Hi everyone, in October, the first Friday  of the month is also the first day of the month!

So, our next book club meeting is early in the month! It will be  next Friday, October 8 from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. in the Conference Room at the library.

If you’d like to join us remotely, via Zoom, please let me know by Thursday, October 7.

Our October read is The Unkindness of Ravens: A Greer Hogan Mystery by M. E. Hilliard. (336 pages) (The title is avilable as a print book through StarCat and as an instant checkout eBook & audiobook through Hoopla.)

If you can’t find a copy of the book; let me know and I will mail you one this week.

On an upcoming reading note,  I originally selected books for November and December that both non-fiction titles – and I wonder if we should change one of them so it is fiction?

The Book Club Reading List for November & December (as of right now) is:

November 12: The Brilliant Abyss: Exploring the Majestic Hidden Life of the Deep Ocean, and the Looming Threat That Imperils It by Helen Scales. (288 pages)

(Two circulating print copies of the book & available as Hoopla instant checkout eBook & audiobook)

&

December 10: Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR by Lisa Napoli. (288 pages)

(Three circulating print copies of the book & available as a Hoopla instant checkout eBook)

Both non-fiction titles are reasonably short and I’m happy to leave the reading list as it is. However, as we don’t usually read non-fiction books two months in a row; and in keeping with our discussion at the last book club gathering; regarding selecting future reading titles that there are many copies of available as print books through StarCat; I thought I’d ask!

You can contact me via email: reimerl@stls.org

And if I don’t hear from anyone, I’ll assume we’re all good with reading the titles already selected for November & December.

And I’ll select titles for the next session that are complimented by having many copies available as print books to request through StarCat, since that format seems to be our collective favorite.

I should have the reading schedule for the first half of 2022 ready soon and will send it out via email and the blog.

Have a great day everyone,

Linda

Hi everyone, first up, here is the info on our September Book Club meeting & read:

SSCL September Adult Book Club Meeting, Friday, September 10, 2021

Time: 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

Location: Large half of Community Room at the library

September Read: Learning To Speak Southern by Lindsey Rogers Cook (288 pages)

Learning To Speak Southern, is available for instant checkout as an eBook and audiobook through Hoopla, as an eBook and audiobook through The Digital Catalog (Libby app/send to Kindle eReader through web version catalog found at https://stls.overdrive.com/  and will be coming to StarCat as a print book shortly.

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Join September Book Club Meeting From Home Via Zoom: If you wish to join the September meeting via Zoom, please let me know at least 24 hours before our September 10 meeting. You can send me an email: REIMERL@STLS.ORG or call me at the library at 607-936-3713 x212

The notes for our July & August Book Club meetings follow.

Have a great day!

Linda Reimer, SSCL

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July Book Club Notes:

Our July Book Club gathering was via Zoom on Friday, July 9, 2021.

Our July read was Searching For Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok.

The cliff notes overview of the story, is that it tells the tale of the extended family of the main character, with an emphasis on the experiences of the main character, Sylvie, and her younger sister Amy.

The story also offers insight into the immigrate experience.

Sylvie and Amy are the daughters of Mr. & Mrs. Lee, who immigrated to the United States from China.

When the sister’s parents arrived in America, referred through in the text as “Ma” and “Pa”, they took manual jobs to make ends meet and money was very tight. So when Sylvie was two years old, they sent her to live with Mrs. Lee’s mother and cousin in the Netherlands ostensibly so she could have a better childhood. During the seven years Sylvie was living in the Netherlands, Amy was born in the U.S.; and being several years younger than Sylvie she was raised as the cosseted baby of the family. Sylvie returns to the U.S. to live with Ma, Pa & Amy when she is nine. The girls then spend the rest of their childhood and early adulthood living together and bonding as sisters.

When the story opens, Amy has taken a break from college, and Sylvie has already graduated from college, is successful in her profession, is married and has just flown to the Netherlands for the first time since she left years before; to visit their dying grandmother.

Not surprisingly, Amy looks up to her successful elder sister who seems to have it all. But of course, Amy’s perspective is that Sylvie has it all – Sylvie does not see herself as being successful and has found it hard to fit in while living in the Netherlands with her grandmother and second cousin’s family, while living with Amy and their parents in New York or, while going to school and working in America.

After Sylvie travels to the Netherlands, she disappears.

And then the story turns into a bit of a coming of age tale, as cosseted Amy now find herself taking charge of the search for Sylvie and uncovering not only what really happened to Sylvie; but answering the in-depth questions of why it happened as well.

The book club attendees at our July meeting enjoyed the book and its different facets and would recommend the read to others. And as only two of our book club members were able to attend the July meeting, I won’t give away the ending of the story by relaying what really happen to Sylvie Lee!

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August Book Club Notes:

Our August Book Club meeting was held at the library from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. on Friday, August 13.

Our August read was: The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan

The Keeper of Lost Things follows three groups of characters. As the book opens readers are introduced to two sets of characters, one set living in the present and one set living forty years in the past. Additionally, a third set of characters is introduced in each of ten short stories, which are interspersed at appropriate points in the book, including at the very beginning of the book, and which relay the story of how the lost things of the title got lost, and were found by Anthony Peardew.

The first group of characters, living in the present day, includes Anthony, a writer of short stories, the keeper of lost things and fiancée of a much loved and lost lady named Theresa, Anthony’s personal assistant Laura, his gardener Freddy and a sensitive teenager neighbor of Anthony’s named Sunshine.

The second group of characters, Eunice and Bomber are introduced living forty years in the past. Their story opens on the same day that Theresa died, with Eunice, who had been unhappy with her job, walking down the street, past the bakery in front of which Theresa died, on her way to a job interview with Bomber. As she walks she discovers a small keepsake on the ground, which she picks up and takes with her. She arrives at the office of a small publishing company, where she meets the owner/publisher Bomber and his canine assistant Douglas. Eunice interviews for the job, Bomber hires her and they become the best of friends, working and taking vacations together for decades.

And the third group of characters, consists of the characters in each short story. The short stories are fascinating as they add backstories for each of the lost and found objects. For example, the second short story focuses on a puzzle piece found in the street. And readers then learn the story of Sisters Maud and Gladys. Maud was a spoiled child who never rose above her self-centered-I-am-the-center-of-the-universe ideology; fortunately, for her family, when she was a young woman she married a rich man and moved away. In contrast, Maud’s sister Gladys was a good girl and a good daughter to their parents, living with them and taking care of them as they aged. Readers learn that when the sisters parents died, they left their house to Gladys, with the stipulation that Maud could live there too if she ever needed to. And as Murphy’s Law stipulates – that is exactly what happened. Maud’s husband died unexpectedly, and she discovered there wasn’t a penny left in his estate; so she moved into the family home and upended Gladys’s quiet life; coming across like a self-centered hurricane. During that time, Maud’s one big ambition is to finish a huge puzzle. And resentful, and put-upon Gladys knows this, so she steals a piece of the puzzle and drops it in the road while she is out on a walk. Thus the puzzle piece is “lost” and Anthony subsequently finds it.

The basic gist of this fun, escapist tale, is that present-day Anthony was engaged to Theresa who died suddenly while standing outside a bakery, forty years ago. Just before Theresa’s death she gave Anthony the small keepsake she received at her first communion, and made him promise that he would always keep it safe. On the day Theresa died, a distracted Anthony had the keepsake in his pocket and lost it. Thus Anthony felt he broke his promise to Theresa; and in the aftermath of her death he started to pick up lost objects he discovered, on his walks and travels, with the intent to return them to their owners one day. Anthony dies shortly after the book opens and leaves his assistant Laura his house and his money; with only one caveat – she must return all the lost things he found to their rightful owners.

As you might expect, the tales of the present and past characters eventually merge, and the book comes full circle in two main senses; firstly, the book opens with the first of the ten short stories, describing how Anthony found a box of ashes on a train, and ends with the ashes being returned to the person who lost them, with an explanation of just whose ashes they are and why they are important to the person that lost them. And secondly, the romance and engagement of Anthony and Theresa is echoed in the eventual romance and engagement of Anthony’s assistant Laura and her beau Freddy, a couple who by the end of the book have overcome a few obstacles, and who are engaged and looking forward to their wedding just as Anthony and Theresa were many years before.

And in a nutshell those are the three sets of characters and an overview of the novel The Keeper of Lost Things.

The book was enjoyed by book club members; although several members made comment on the fact that the main female characters in the book Laura and Eunice, allowed themselves to play second fiddle to men; in Laura’s case Anthony and in Eunice’s case Bomber; and they would have liked to have seen those two female characters empowered without their futures being so tied to the wishes of and desires of, respectively, Anthony and Bomber.

In Laura’s case, the course of her life, during the book, is in large part dictated by the caveat Anthony placed in his will – she inherits his entire estate with the stipulation that she return the lost items Anthony found to their owners, and that turns out to be a full time job. And in Eunice’s case, the course of her life is directed by Boomer, as he is the love of her life, but he can’t love her back, so she accepts a subservient role as his office assistant to be near him and keep him in her life.

The author of the Keeper of Lost Things, Ruth Hogan, is female and is sixty years of age; so perhaps she didn’t intend for readers to see Laura and Eunice as being somewhat subservient to Anthony and Bomber. And one could also say that Laura and Eunice could have taken a different routes – Laura could have refused to accept Anthony’s estate with his stipulation regarding the lost items; and Eunice could have quit working with Bomber at some point, taken a job elsewhere and looked for love with someone else. And both women do grow during the story and become more empowered as individuals – though the subservient point is certainly a valid one.

Other than that one point, the book club members enjoyed the book and recommend it!

–End of Book Club Notes!

Hello everyone, just a quick reminder to let you know that our first in-person Adult Book Club meeting, in more than a year, is approaching!

The gathering is this Friday, August 13 from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. in the library’s Conference Room (that is the room located in the back of the library, past the Reference Desk).

If you’re new to the book club, welcome! You can register for the August meeting by clicking on the following link:

Adult Book Club Online: “The Keeper of Lost Things: A Novel” by Ruth Hogan

On a pre-meeting note, the library now requires everyone to wear masks while attending programs in library meetings rooms. If you arrive at the library for our book club meeting on Friday, and don’t have a mask – let me know and I’ll get you one.

I hope to see everyone on Friday when will be discussing the lovely book The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan.

And looking to the future, here is a PDF listing our autumn reads

Have a great day everyone,
Linda

On A Final Future Note: The plan is to hold all future book club meetings at the library; unless things change with the Delta variant and we have to move back to doing the Book Club via Zoom; I’ll let you know if that turns out to be the case both via the blog, and if you’re previously registered for a book club meeting, via email.

Hi everyone, our June gathering will be via Zoom, on Friday, June 11, 2021 from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

If you’ve previously signed up for a book club meeting, and thus I have your email address; you don’t need to sign up again. I will send you the Zoom link the first week in June.

If you’re new to the Southeast Steuben Count Library Adult Book Club – welcome! You can sign up on the library’s website by clicking the following link:

https://ssclibrary.org/activities/adult-book-club-before-coffee-cold/

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Our June read is Before The Coffee Gets Cold (208 pages) written by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

The book is available in print form through StarCat; and for instant checkout as an eBook or digital audiobook through the Hoopla Catalog found online at

https://www.hoopladigital.com/browse/ebook

You can also download the Hoopla app to your mobile device to read the eBook or listen to the digital audiobook version.

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Here is the publisher overview of the plot of Before The Coffee Gets Cold:

What would you change if you could travel back in time?

Down a small alleyway in the heart of Tokyo, there’s an underground café that’s been serving carefully brewed coffee for over a hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers its customers something else besides coffee-the chance to travel back in time.

The rules, however, are far from simple: you must sit in one particular seat, and you can’t venture outside the café, nor can you change the present. And, most important, you only have the time it takes to drink a hot cup of coffee-or risk getting stuck forever.

Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of traveling to another time: a heartbroken lover looking for closure, a nurse with a mysterious letter from her husband, a waitress hoping to say one last goodbye and a mother whose child she may never get the chance to know.

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.

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May Book Club Notes:

The Adult Book Club meeting for May was held via Zoom from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. on Friday, May 14, 2021.

Our May Read was The Boy In The Field by Margot Livesey

The cliff notes overview of the book The Boy In The Field by Margot Livesey is:

Despite the title, the book really chronicles the experience of the three teenage Lang siblings: outgoing Zoe (age 16), studious Matthew (age 17) and artistic Duncan (age 13), who live in a tranquil, small village outside of the town where they attend school, with their father Hal, a blacksmith, and their mother Betsy a solicitor.

One day in September 1999, the sibling’s father promises to pick them up at school and forgets to do so.

So, the trio start walking home. As they walk by a field, bordered by a fence and bushes, Zoe sees something red in the field. Upon investigation, the siblings discover “The Boy” of the title, a youth they later learn is named Karel Lustig, lying beneath a tree in the field. Karel has been attacked by an unknown assailant and is unconscious.

The siblings realize that Karel needs help; so, the elder siblings, Zoe and Matthew, send the youngest Duncan to flag down a car for assistance. Once Duncan has finished his task he returns to his siblings and Karel, still lying unconscious in the field. The emergency crew arrive and take Karel to the hospital. The siblings go home, where later that evening they are visited by Police Inspector Price, who takes their statements regarding the incident and asks them not to discuss finding the boy in the field with anyone outside their household.

The story unfolds from there; the author paints a pleasing portrait of a family whose members genuinely care for each other and do their best to support each other through times easy and hard. The narrative starts out chronicling the experience of the siblings finding Karel in the field, together, and subsequent chapters follow each of the three siblings, in turn, in the aftermath of the event of finding the boy in the field. The story is indeed a Bildungsroman, as the impact of finding Karel in the field has the siblings in a contemplative mood in the months that follow, realizing there is evil in the world and sometimes people are treated abysmally for no good reason; while also, as teenagers do, trying to find where they fit in, in the world.

Readers also learn a bit more about “The Boy In The Field” himself, Karel Lustig by the end of the book; but as mentioned the book really isn’t his story; it is the story of three siblings who might live next door to any of us, and who they are impacted by a dark an unexpected event.

About The Writing: The author has something that is great for an author to have, the proverbial “way with words.” Her writing is descriptive and articulate without being packed with fluffy extraneous details; this is something the reader perceives from the first page of the book when she describes the sibling trio finding the Karel in the field  in this way: “Here is what happened one Monday in the month of September, in the last year of the last century;” “Matthew, Zoe, and Duncan Lang were on their way home from school,” when they came upon the boy in the field.

The consensus of book club members is that the book The Boy In The Field is definitely worth reading, and several book club members were also interested in checking out additional titles by the author.

Margot Livesey’s current reading list:

Homework (1990)

Criminals (1996)

The Missing World (2000)

Eva Moves the Furniture (2001)

Banishing Verona (2004)

The House on Fortune Street (2008)

The Flight of Gemma Hardy (2012)

Mercury (2016)

The Boy in the Field (2020)

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Other Items Discussed At The May Book Club Gathering Via Zoom:

In discussing how one event, like finding an unconscious youth in a field, can impact, or even transform, one’s life; we discussed the Ben Franklin attributed proverb For Want of a Nail.

For Want of a Nail
For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the message was lost.
For want of a message the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
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Other Books Recommended By Book Club Members:

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah: Texas, 1921. A time of abundance. The Great War is over, the bounty of the land is plentiful, and America is on the brink of a new and optimistic era. But for Elsa Wolcott, deemed too old to marry in a time when marriage is a woman’s only option, the future seems bleak. Until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli and decides to change the direction of her life. With her reputation in ruin, there is only one respectable choice: marriage to a man she barely knows.

By 1934, the world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as crops fail and water dries up and the earth cracks open. Dust storms roll relentlessly across the plains. Everything on the Martinelli farm is dying, including Elsa’s tenuous marriage; each day is a desperate battle against nature and a fight to keep her children alive.

In this uncertain and perilous time, Elsa- like so many of her neighbors – must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California, in search of a better life for her family.

The Four Winds is a rich, sweeping novel that stunningly brings to life the Great Depression and the people who lived through it – the harsh realities that divided us as a nation and the enduring battle between the haves and the have-nots. A testament to hope, resilience, and the strength of the human spirit to survive adversity, The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation. – Description from the publisher
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Sold on a Monday: A Novel by Kristina McMorris:  2 CHILDREN FOR SALE The sign is a last resort. It sits on a farmhouse porch in 1931, but could be found anywhere in an era of breadlines, bank runs and broken dreams. It could have been written by any mother facing impossible choices.

For struggling reporter Ellis Reed, the gut-wrenching scene evokes memories of his family’s dark past. He snaps a photograph of the children, not meant for publication. But when it leads to his big break, the consequences are more devastating than he ever imagined.

Inspired by an actual newspaper photograph that stunned the nation, Sold on a Monday is a powerful novel of love, redemption, and the unexpected paths that bring us home. – Description from the publisher
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Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow by Henry Louis Gates Jr.: A profound new rendering of the struggle by African-Americans for equality after the Civil War and the violent counter-revolution that resubjugated them, by the bestselling author of The Black Church.

The abolition of slavery in the aftermath of the Civil War is a familiar story, as is the civil rights revolution that transformed the nation after World War II. But the century in between remains a mystery: if emancipation sparked “a new birth of freedom” in Lincoln’s America, why was it necessary to march in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s America? In this new book, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., one of our leading chroniclers of the African-American experience, seeks to answer that question in a history that moves from the Reconstruction Era to the “nadir” of the African-American experience under Jim Crow, through to World War I and the Harlem Renaissance.

Through his close reading of the visual culture of this tragic era, Gates reveals the many faces of Jim Crow and how, together, they reinforced a stark color line between white and black Americans. Bringing a lifetime of wisdom to bear as a scholar, filmmaker, and public intellectual, Gates uncovers the roots of structural racism in our own time, while showing how African Americans after slavery combatted it by articulating a vision of a “New Negro” to force the nation to recognize their humanity and unique contributions to America as it hurtled toward the modern age.

The story Gates tells begins with great hope, with the Emancipation Proclamation, Union victory, and the liberation of nearly 4 million enslaved African-Americans. Until 1877, the federal government, goaded by the activism of Frederick Douglass and many others, tried at various turns to sustain their new rights. But the terror unleashed by white paramilitary groups in the former Confederacy, combined with deteriorating economic conditions and a loss of Northern will, restored “home rule” to the South. The retreat from Reconstruction was followed by one of the most violent periods in our history, with thousands of black people murdered or lynched and many more afflicted by the degrading impositions of Jim Crow segregation.

An essential tour through one of America’s fundamental historical tragedies, Stony the Road is also a story of heroic resistance, as figures such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells fought to create a counter-narrative, and culture, inside the lion’s mouth. As sobering as this tale is, it also has within it the inspiration that comes with encountering the hopes our ancestors advanced against the longest odds.

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Recommended Viewing:

One Lane Bridge, Season 1 (Available on DVD and through Acorn TV):

More a character study than a mystery; set in New Zealand – and the scenery is great!

And here is the IMDB overview of the series:
During a murder investigation at Queenstown’s infamous One Lane Bridge, ambitious young Maori Detective, Ariki Davis, inadvertently reawakens a spiritual gift that endangers the case, his career and his life.

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References

Margot Livesey. (n.d.). Fantastic Fiction. Retrieved May 21, 2021, from https://www.fantasticfiction.com/l/margot-livesey/

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Margot Livesey Professor Fiction. (n.d.). Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Retrieved April 21, 2021, from https://writersworkshop.uiowa.edu/people/margot-livesey

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Walsh, S. (2020, August 11). “Life is about change—whether we like it or not”: An Interview with Margot Livesey. Ploughshares. https://blog.pshares.org/life-is-about-change-whether-we-like-it-or-not-an-interview-with-margot-livesey/

https://www.fantasticfiction.com/l/margot-livesey/

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If you have questions about the book club, feel free to call the library at 607-936-3713 or send me an email to me at reimerl@stls.org

Have a great day,

Linda Reimer, SSCL

Hi everyone, I apologize for the delay! I just realized today, the day of the April book club meeting, that I didn’t post the list of titles book club attendees recommended in March – so here is the list!

Book Club Attendees Other Recommend Reads

During our March meeting we discussed other books that members recommend and they include:

American Dervish: A Novel by Ayad Akhtar:

From Pulitzer Prize winner Ayad Akhtar, a stirring and explosive debut novel about an American Muslim family in Michigan struggling with faith and belonging in the pre-9/11 world.

Hayat Shah is a young American in love for the first time. His normal life of school, baseball, and video games had previously been distinguished only by his Pakistani heritage and by the frequent chill between his parents, who fight over things he is too young to understand. Then Mina arrives, and everything changes.

American Dervish is a brilliantly written, nuanced, and emotionally forceful look inside the interplay of religion and modern life.

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The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson

The bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs returns with a gripping account of how Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues launched a revolution that will allow us to cure diseases, fend off viruses, and have healthier babies.

When Jennifer Doudna was in sixth grade, she came home one day to find that her dad had left a paperback titled The Double Helix on her bed. She put it aside, thinking it was one of those detective tales she loved. When she read it on a rainy Saturday, she discovered she was right, in a way. As she sped through the pages, she became enthralled by the intense drama behind the competition to discover the building block of life. Even though her high school counselor told her girls didn’t become scientists, she decided she would.

Driven by a passion to understand how nature works and to turn discoveries into inventions, she would help to make what the book’s author, James Watson, told her was the most important biological advance since his co-discovery of the structure of DNA. She and her collaborators turned their curiosity into an invention that will transform the human race: an easy-to-use tool that can edit DNA. Known as CRISPR, it opened a brave new world of medical miracles and moral questions.

The development of CRISPR and the race to create vaccines for coronavirus will hasten our transition to the next great innovation revolution. The past half-century has been a digital age, based on the microchip, computer, and internet. Now we are entering a life-science revolution. Children who study digital coding will be joined by those who study the code of life.

Should we use our new evolution-hacking powers to make us less susceptible to viruses? What a wonderful boon that would be! And what about preventing depression? Hmmm…Should we allow parents, if they can afford it, to enhance the height or muscles or IQ of their kids?

After helping to discover CRISPR, Doudna became a leader in wrestling with these moral issues and, with her collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier, won the Nobel Prize in 2020. Her story is a thrilling detective tale that involves the

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The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee

“Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee dazzled readers with his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies in 2010. That achievement was evidently just a warm-up for his virtuoso performance in The Gene: An Intimate History, in which he braids science, history, and memoir into an epic with all the range and biblical thunder of Paradise Lost” (The New York Times). In this biography Mukherjee brings to life the quest to understand human heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates, and choices.

“Mukherjee expresses abstract intellectual ideas through emotional stories…[and] swaddles his medical rigor with rhapsodic tenderness, surprising vulnerability, and occasional flashes of pure poetry” (The Washington Post). Throughout, the story of Mukherjee’s own family—with its tragic and bewildering history of mental illness—reminds us of the questions that hang over our ability to translate the science of genetics from the laboratory to the real world. In riveting and dramatic prose, he describes the centuries of research and experimentation—from Aristotle and Pythagoras to Mendel and Darwin, from Boveri and Morgan to Crick, Watson and Franklin, all the way through the revolutionary twenty-first century innovators who mapped the human genome.

“A fascinating and often sobering history of how humans came to understand the roles of genes in making us who we are—and what our manipulation of those genes might mean for our future” (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel), The Gene is the revelatory and magisterial history of a scientific idea coming to life, the most crucial science of our time, intimately explained by a master. “The Gene is a book we all should read” (USA TODAY).

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Mama Day by Gloria Naylor

A “wonderful novel” steeped in the folklore of the South from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Women of Brewster Place (The Washington Post Book World).

On an island off the coast of Georgia, there’s a place where superstition is more potent than any trappings of the modern world. In Willow Springs, the formidable Mama Day uses her powers to heal. But her great niece, Cocoa, can’t wait to get away.

In New York City, Cocoa meets George. They fall in love and marry quickly. But when she finally brings him home to Willow Springs, the island’s darker forces come into play. As their connection is challenged, Cocoa and George must rely on Mama Day’s mysticism.

Told from multiple perspectives, Mama Day is equal parts star-crossed love story, generational saga, and exploration of the supernatural. Hailed as Gloria Naylor’s “richest and most complex” novel, it is the kind of book that stays with you long after the final page (Providence Journal).

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Also recommended the non-profit website Living Room Conversations which was formed to, as aptly described on the site, offer  “a simple way to connect across divides – politics, age, gender, race, nationality, and more.:

Here is the website link: https://livingroomconversations.org/

Hope to see everyone at 3 p.m.!

Have a great day,

Linda Reimer, SSCL

Update! The April Adult Book Club meeting is being pushed forward a week and will be held on Friday, April 16, 2021 from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

And the change in date is due to the fact that I’m getting my second COVID shot on Friday, April 9, which is the original date of the April book club meeting, and as I know a number of people have experienced distracting symptoms after getting the second shot – I thought I’d reschedule the meeting, so I don’t find I need to cancel at the last moment!

As a reminder, the April book club read is The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

If you have previously registered for an SSCL Adult Book Club meeting you’ll get an email with the link today (3/23) and a reminder email including the same link on Monday, April 5.

If you’ve just discovered this blog and would like to register for the April SSCL Adult Book Club, here is the link, which will direct you to the registration page on the Southeast Steuben County Library website:

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I know moving the April meeting forward a week, will leave us less time before the May 14 Adult Book Club meeting; however, the May read, The Boy In The Field by Margot Livesey is relatively short – just 272 pages – so I’m sure we can all read that title in the three weeks in between meetings.

And as usual, if you find you can’t get a copy of the book club selection of the month, let me know and I’ll make sure you get a copy.

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And here are the Cliff Notes Takes on the February & March reads!

Cliff Notes Take on the February Read:

The February SSL Adult Book Club Selection was Ruth Ware’s One By One. The book is an intriguing thriller set at an isolated French chalet. As the story opens readers meet the two chalet staff members, Erin and Danny, who are getting ready to host the staff of an app company called Snoops The app allows music fans to listen, in real time, to whatever music other Snoop members, both famous and non-famous, are listening to in real time. The Snoops staff includes stockholders Eva, Topher, Rik & Liz and several support staff. Just after the Snoop crew arrives for their business vacation, Eva holds a meeting and announces that they have a buy-out offer that she is eager to accept; not all stockholders wish to sell the company and some, including Topher, are outraged that Eva has been in negotiation for a buy-out without telling the other stockholders. As the story progresses Eva suffers a suspicious “accident,” an avalanche partially buries the chalet leaving group stranded together and cut off from the rest of the world; and as murder ensues, readers discover that not all characters are quite who they seem to be.

The consensus of book club members was that One By One was an interesting thriller, with compelling characters and a story reminiscent of the works of Agatha Christie.

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Cliff Notes Take of the March Read:

The March SSCL Adult Book Club read was Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar.

Ayad Akhtar book is fiction, on the real-life experiences of Ayad, a first generation American and his family. In the book, the main character is also called Ayad Akhtar, and he is the only child of Pakistani immigrants Sikander and Fatima Akhtar. The book explores the world-view of Ayad who is American born and his Pakistani born parents, Sikander and Fatima; interspersing  experiences the trio has had during their lives and as they traverse the discriminatory climate in the U.S. Readers learn that Akhtar’s mother Fatima, despite always longing to return to Pakistan to live, experienced the horrors of war at a young age, and that Akhta’s father, who during the story works as  both as an academic and a practicing cardiologist, meets a fictional Donald Trump when that character is suffering from cardiac issues, and that despite experiencing discrimination as an immigrant, Sikander supports Donald Trump through all the years insisting that he is a good man and even voting or him; this despite evidence that indicates that the fictional Donald Trump is a racist.

The experiences of the main character, Ayad, are also relayed including how his college studies, particularly under his favorite Professor Mary Maroni have influenced his life and how his worldview has changed over time. There are also stories of how Ayed, an American citizen, must deal with discrimination, including an incident, in the aftermath of 9/11, when Ayed’s car breaks down and encounters a bigoted white police officer and his car-repair shop owning uncle who cheats Ayed by charging him an exorbitant amount to fix his car simply because both the nephew and uncle do not like that Ayed’s family comes from Pakistan.

Home Elegies is an enlightening read that follows several immigrant characters and one first-generation American, Ayed, who when asked while giving a Q&A following an academic lecture, near the end of the book, that if he thinks it is so difficult to live in America – then why does he stay? And he sums up a main theme of the book with his reply “I’m here because I was born and raised here. This is where I’ve lived my whole life. For better, for worse– and it’s always been a bit of both– I don’t want to be anywhere else. I’ve never even thought about it, America is my home.”

The book club members agreed Homeland Elegies is an excellent read. Highly recommend.

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Have a great day everyone,

Linda

Hi everyone, here is the info for our February read followed by a brief summary of our January read, The Cold Millions.

Our February read is the mystery One By One written by Ruth Ware; and our February meeting will take place from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. next Friday, February 12, 2021

If you’ve previously signed up for a book club meeting, and thus I have your email, you should receive an email with the Zoom link for our February gathering today (2/3/2021).

If you’re new to the Adult Book Club and would like to sign up for the February meeting, click on the following link to do so and after you sign up you’ll receive the email with the Zoom link.

Adult Book Club Online: “One by One” by Ruth Ware

January Book Club Notes:

The Adult Book Club meeting for January was held via Zoom from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. on Friday, January 8, 2021.

Book of the Month: The Cold Millions by Jess Walter

The Cold Millions opens in 1909 and relays the story of 16-year-old Rye Dolan who has been orphaned and, as the story opens, has been traveling & working across the northwestern United States with his older brother Gig; the pair are currently living in a boarding house in Spokane, Washington.

Gig Dolan, an idealist and ardent proponent of labor unions and the rights of workers is a member of the Industrial Workers of the World. Gig likes to migrant life of going from town to town working, while Rye would prefer to settle in one town and build a life in one location.

Gig is set to speak at a protest and has forbidden Rye to accompany him. Rye follows Gig to the protest anyway, where it is apparent to the reader, right off the bat, that the police and the owners of the local mining company are determined to squash the civil protest and the protesters by violence; completely ignoring the first amendment rights of the workers. Several speakers briefly stand up on soapboxes to give speeches and are forcibly pulled down and arrested by the police including both Gig and Rye. Both the Dolans are incarcerated and the conditions in the local jail are abysmal. Rye is released after a few days, once it is discovered he is underage, while Gig is held as a union ring-leader for months. When Rye is released from jail he is met by a lawyer working with the IWW Union and taken to meet one the IWW’s fiercest supporters, the charismatic Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. Flynn wants him to come on her upcoming speaking tour and relay his experiences of being mistreated by the police with an emphasis on the fact that he is underage.

Rye has quite the adventure traveling with Flynn and if you throw in an unscrupulous detective or two, a kind boarding house proprietor who can’t remember names, a car crash and the connection Rye makes with the family of a fellow worker and union supporter named Jules you have the basic outline of a well told story.

The majority opinion of the book club attendees was that Jess Walter is a terrific writer; and The Cold Millions is a great read if a tad dark around the edges.

Have a great day,

Linda Reimer, SSCL

Hi everyone, the January Adult Book Club Zoom gathering is tomorrow, Friday, January 8, 2021 at 3:00 p.m.

If you’ve previously registered for a book club gathering you should already have received an email with the Zoom link.

If you’re new to the book club – welcome!

You can register for the meeting, and be emailed the Zoom link, by clicking/tapping on the following link, which will take you to the registration page found on the calendar section of the library’s website, and filling out the short online registration form:

Adult Book Club Online: “The Cold Millions” by Jess Walter

Have a great day!

Linda Reimer, SSCL

If you have questions, send me an to reimerl@stls.org

Hi everyone, I’m finding it interesting in this strange, pandemic year that we area living in; that being home bound so much, one can still be super busy. I’m just not getting to typing up in-depth notes to the last two book club meetings and have thought that perhaps in-depth notes are not needed – I do tend to throw in everything but the kitchen sink when I write – brevity is hard for me! But just perhaps, readers of this blog only really want a brief description of the past reading selections; so briefly, in October and November our reading selections were, respectively, Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson and The Splendid And The Vile by Erik Larson.

Just Mercy was written by lawyer and civil rights activist Bryan Stevenson, and chronicles his career as a lawyer beginning when he was a young graduate, making his first visit to a prisoner in prison in Alabama and having an epiphany; that many prisoners were unfairly and illegally treated and had no legal representation. Stephenson realized that he could both connect with them in person, which they needed, and work to get them fair sentences or get them released if they were unjustly convicted of a crime.

Stephenson founded the Equal Justice Initiative to work on alleviating injustices in the legal system in the south; and he discusses many people in the book who are discriminated against by the legal system, particularly those living in poverty, including African Americans, women and the mentally ill.

Stephenson uses one prisoner as a prime illustration of the injustices of the legal system; his name is Walter McMillian. McMillian is a black man who was convicted of murdering a white woman by the local police. The police, who were having a hard time solving the murder, were desperate to turn press and government heat off themselves and used McMillan as a scapegoat. McMillan was tried and convicted of the murder, despite the fact that he couldn’t have committed the crime as he was as a barbeque surrounded by many eyewitnesses at the time the murder occurred. And despite what would seem to be an open and shut case of injustice – it took Stephenson years to get McMillian’s conviction overturned.

The book club attendees all concurred Just Mercy was an enlightening read focusing on injustices in the U.S. legal system – and that we as a nation have to do better.

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The November reading selection The Splendid And The Vile written by Erik Larson, chronicles the life of Winston Churchill, his family and select individuals involved the British government and war effort in that pivotal year of 1940. Ninety forty was Churchill’s first year as Prime Minster, the year Germany invaded France, France surrendered to the Germans, thousands of British and French soldiers made a hasty departure from Dunkirk, France to England, the German Luftwaffe repeatedly bombed England and Churchill did his best to encourage the isolationist U.S., represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to join in the war effort.

The book is a terrific read because, although many, many books have been written about Churchill, this one gives us a fly on the wall perspective via firsthand accounts from Churchill himself, his wife Clementine, his youngest daughter Mary, other members of the British government and others individuals showing us what life was like for people living in Britain in 1940. Mary Churchill, the future Lady Mary Soames, describes what it was like as a young person, of the upper social classes, to dine out and go dancing and then walk home in the wee hours of the morning through blackout darkened streets. And Churchill’s private secretary John Coville, described a Luftwaffe bombing of London in great detail, with the follow long and eloquent quote for his private journal “The Night was cloudless and starry, with the moon rising over Westminster. Nothing could have been more beautiful and the searchlights interlaced at certain points on the horizon the star-like flashes in the sky where shells were bursting the light of distant fires, all added to the scene. It was magnificent and terrible: the spasmodic drone of enemy aircraft overhead; the thunder of gunfire, sometimes close sometimes in the distance; the illumination, like that of electric trains in peace-time as the guns fire; and the myriad stars, real and artificial, in the firmament. Never was there such a contrast of natural splendor and human vileness. “

The book club members all agreed the Larson book was a very accessible one with readers getting to know the individuals whose firsthand accounts fill the pages of the book. The Splendid and the Vile, it was agreed, was a very interesting read, and highly recommended for history fans, albeit a bit long for a book club at 546 pages over 101 chapters.

The book club members agreed that in the future, we’ll keep our book club reading selections under 500 pages if at all possible!

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Our next book club gathering will be via Zoom on Friday, December 11, 2020.

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The SSCL Adult Book Club Reading List: December 2020 – May 2021

Book club meetings are on the second Friday of each month at 3:00 p.m. and patrons can register via the calendar page on the library’s website found here https://www.ssclibrary.org/activities/

December 2020: A Time For Mercy by John Grisham (465 pages)

January 2021: The Cold Millions by Jess Walter (352 pages)

February 2021: One by One by Ruth Ware (383 pages)

March 2021: Homeland Elegies: A Novel by Ayad Akhtar (369 pages)

April 2021: The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett (352 pages)

May 2021: The Boy in the Field by Margot Livesey (268 pages)

Have a great day,

Linda

Hi everyone, it has been an especially busy couple of weeks as the library has re-opened at its home in Civic Center Plaza!

Thus the lateness of this book club meeting reminder; apologies for the lateness of the reminder!

Regarding the library having re-opened; you can now drop by the library without an appointment to browse or use the computers during current library hours of operation which are:

Monday & Friday: 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Tuesday & Thursday: 11:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.

Saturday: 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Curbside pickup is still available too – to make an appointment for curbside pick up call the library at 607-936-3713

Having said all of that, back to the subject of our book club meeting for November!

Our November read is The Splendid And The Vile by Erik Larson.

Our meeting is tomorrow, Friday, November 13, via Zoom, from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

To register for the meeting, and be emailed the Zoom link, click on the following link which will take you to the registration page found on the library’s website:

Adult Book Club Online: “The Splendid and the Vile” by Erik Larson

Have a great day!

Linda Reimer, SSCL