Our May read is: The Lost Apothecary: A Novel by Sarah Penner, print copies of which may be picked up at the Circulation Desk.

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And onto the notes first for March, and then for April (these include the books that book club members recommend each month too!)

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Our March meeting was held on Friday, March 11, 2022 at the library.

Our March Read was: Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman; and the consensus was that the book was definitely worth the read.

The cliff notes version of the 353 page plot is that it is slice of life story telling the tale of the main character, Eleanor Oliphant, who as the story opens, lives in the U.K., has an office job as a finance clerk that doesn’t require her to interact with many people, and who the reader knows early on, grew up in a series of foster homes. As her story progresses we learn that Eleanor originally lived with her mother, that her mother was an alcoholic who was abusive, and that she set the family home on fire, after which her mother seemingly went to prison and Eleanor went into foster care. 

Eleanor copes with her difficult upbringing as an adult by, among other things, being very candid with others people, while also trying to avoid them, and finding comfort in routine as exemplified by her purchasing the same meal and bottle of vodka for her Friday dinner each week.

As the story unfolds, readers discover that Eleanor has weekly phone conversations with her mother who is verbally abusive, and that Eleanor has some mental health challenges brought about by her experiences of living with an abusive mother, and by later living with foster parents that didn’t have the resources to help her. Eleanor’s mental health challenges include an obsession with a local rock star named Johnnie Lomond, and an inability to remember the details of the night her mother set the family home on fire, including being unable to remember her younger sister who died in the fire. And it isn’t until approximately 80% of the way through the book that readers realize the weekly conversations Eleanor has with her mother, which it was implied had been living in prison, are actually going on in her mind, since her mother and sister both died in the fire her mother set.

Although Eleanor is in her early thirties in the book, the tale really is a coming of age tale. Eleanor who hadn’t had sufficient support from people in her previous life; unexpectedly makes friends with and finds support via her co-worker Raymond, Raymond’s mother, Sammy, the senior Raymond and Eleanor save after he passed out in the street, and Eleanor’s boss Bob who is supportive because his sister had struggles with depression just like Eleanor. By the end of the book, Eleanor has set aside her obsession with Johnnie Lomond, remembered the details of the fire and her forgotten sister, has worked with a therapist to overcome her childhood trauma, has accepted a promotion at work and even has a cat, named Glenn for companionship and to take care of – so Eleanor is transformed from a women who certainly wasn’t completely fine into a woman, who is on the path to becoming fine and living a more engaging and enjoyable life.

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March Book, Video & Genealogy Research Site Recommendation (recommended titles are books, unless otherwise specified)

Dickensian (2015-2016; 20 episodes) (Format: TV Show)

Drama set within the fictional realms of Charles Dickens critically acclaimed novels, bringing together some of his most iconic characters as their lives intertwine in 19th century London.

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Eli’s Promise: A Novel by Ronald H. Balson

A “fixer” in a Polish town during World War II, his betrayal of a Jewish family, and a search for justice 25 years later—by the winner of the National Jewish Book Award.

Eli’s Promise is a masterful work of historical fiction spanning three eras—Nazi-occupied Poland, the American Zone of post-war Germany, and Chicago at the height of the Vietnam War. Award-winning author Ronald H. Balson explores the human cost of war, the mixed blessings of survival, and the enduring strength of family bonds.

1939: Eli Rosen lives with his wife Esther and their young son in the Polish town of Lublin, where his family owns a construction company. As a consequence of the Nazi occupation, Eli’s company is Aryanized, appropriated and transferred to Maximilian Poleski—an unprincipled profiteer who peddles favors to Lublin’s subjugated residents. An uneasy alliance is formed; Poleski will keep the Rosen family safe if Eli will manage the business. Will Poleski honor his promise or will their relationship end in betrayal and tragedy?

1946: Eli resides with his son in a displaced persons camp in Allied-occupied Germany hoping for a visa to America. His wife has been missing since the war. One man is sneaking around the camps selling illegal visas; might he know what has happened to her?

1965: Eli rents a room in Albany Park, Chicago. He is on a mission. With patience, cunning, and relentless focus, he navigates unfamiliar streets and dangerous political backrooms, searching for the truth. Powerful and emotional, Ronald H. Balson’s Eli’s Promise is a rich, rewarding novel of World War II and a husband’s quest for justice.

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Family Search (A free genealogy site hosted by the Mormons) (Format: Website)

Website found at: https://www.familysearch.org/en/ – they have a free app too with the same name.

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Forward From Here: Leaving Middle Age–and Other Unexpected Adventures by Reeve Lindbergh

In her funny and wistful new book, Reeve Lindbergh contemplates entering a new stage in life, turning sixty, the period her mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, once described as “the youth of old age.” It is a time of life, she writes, that produces some unexpected surprises. Age brings loss, but also love; disaster, but also delight. The second-graders Reeve taught many years ago are now middle-aged; her own children grow, marry, have children themselves. “Time flies,” she observes, “but if I am willing to fly with it, then I can be airborne, too.” A milestone birthday is also an opportunity to take stock of oneself, although such self-reflection may lead to nothing more than the realization, as Reeve puts it, “that I just seem to continue being me, the same person I was at twelve and at fifty.” At sixty, as she observes, “all I really can do with the rest of my life is to…feel all of it, every bit of it, as much as I can for as long as I can.”

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Genre Fiction: Japanese American World War II Interment Fiction

12 Books Recommended from the Densho (“a term meaning “to pass on to the next generation.”) site – in chronological order by publication year

Why She Left Us by Rahna Reiko Rizzuto (1999)

When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka (2002)

21st Century Manzanar by Perry Miyake (2002)

Southland by Nina Revoyr (2003)

The Legend of Fire Horse Woman by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston (2003)

Color of the Sea by John Hamamura (2006)

Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire by David Mura (2008)

The Issei Prisoners of the San Pedro Internment Center by Stanley N. Kanzaki (2009)

Bridge of Scarlet Leaves by Kristina McMorris (2012)

The Red Kimono by Jan Morrill (2013)

Fox Drum Bebop by Gene Oishi (2014)

For plot details click on the following link:

https://densho.org/catalyst/twelve-novels-japanese-american-authors-centered-wwii-incarceration/’

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Our April meeting was held at the library on Friday, April 9, 2022 and our April read was:

Born A Crime by Trevor Noah

Born A Crime is comedian Trevor Noah’s memoir chronicling his experiences growing up in South Africa during the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties.

Noah was born in Johannesburg, South Africa on February 20, 1984 the son of a native African mother and a white Swiss-German father. Noah was “born a crime” because the apartheid form of government, in use in South Africa at the time of his birth, made it illegal for people of different races to have congress with each other, and by extension, to have children with each other.

The memoir is as much a story of what life was like for native Africans and those, who like Trevor were of mixed race, in South Africa under apartheid; with the ridged racial-based societal hierarchy that form of government established, as it is a story of Trevor Noah, himself. Readers learn about both the way people live due to the government restrictions, and Trevor, as his memoir unfolds.

Trevor was purposely conceived by his mother, who planned to raise him on her own. And as a young child Trevor lived in a household that consisted of himself and his mother, who was a devout Christian and a member of the Xhosa people. Trevor spent time with his father as a young child but as the family group was mixed they couldn’t be seen in public together. Trevor and his mother would walk on one side of the street and his father on the other.

When Trevor was nine years old, his mother Patricia married a mechanic named Abel. During the years of their marriage, which corresponded with the time Trevor grew up, Trevor stopped seeing his father because Able disapproved of Trevor visiting him, Patricia and Abel had two children, Andrew and Isaac, and Abel became a full blown, and abusive alcoholic. Abel was initially able to provide for the family by working as a successful mechanic, but after he lost his garage to creditors, and as alcoholism took hold of him, he provided little financial support for the family.

At that time, the institutional racial segregation laws of apartheid limited the jobs that blacks Africans could obtain. But Trevor’s mother had a will of iron and was determined to do more than be a servant or factory worker, the usual positions available to black women in South Africa. She trained to be a secretary and her timing was good, as after she was trained the government, which was being pressured by the international community to be less the rigid and ease the racial restrictions of apartheid, allowed black Africans to take the lowest level of white collar positions, for the first time. So Trevor’s mother obtained a job as a  secretary and was able to support the family.

As Trevor grew older, the situation in the family home became fraught with tension as they never knew when Abel would launch into a drunken rage and beat them. Trevor stayed away from Abel, and out of the house as much as he could and launched a business at school with a fellow student. He was able to access then high end computer equipment, rare in South Africa at the time, and burn and sell pirated CDs to his fellow classmates. Eventually, his business branched out and he sold other items as well, often hot items. He also became a DJ and played music, from the in-depth library housed on his computer, for parties.

Subsequently, Trevor graduated from high school, moved out of the family home and in with his cousin; and continued to run his business. The book ends with Trevor being awakened by a phone call from his younger half-brother Andrew, who informs Trevor their mother has been shot by his father. Trevor dashes to the hospital and discovers his mother was shot through the head and leg but miraculously has suffered no permanent damage.

Essentially, the book offers an in-depth look at Trevor’s early life, detailing his relationship with his mother, the family’s struggles to live in a legally racist society and how as a youth Trevor launched a business and worked hard to make money so he could support himself.

For this typist’s two cents worth, I was surprised that Trevor didn’t mention in the book, even in passing or as an aftermath, that his successful comedy career began when friends encouraged him to get up on stage and tell jokes at venue having a stand-up comedy night. Trevor became very successful as a stand-up comedian, moved to the United States, worked at Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and took over as host when Stewart left that role in 2015.

To learn more checkout one of the following articles/pages

https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/daily-show-trevor-noah-audience-studio-return-1235230144/

https://www.biography.com/media-figure/trevor-noah

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwWhs_6x42TyRM4Wstoq8HA

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April Book & Video Recommendations: (recommendations are books, unless otherwise specified)

Benjamin Franklin (2022) by Ken Burns (Format: Streaming – from PBS on TV or WSKG or PBS online)

Ken Burns’s four-hour documentary, Benjamin Franklin, explores the revolutionary life of one of the 18th century’s most consequential figures.

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The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession by Mark Obmascik

In one of the wackiest competitions around, every year hundreds of obsessed bird watchers participate in a contest known as the North American Big Year. Hoping to be the one to spot the most species during the course of the year, each birder spends 365 days racing around the continental U.S. and Canada compiling lists of birds, all for the glory of being recognized by the American Birding Association as the Big Year birding champion of North America. In this entertaining book, Obmascik, a journalist with the Denver Post, tells the stories of the three top contenders in the 1998 American Big Year: a wisecracking industrial roofing contractor from New Jersey who aims to break his previous record and win for a second time; a suave corporate chief executive from Colorado; and a 225-pound nuclear power plant software engineer from Maryland. Obmascik bases his story on post-competition interviews but writes so well that it sounds as if he had been there every step of the way. In a freewheeling style that moves around as fast as his subjects, the author follows each of the three birding fanatics as they travel thousands of miles in search of such hard-to-find species as the crested myna, the pink-footed goose and the fork-tailed flycatcher, spending thousands of dollars and braving rain, sleet, snowstorms, swamps, deserts, mosquitoes and garbage dumps in their attempts to outdo each other. By not revealing the outcome until the end of the book, Obmascik keeps the reader guessing in this fun account of a whirlwind pursuit of birding fame. Publishers Weekly Review

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The Big Year (2011) (Format: Movie) based upon the Obmascik book starring Owen Wilson, Jack Black & Steve Martin: Two bird enthusiasts try to defeat the cocky, cutthroat world record holder in a year-long bird-spotting competition. – IMDB

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Bruno Chief of Police Mysteries by Martin Walker:

Book 1 is Bruno, Chief of Police (2008):

The first installment in the delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno.

Meet Benoît Courrèges, aka Bruno, a policeman in a small village in the South of France.  He’s a former soldier who has embraced the pleasures and slow rhythms of country life. He has a gun but never wears it; he has the power to arrest but never uses it.  But then the murder of an elderly North African who fought in the French army changes all that.  Now Bruno must balance his beloved routines—living in his restored shepherd’s cottage, shopping at the local market, drinking wine, strolling the countryside—with a politically delicate investigation.  He’s paired with a young policewoman from Paris and the two suspect anti-immigrant militants.  As they learn more about the dead man’s past, Bruno’s suspicions turn toward a more complex motive.

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Fantastic Fiction (Format: Website) – a great resource to search for authors, the books in a series and read alike titles:

Found at https://www.fantasticfiction.com/

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Guido Brunetti Mysteries Series by Donna Leon

Book 1 Death At La Fenice (1992):  Venice’s canals have always been shrouded in mystery. But when the celebrated opera house, La Fenice, is the scene of a murder the Commissario of Police, Guido Brunetti, has to step behind the lights into the bitchy world of opera to investigate.

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Knives Out (2019) (Format: Movie)

Knives Out sharpens old murder-mystery tropes with a keenly assembled suspense outing that makes brilliant use of writer-director Rian Johnson’s stellar ensemble. – Rotten Tomatoes

The cast includes: Christopher Plummer, Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Toni Collett, Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Michael Shannon, Ana de Armas, LaKeith Stanfield, Jaeden Martell & Katherine Langford.

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The Leaphorn & Chee Mystery Series by Tony Hillerman and its sequel series, Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito series continued by his daughter Anne Hillerman.

The first book in Tony’s series is The Blessing Way (1970).

The first book in Anne’s continuation series is The Spider Woman’s Daughter (2013).

The brand new book in Anne’s series is The Sacred Bridge (2022).

The Man Who Ate Too Much: The Life of James Beard by John Birdsall

Legendary cookbook author James Beard (1903–1985) remade the American palate while carefully hiding his homosexuality, according to this zesty biography. Food writer and cookbook author Birdsall (Hawker Fare) styles Beard the Walt Whitman of 20th-century cooking: he championed fresh, local, seasonal fare against processed and frozen foods, and pioneered New American cuisine by applying French cooking methods to simple American classics. (He invented the gourmet hamburger while running a hamburger stand in Nantucket in 1953, and wrote groundbreaking works on cocktail hors d’oeuvres and outdoor cooking.) In Birdsall’s colorful portrait, Beard is a larger-than-life figure with a six-foot-three-inch, 300-pound bulk, a charisma developed from theater training, and the Rabelaisian tag-line “‘I love to eat!’”; on the shadier side, he padded books with previously published recipes and plagiarized some from other authors. Birdsall highlights Beard’s homosexuality, which he kept closeted until late in life to avoid alienating mainstream readers while subtly negotiating the fraught gender politics of men in kitchens. Birdsall’s narrative offers a tangy portrait of the backstabbing world of post-WWII food writing along with vivid, novelistic evocations of Beard’s flavor experiences (“The ham was salty and pungent. Its smokiness and moldy specter would linger as the first taste of the coast”). The result is a rich, entertaining account of an essential tastemaker. Publishers Weekly Review

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Meet Me In The Margins by Melissa Ferguson

Ferguson (The Cul-de-Sac War) enchants with this whimsical tale set against the evergreen culture war between literary and commercial fiction. Savannah Cade, an assistant acquisitions editor at Nashville’s stately Pennington Publishing House, hides her love of the romance genre and the novel she’s writing from her colleagues—until she accidentally drops her unpublished manuscript at the feet of her new boss, Will Pennington, whose CEO mother has recruited him to rescue their failing enterprise. Desperate to hide the evidence before anyone else sees, Savannah stashes her manuscript in a hidden room that few employees know exists, but when she returns to claim it, she finds that a mysterious editor has marked up the pages she thought ready for publication. Though initially indignant, Savannah takes the advice and comes back for more, falling for her unknown editor’s charming way with words and spot-on advice—while simultaneously softening to her stern boss, though she’s still sure he disapproves of her romance habit. An idealistic, competent heroine, a swoon-worthy hero, and delightfully quirky supporting characters bolster this often hilarious send up of the publishing industry, which doubles as a love letter to the power of stories. This is sure to win Ferguson some new fans. Publishers Weekly Review

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Reverend Mother Mysteries by Cora Harrison: Set in Ireland in the 1920s with Reverend Mother Aquinas as the mystery solving protagonist. Book 1 is:

 A Shameful Murder: Ireland, 1923. The country has been torn apart by the War of Independence and is now in the throes of sectarian violence and severe flooding. But Mother Aquinas knows that not all floods cleanse the deeds of humanity . . . When a body washes up at her convent chapel dressed in evening finery, she immediately suspects foul play. The overstretched police force may be ready to dismiss the case as accidental drowning, but strangulation marks on the girl’s throat tell a grimmer story. Mother Aquinas wants justice for the girl – and won’t let a murderer slip away unpunished under the cover of war.

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Sebastian St. Cyr Mysteries by C. S. Harris

Book 1 is What Angels Fear (2005): It’s 1811, and the threat of revolution haunts the upper classes of King George III’s England. Then a beautiful young woman is found savagely murdered on the altar steps of an ancient church near Westminster Abbey. A dueling pistol found at the scene and the damning testimony of a witness both point to one man-Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, a brilliant young nobleman shattered by his experience in the Napoleonic Wars.

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The Vanderbilt: Rise And Fall of An American Dynasty by Anderson Cooper & Katherine Howe:

New York Times bestselling author and journalist Anderson Cooper teams with New York Times bestselling historian and novelist Katherine Howe to chronicle the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty—his mother’s family, the Vanderbilts.

When eleven-year-old Cornelius Vanderbilt began to work on his father’s small boat ferrying supplies in New York Harbor at the beginning of the nineteenth century, no one could have imagined that one day he would, through ruthlessness, cunning, and a pathological desire for money, build two empires—one in shipping and another in railroads—that would make him the richest man in America. His staggering fortune was fought over by his heirs after his death in 1877, sowing familial discord that would never fully heal. Though his son Billy doubled the money left by “the Commodore,” subsequent generations competed to find new and ever more extraordinary ways of spending it. By 2018, when the last Vanderbilt was forced out of The Breakers—the seventy-room summer estate in Newport, Rhode Island, that Cornelius’s grandson and namesake had built—the family would have been unrecognizable to the tycoon who started it all.

Now, the Commodore’s great-great-great-grandson Anderson Cooper, joins with historian Katherine Howe to explore the story of his legendary family and their outsized influence. Cooper and Howe breathe life into the ancestors who built the family’s empire, basked in the Commodore’s wealth, hosted lavish galas, and became synonymous with unfettered American capitalism and high society. Moving from the hardscrabble wharves of old Manhattan to the lavish drawing rooms of Gilded Age Fifth Avenue, from the ornate summer palaces of Newport to the courts of Europe, and all the way to modern-day New York, Cooper and Howe wryly recount the triumphs and tragedies of an American dynasty unlike any other.

Written with a unique insider’s viewpoint, this is a rollicking, quintessentially American history as remarkable as the family it so vividly captures.

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Have a great day everyone!

Linda