Hi everyone, the August Southeast Steuben County Library Book Club gathering originally scheduled for tomorrow, Friday, August 9, 2024, is cancelled due to the impending inclement weather, courtesy of Hurricane Debby.

Our August gathering is rescheduled for next Friday, August 16, 2024 from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

Copies of both the August Read: Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt and our upcoming September Read: Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian are available at the Circulation Desk and can be picked up at any time. I imagine most people already have a copy of Remarkably Bright Creatures, but just FYI, in case someone who couldn’t make our originally scheduled gathering is available to come next week.

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And here are the belated notes from our July gathering with our July recommended reads:

July Notes: On The July Read: The Amazing Gracie Adams by Fran Littlewood

Our July Read was The Amazing Grace Adams by Fran Littlewood. The novel was a Read With Jenna recommendation and told the story of the lead character, Gracie Adams, who readers learn as the story unfolds, is a middle aged former linguist-turned-stay-at-home-mom, going through perimenopause & a mid-life crisis, while simultaneously trying to cope in the aftermath of a family tragedy which facilitated the breakup of her marriage.  

The novel can be compared to the film Falling Down (1993), starring Michael Douglas, as just as the lead character in the Douglas film gets to a point where he has had enough stress, says the proverbial “when” and then  deviates from societal norms, having a walking about kind of a day along the way, so too Gracie, just gets out of her car, in the middle of a traffic jam and walks away; determinedly walking toward a bakery located miles away to pick up a birthday cake for her estranged daughter. And Gracie too has walk-about kind of journey which ends with less of a bang than the Douglas film (no spoilers here, in case you haven’t seen the movie!), but still resolves the previous stress and crisis in Gracie’s life and allows her to move on. 

The general consensus of the book club members was to give this title two thumbs down; the general impression was that Gracie was too angry during the book, and her reaction to what was going on in her life was too over the top to be credible; so I think we can fairly say, The Amazing Gracie Adams, wasn’t really amazing!

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On Our 2025 Schedule: Looking forward to 2025, I have yet to select books to read and discuss for 2025. And am looking for suggestions! So, if anyone has read any terrific books they’d like us to read and discuss in the next year, let me know, and/or bring a list to book club next Friday.

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Book Club Members Recommended Reads: July Edition

Books:

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt: “An urgent and provocative read on why so many kids are not okay—and how to course correct. Jonathan Haidt makes a powerful case that the shift from play-based to phone-based childhoods is wreaking havoc on mental health and social development. Even if you’re not ready to ban smartphones until high school, this book will challenge you to rethink how we nurture the potential in our kids and prepare them for the world.” —Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Potential and Think Again, and host of the TED podcast Re:Thinking

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Enlightenment: A Novel by Sarah Perry: “Stunning…Perry’s shimmering prose draws readers gradually into the story, until suddenly, we are captivated by the rich, psychologically complex, and intimate characters as they grapple philosophically with issues of faith, religion, science, astronomy, and love in all its guises. Most impressive are Perry’s command of language and the extensive knowledge of astronomy and physics that she nimbly incorporates into the narrative. With brilliant storytelling, Perry’s novel of dichotomies portrays how elliptical our lives are—very much like the movement of the stars.” — Booklist (starred review)

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Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health by Casey Means MD: “Fitness and healthy food should be at the center of how we think about preventing and reversing disease and obesity — but they aren’t. Good Energy explains why this is the case and provides readers tactical tips to take their power back. Calley and Casey Means are bold siblings on a mission who communicate timeless and accessible metabolic principles that anyone can implement.” – Jillian Michaels, fitness and nutrition expert and author.

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Hannah’s Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth by Catherine Pakaluk: A portrait of America’s most interesting yet overlooked women.

In the midst of a historic “birth dearth,” why do some 5 percent of American women choose to defy the demographic norm by bearing five or more children? Hannah’s Children is a compelling portrait of these overlooked but fascinating mothers who, like the biblical Hannah, see their children as their purpose, their contribution, and their greatest blessing.

The social scientist Catherine Pakaluk, herself the mother of eight, traveled across the United States and interviewed fifty-five college-educated women who were raising five or more children. Through open-ended questions, she sought to understand who these women are, why and when they chose to have a large family, and what this choice means for them, their families, and the nation.

Hannah’s Children is more than interesting stories of extraordinary women. It presents information that is urgently relevant for the future of American prosperity. Many countries have experimented with aggressively pro-natalist public policies, and all of them have failed. Pakaluk finds that the quantitative methods to which the social sciences limit themselves overlook important questions of meaning and identity in their inquiries into fertility rates. Her book is a pathbreaking foray into questions of purpose, religion, transcendence, healing, and growth—questions that ought to inform economic inquiry in the future.

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The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend by Bob Drury, Tom Clavin: Exquisitely told . . . Remarkably detailed . . . The story of Red Cloud’s unusual guile and strategic genius makes the better-known Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse pale in comparison. . . . This is no knee-jerk history about how the West was won, or how the West was lost. This historical chronicle is unabashed, unbiased and disturbingly honest, leaving no razor-sharp arrowhead unturned, no rifle trigger unpulled. . . . A compelling and fiery narrative. – USA Today

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In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife by Sebastian Junger: A near-fatal health emergency leads to this powerful reflection on death—and what might follow—by the bestselling author of Tribe and The Perfect Storm.

For years as an award-winning war reporter, Sebastian Junger traveled to many front lines and frequently put his life at risk. And yet the closest he ever came to death was the summer of 2020 while spending a quiet afternoon at the New England home he shared with his wife and two young children. Crippled by abdominal pain, Junger was rushed to the hospital by ambulance. Once there, he began slipping away. As blackness encroached, he was visited by his dead father, inviting Junger to join him. “It’s okay,” his father said. “There’s nothing to be scared of. I’ll take care of you.” That was the last thing Junger remembered until he came to the next day when he was told he had suffered a ruptured aneurysm that he should not have survived.

This experience spurred Junger—a confirmed atheist raised by his physicist father to respect the empirical—to undertake a scientific, philosophical, and deeply personal examination of mortality and what happens after we die. How do we begin to process the brutal fact that any of us might perish unexpectedly on what begins as an ordinary day? How do we grapple with phenomena that science may be unable to explain? And what happens to a person, emotionally and spiritually, when forced to reckon with such existential questions?

In My Time of Dying is part medical drama, part searing autobiography, and part rational inquiry into the ultimate unknowable mystery.

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The Measure by Nikki Erlick: One day, everyone on Earth receives a small wooden box bearing the inscription “The measure of your life lies within” and containing a length of string—with different lengths for different recipients. Terrified to contemplate how much time they have to live, people fall back frantically on past belief or forge bold new connections as debuter Erlick considers how best to live life. – Library Journal

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Memoir of the Sunday Brunch by Julia Pandl: For Julia Pandl, the rite of passage into young-adulthood included mandatory service at her family’s restaurant, where she watched as her father—who was also the chef—ruled with the strictness of a drill sergeant.

At age twelve, Julie was initiated into the rite of the Sunday brunch, a weekly madhouse at her father’s Milwaukee-based restaurant, where she and her eight older siblings before her did service in a situation of controlled chaos, learning the ropes of the family business and, more important, learning life lessons that would shape them for all the years to come. In her wry memoir, she looks back on those formative years, a time not just of growing up but, ultimately, of becoming a source of strength and support as the world her father knew began to change into a tougher, less welcoming place.

Part coming-of-age story a‘ la The Tender Bar, part win- dow into the mysteries of the restaurant business a‘ la Kitchen Confidential, Julie Pandl provides tender wisdom about the bonds between fathers and daughters and about the simple pleasures that lie in the daily ritual of breaking bread. This honest and exuberant memoir marks the debut of a writer who discovers that humor exists in even the smallest details of our lives and that the biggest moments we ever experience can happen behind the pancake station at the Sunday brunch.

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Swimming Back to Trout River: A Novel by Linda Rui Feng: “During the tumultuous years of China’s Cultural Revolution, 10-year-old Junie receives a letter from her parents in the United States promising to come retrieve her before her 12th birthday, but Junie doesn’t want to leave her grandparents or the Chinese countryside. Her reluctance could derail her parents’ plan, especially since long-buried family secrets and their individual struggles have already driven them apart.”—GOOD HOUSEKEEPING (25 Best Historical Fiction Books to Take You Back in Time)

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Videos:

All The Light We Cannot See (2023) (Netflix): In the final days of WWII, the paths of a blind French girl and a German soldier collide. Based on Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller.

The Bear, Season 2 (2024) (Hulu): A young chef from the fine dining world comes home to Chicago to run his family sandwich shop after a heartbreaking death in his family. A world away from what he’s used to, Carmy must balance the soul-crushing realities of small business ownership, his strong-willed and recalcitrant kitchen staff and his strained familial relationships, all while grappling with the impact of his brother’s suicide. As Carmy fights to transform both the shop and himself, he works alongside a rough-around-the-edges kitchen crew that ultimately reveals itself as his chosen family. – IMDB Overview

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Book Club for Adults September – December Schedule:

September 13, 2024: Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian (320 pages) (copies of our Sept. read can be picked up at the library now!)

October 11, 2024: Mrs. Nash’s Ashes by Sarah Adler (352 pages) 

November 8, 2024: The Great Divide by Cristina Henriquez (331 pages) 

December 13, 2024: Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (352 pages) 

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Have a great day everyone!

Linda Reimer, SSCL

reimerl@stls.org

Hi everyone, pasted below are the notes for our May & June 2024 gatherings!

First thought, on an FYI note, here is the information on our July Book Club for Adults Gathering.

Location: Southeast Steuben County Library Conference Room

Date: Friday, July 12, 2024 | Time: 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

July Read: The Amazing Grace Adams by Fran Littlewood

And here are the May & June notes!

Post Meeting Notes: May & June 2024  

Our May 2024 read was The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride  

Book club attendees liked our May Read, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.   

The observation was made that the promotional material for the book gives the impression that there is a big mystery to solve in the book; that mystery being, just whose body is discovered at the bottom of an old well in the Chicken Hill section of Pottstown, Pennsylvania? How did he meet his end? Was he murdered? The old skeleton is found at beginning of the novel, which actually starts at the end of the story in June 1972; and just after the skeleton is discovered, and before an investigation can be launched, Hurricane Agnes roars up the coast of the eastern United States and washes away the bones and any residual evidence.  

However, the novel really isn’t a murder mystery; instead, it is a portrait of a community on the fringe, beginning in the 1920s. The old community consisted of African Americans and Jews who weren’t welcome in the white Christian parts of town; and the novel relays the trials and tribulations of several impactful members of the local community including:  

Chona Flohr, the daughter of Rabbi Flohr, owner of the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, who marries Moshe Ludlow and later shields young Dodo from Dr. Roberts and the local Klu Klux Klan.   

Addie and Nate Timblin, a black couple who take in their young, orphaned nephew Dodo. Dodo is very smart but deaf and members of the local Klu Klux Klan think the boy should be institutionalized.  Addie and Nate are devoted to Dodo and work hard to keep him out of the hands of the local Klu Klux Klan arraigning for Dodo to stay with Chona and Moshe Ludlow.   

Dr. Earl Roberts, a member of the local Klu Klux Klan who works on investigating Dodo, as a preamble to having him institutionalized.  Dr. Roberts is an infamous person among the local community as he is known both for his K.K.K. affiliation, for seeing himself as being better than everyone else and treating other people, especially non-whites, accordingly.  

Late in the story, decades in the past, an inebriated Dr. Roberts, is mistaken for someone else, is beaten up and falls into the open well, where the work men attending to the well do not see his body. Thus, there is a murder of sorts, but it is one of mistaken identity and readers can be pleased that the despicable Dr. Roberts got his moral comeuppance.   

And in an attempt at brevity, not something this typist is good at! I should also note; that the number one pillar of the Chicken Hill community, in the days of old was Chona Ludlow who ran the Heaven & Eart Grocery Store, shielded young Dodo from the K.K.K. and grew to love him dearly; she also loved her community and treated other members of the community accordingly.  

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Our June 2024 read was Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward   

 Several members noted that they found the use of metaphysical spirits in the book a bit confusing and/or thought it detracted from the story; and the consensus of book club members was to give the title a “read it!” thumbs up.  

Let Us Descend, is set during the pre-Civil War slavery era, tells both the tale of Annis, the third generation in her matriarchal line to be enslaved in the United States; and gives readers a glimpse of what it was like to be a female slave in United States during that era; when enslaved women not only were directed in what they did during all their lives, but also didn’t even have autonomy over their own bodies, being treated at best as disrespected, disposable property.   

Annis’s grandmother Aza, known as Mama Aza, was born in Africa, was the warrior wife of an African King, was sold into slavery by her husband when her affair with another man was discovered, and taught her daughter Sasha the defensive and survival skills she had learned as a warrior wife.  Sasha in turn, trains Annis in those same skills during private nighttime practice sessions. Annis was repeatedly raped by her owner, and Annis’s biological father, who is referred to in the text only as Annis’s “Sire.”  

Young Annis is an intelligent girl and clandestinely listens to her white half-sister’s lessons with their tutor. She is especially taken with Dante’s Inferno and its description of people going to and climbing out of hell; and it is the descent to hell described in that story, from which the author selected the title of this story – Let Us Descend.   

When Annis becomes a young woman, her Sire begins to eye her, intending to rape her as he did her mother. He tries to trap her in his bedroom while she is cleaning; her mother Sasha steps in and calls Annis to come out of the room and join her in the hallway of the big house, where they both were working, to go home for the day.  

In retaliation, the Sire sells Sasha. Subsequently, Annis suffers a deep depression and is only, eventually, brought out of her depression by her friendship and love of a fellow female slave Safi. The young girls take comfort in their relationship, but are unfortunately spotted kissing by Annis’s Sire and as a result are sold to “The Georgia Man.” The girls are then marched south from the Carolina’s to New Orleans to be sold. They are forced to walk chain-gang style, roped together so that if one person stumbles or falls, all people in the line are impacted. The conditions are worse than deplorable. The slaves must march on foot for the whole journey in oppressive heat and are given little food. During the march Safi is untied, taken out of the line and raped by one of the white overseers who then does not retie her bonds tightly enough. Safi is then able to untie her bond, free herself and escapes; she asks Annis to come with her. However, Annis, who by this time has encounter a spirit calling herself Mama Aza, but who is not the spirit of her grandmother, isn’t sure whether she should try and escape or not, the latter course of action being the advice of Spirit Aza, so she stays with the group and completes the march to New Orleans.   

Once in New Orleans, Annis is sold to a plantation where the man of the house spends his time conducting business in a nearby town, leaving his cruel wife to oversee his estate. The wife holds an iron rod over all activity on the estate. The slaves are not properly fed, are always hungry and are forced to do a variety of hard labor; they are also put in a hole-in-the-ground for the smallest, or even an imagined, transgression.   

Once at the new plantation, Annis gets to know some of the other slaves including the inseparable friends Esther and Mary, and eventually she also encounters Esther’s brother Bastian. Bastian escaped from slavery, lives in the wilderness near the plantation and occasionally brings his sister food. Subsequently Annis and Bastian have a brief consensual sexual encounter.  

Annis is twice put in the hole-in-the-ground, and the second time she decides to break free, escape and uses the survival skills passed down to her from her African Grandmother Aza to live on her own deep in the wilderness.  

Annis hikes far into a huge swamp, finds an abandoned cabin whose previous occupants died of yellow fear, and there sets up her small homestead. She rests and works on gathering food for several days and then realizes she is pregnant. She decides to raise her child in the swamp and teach her daughter the same survival skills that were passed down to her from her mother and grandmother.   

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Looking ahead, our next Book Club for Adults gathering will be held at the library from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m., on Friday, July 12, 2024.   

We’ll be reading the book: Amazing Grace Adams by Fran Littlewood   

This book has received good reviews, and I’ve discovered it has a bit more drama to it than I initially thought. The book is set in contemporary England and tells the tale of the middle age Grace Adams, who is going through a difficult Perimenopause, is separated from her husband and trying to reconnect with her estranged teenage daughter. As the book opens, Grace is picking up an expensive cake for her daughter’s birthday and is determined to deliver it to her and talk to her as well. Naturally, Murphy’s Law applies, and directly after picking up the cake she gets stuck in a traffic jam; in Perimenopausal frustration Grace abandons her car determined to take the cake to her daughter even if she must walk miles to her daughter’s birthday party. And as the story unfolds readers discover Grace’s tale, which includes a look at her past, how she was amazing linguist who was determined to have a brilliant career, how she fell in love with her husband Ben and her career plans changed; and how the unexpected death of a family member pushed everyone in Grace’s family to the breaking point.  

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Book Club Member’s Recommended Reads May & June 2024:  

Titles are all books unless otherwise specified. 

American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden by Katie Rogers: In 1993, the differences between the outgoing president, patrician George H. W. Bush, and the newly elected, folksy Bill Clinton could not have been more telling. The contrast between their wives was equally stark. While Barbara Bush appeared as an irascible matron, Hillary Clinton presented the epitome of feminist ambition. With her assignment to shepherd sweeping new health care legislation, Clinton’s tenure as First Lady morphed from a traditional ceremonial post to something of significance. By its very nature, the office’s unstructured portfolio exposes its occupants to open interpretation by themselves and others. If Jill Biden is famously hands-on in protecting and advising husband Joe, Melania Trump was infamously hands-off, to the point of inscrutability. For other FLOTUSes, their mandate was a manifestation of their core identities. Former librarian Laura Bush championed literacy. For Michelle Obama, with her controversially toned arms, the cause was health and nutrition. As the New York Times’ White House correspondent, Rogers rigorously examines the notion of legacy and the first lady in the modern era. These women, she maintains, are “the most known (and often least understood) women in America.” Rogers’ unerring journalistic evaluation of the person behind the post should help change all that. – Starred Booklist Review  

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A Brilliant Life: My Mother’s Inspiring True Story of Surviving the Holocaust by Rachelle Unreich: A Holocaust story is never an easy read, but A Brilliant Life has such a harrowing prologue that it throws the reader right into the thick of it, so be prepared. Stories of ageing and dying parents can be tearful at times, too, but there’s hope and beauty in this ‘brilliant’ biography. Journalist Rachelle Unreich has vividly captured her mother Mira’s bright spirit, both through her accounts of Mira’s earlier life and through the modern-day first-person moments interspersed throughout the book. Born in Czechoslovakia in 1927, Mira was 17 when she was taken to the first of four concentration camps, surviving each one thanks to people who, in her words, ‘helped me without getting benefit from it themselves’. Unflinching information is included about Mira’s experiences in Plaszow, Birkenau, Auschwitz, and on the arduous death march to Ravensbrück in Germany, when even her inimitable spirit seems about to break. Well researched but never dry, the book shines when describing Mira’s family and her capacity to see light through horrific darkness and notice the moments of serendipity. After a long and captivating life, Mira is living with terminal cancer in her home in Melbourne in 2016, and her daughter interviews her while she still has time. We are brought into the family fold and invited to join them in Mira’s final days, enjoying the richness of the storytelling the way we might at a Shabbat meal. – Publishers Weekly Review  

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Celtic Ways to Pray: Finding God in the Natural Elements by Ruth Lindberg Pattison:  

Celtic traditions point to God in the natural elements in this refreshing take on how to pray. 

Where is God when we pray? Artist and priest Ruth Pattison looks to the legacy of Celtic spirituality to say God is in all of creation that surrounds us—earth, fire, water, air—and not up in the clouds. She invites the reader into a grounded spirituality rooted deep in Celtic tradition that sees everything as infused with the Spirit—including humanity. 

The material will deepen the experience of worship with creative hands-on spiritual practices for the context of liturgy. It can also be used for creating the structure and substance of retreats, spiritual formation classes, and for helping parents who want to learn to pray with children. 

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Finding Freedom: A Cook’s Story; Remaking a Life from Scratch by Erin French: French, owner of the highly regarded Lost Kitchen Restaurant in a small Maine town called Freedom, candidly writes about becoming a successful chef and mother. The author takes us out of the kitchen to draw a picture of her growth and evolution into a personally and professionally successful woman in small-town New England. French’s life is not all smooth sailing; a childhood of searching for parental approval while helping out in the family diner takes a sharp turn when French finds herself pregnant as a young woman. The next several years are punctuated by both successes and failures, culminating in a challenging struggle with addiction and overcoming the effects of a toxic marriage. The writing is frank and, particularly when related to her struggle to regain custody of her son, heart-wrenching. The redemptive arc of the final chapters is satisfying and will leave readers wanting to know more about the author’s life and the band of restaurant workers she has brought together. VERDICT Openly sharing insight on overcoming difficult family dynamics and on struggling with addiction, French has written a standout chef memoir that will have readers turning the pages. -Starred Library Journal Review  

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Lessons in Cadence: Discover the Tools, Tactics And Mindset Necessary to Turn Towards the Path of Recovery Against the Struggle Within by Eric Basek, Curt Miller, et al.: Former Police Officer, Eric Basek spent five months interviewing nine exceptional individuals whose path of service demanded a heavy sacrifice. Each of the stories you will read herein are the tales of heroes; five military veterans, and four police officers, whose journey through life took them along a path of adversity, sorrow, tragedy and ultimately triumph over the traumas they all suffered through. In reading these stories, you will not only find the common threads that tie all of their journeys together, but hopefully also the ones that tie all of their journeys with your own. 

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Life: My Story Through History: Pope Francis’s Inspiring Biography Through History by Pope Francis and Aubrey Botsford: Pope Francis (A Good Life) provides a plainspoken overview of how some of the most significant events of the 20th and early 21st centuries shaped his life and morals. Among other episodes, he examines how the news from Nazi Germany he heard during his childhood in Argentina awoke him to “the persecution of Jews”; remembers watching the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, a recollection that leads him to call for Christians to build “bridges instead of barriers”; and suggests that the events of September 11 offer a lesson in the importance of decrying “the use of the name of God to justify slaughter.” Elsewhere, Francis covers the creation of the EU, the 2007–2008 Great Recession, and the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite a tendency to meander (as when his recollection of the 1969 moon landing awkwardly launches into a critique of technology’s ills), readers will be fascinated by the insights into how these historical events influenced a transformative pope who broke with his more conservative predecessors by recognizing and blessing same-sex civil unions and entertaining the possibility that atheists could go to heaven. Catholics will value this chance to see the leader of their church in a fresh light. – Publishers Weekly  

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Long Island by Colm Tóibín: The quietly devastating sequel to Brooklyn picks up two decades later with Eilis Lacey, now in her 40s, hemmed in by her overbearing in-laws on Long Island in 1976. First Eilis discovers that her husband, Tony, has been unfaithful, then she learns his family has decided without her consent to raise the child of his illicit affair. Furious, Eilis returns to Enniscorthy, the small town in Ireland she left in the 1950s, and arranges for her and Tony’s teenaged daughter and son to join her there to celebrate her mother’s birthday. Eilis hasn’t been back since the death of her sister, Rose, many years earlier. On that trip, though she was already married to Tony without her family’s knowledge, she fell in love with pub owner Jim Farrell. Jim has never married but is soon to become engaged to the widow Nancy Sheridan, Eilis’s dear old friend. Now, Eilis’s second homecoming upends life in the village as she and Nancy each stumble toward what they believe they deserve, and Jim considers what’s more important: his commitments or his desires. Tóibín is brilliant at tallying the weight of what goes unsaid between people (“They could do everything except say out loud what it was they were thinking”), and at using quotidian situations to illuminate longing as a universal and often-inescapable aspect of the human condition. Tóibín’s mastery is on full display here. – Starred Publishers Weekly Review  

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The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann by Ananyo Bhattacharya: An electrifying biography of one of the most extraordinary scientists of the twentieth century and the world he made. 

The smartphones in our pockets and computers like brains. The vagaries of game theory and evolutionary biology. Nuclear weapons and self-replicating spacecrafts. All bear the fingerprints of one remarkable, yet largely overlooked, man: John von Neumann. 

 Born in Budapest at the turn of the century, von Neumann is one of the most influential scientists to have ever lived. A child prodigy, he mastered calculus by the age of eight, and in high school made lasting contributions to mathematics. In Germany, where he helped lay the foundations of quantum mechanics, and later at Princeton, von Neumann’s colleagues believed he had the fastest brain on the planet—bar none. He was instrumental in the Manhattan Project and the design of the atom bomb; he helped formulate the bedrock of Cold War geopolitics and modern economic theory; he created the first ever programmable digital computer; he prophesized the potential of nanotechnology; and, from his deathbed, he expounded on the limits of brains and computers—and how they might be overcome. 

Taking us on an astonishing journey, Ananyo Bhattacharya explores how a combination of genius and unique historical circumstance allowed a single man to sweep through a stunningly diverse array of fields, sparking revolutions wherever he went. The Man from the Future is an insightful and thrilling intellectual biography of the visionary thinker who shaped our century. 

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The Messy Lives of Book People by Phaedra Patrick: The house cleaner of a famous author must carry out her employer’s shocking last wish in this delightful new novel from beloved author Phaedra Patrick 

 Mother of two Liv Green barely scrapes by as a maid to make ends meet, often finding escape in a good book while daydreaming of becoming a writer herself. So she can’t believe her luck when she lands a job housekeeping for her personal hero, megabestselling author Essie Starling, a mysterious and intimidating recluse. The last thing Liv expected was to be the only person Essie talks to, which leads to a tenuous friendship. 

When Essie passes away suddenly, Liv is astonished to learn that her dying wish was for Liv to complete her final novel. But to do so Liv will have to step into Essie’s shoes. As Liv begins to write, she uncovers secrets from the past that reveal a surprising connection between the two women—one that will change Liv’s own story forever… 

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Miracle at St. Anna by James McBride: MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA chronicles the story of four black American soldiers who are members of the US Army as part of the all-black 92nd Buffalo Soldier Division stationed in Tuscany, Italy during World War II. They experience the tragedy and triumph of the war as they find themselves trapped behind enemy lines and separated from their unit after one of them risks his life to save an Italian boy. Directed by Spike Lee from a screenplay written by James McBride, the author of the acclaimed novel of the same name, the film explores a deeply inspiring, powerful story drawn from true history, that transcends national boundaries, race, and class to touch the goodness within us all. 

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Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning by Liz Cheney: In the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump and many around him, including certain other elected Republican officials, intentionally breached their oath to the Constitution: they ignored the rulings of dozens of courts, plotted to overturn a lawful election, and provoked a violent attack on our Capitol.   Liz Cheney, one of the few Republican officials to take a stand against these efforts, witnessed the attack first-hand, and then helped lead the Congressional Select Committee investigation into how it happened. In Oath and Honor, she tells the story of this perilous moment in our history, those who helped Trump spread the stolen election lie, those whose actions preserved our constitutional framework, and the risks we still face. 

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The Orphan Collector by Ellen Marie Wiseman 

In the fall of 1918, thirteen-year-old German immigrant Pia Lange longs to be far from Philadelphia’s overcrowded slums and the anti-immigrant sentiment that compelled her father to enlist in the U.S. Army. But as her city celebrates the end of war, an even more urgent threat arrives: the Spanish flu. Funeral crepe and quarantine signs appear on doors as victims drop dead in the streets and desperate survivors wear white masks to ward off illness. When food runs out in the cramped tenement she calls home, Pia must venture alone into the quarantined city in search of supplies, leaving her baby brothers behind. 

Bernice Groves has become lost in grief and bitterness since her baby died from the Spanish flu. Watching Pia leave her brothers alone, Bernice makes a shocking, life-altering decision. It becomes her sinister mission to tear families apart when they’re at their most vulnerable, planning to transform the city’s orphans and immigrant children into what she feels are “true Americans.” 

Waking in a makeshift hospital days after collapsing in the street, Pia is frantic to return home. Instead, she is taken to St. Vincent’s Orphan Asylum – the first step in a long and arduous journey. As Bernice plots to keep the truth hidden at any cost in the months and years that follow, Pia must confront her own shame and fear, risking everything to see justice – and love – triumph at last. Powerful, harrowing, and ultimately exultant, The Orphan Collector is a story of love, resilience, and the lengths we will go to protect those who need us most. 

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The Secret Garden (Movie; there are several versions, the 2020 edition with Colin Furth was mentioned): Adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s beloved story about Mary Lennox, a troubled, sickly, orphaned to live with an uncle after her parents have died in a cholera outbreak in India. 

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The Tobacco Wives by Adele Myers: North Carolina, 1946. One woman. A discovery that could rewrite history. 

Maddie Sykes is a burgeoning seamstress who’s just arrived in Bright Leaf, North Carolina—the tobacco capital of the South—where her aunt has a thriving sewing business. After years of war rations and shortages, Bright Leaf is a prosperous wonderland in full technicolor bloom, and Maddie is dazzled by the bustle of the crisply uniformed female factory workers, the palatial homes, and, most of all, her aunt’s glossiest clientele: the wives of the powerful tobacco executives. 

But she soon learns that Bright Leaf isn’t quite the carefree paradise that it seems. A trail of misfortune follows many of the women, including substantial health problems, and although Maddie is quick to believe that this is a coincidence, she inadvertently uncovers evidence that suggests otherwise. 

Maddie wants to report what she knows, but in a town where everyone depends on Big Tobacco to survive, she doesn’t know who she can trust—and fears that exposing the truth may destroy the lives of the proud, strong women with whom she has forged strong bonds. 

Shedding light on the hidden history of women’s activism during the post-war period, at its heart, The Tobacco Wives is a deeply human, emotionally satisfying, and dramatic novel about the power of female connection and the importance of seeking truth. 

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Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy by Frances Mayes: (This description is for the book; the 2003 movie, based on the book is also good) 

Mayes’s favorite guide to Northern Italy allots seven pages to the town of Cortona, where she owns a house. But here she finds considerably more to say about it than that, all of it so enchanting that an armchair traveler will find it hard to resist jumping out of the chair and following in her footsteps. The recently divorced author is euphoric about the old house in the Tuscan hills that she and her new lover renovated and now live in during summer vacations and on holidays. A poet, food-and-travel writer, Italophile and chair of the creative writing department at San Francisco State University, Mayes is a fine wordsmith and an exemplary companion whose delight in a brick floor she has just waxed is as contagious as her pleasure in the landscape, architecture and life of the village. Not the least of the charms of her book are the recipes for delicious meals she has made. Above all, her observations about being at home in two very different cultures are sharp and wise. 

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With Arm’s Reach by Ann Napolitano  

In Napolitano’s wonderful first novel, deftly told from six points of view, a New Jersey family bears witness to the cycle of life. The matriarch of the Irish-American McLaughlin clan, Catharine, is living in a care facility, her “whole life one room.” On the other end of the spectrum, Catharine’s unmarried granddaughter, Gracie, is pregnant by a man she doesn’t love. The news is a surprise: Gracie wishes she’d conceived immaculately; her sister, Lila, can’t believe Gracie’s pregnant again; and Catharine has hangups about illegitimacy. Napolitano gracefully and honestly charts the tensions as the various family members come together. “We are family, but we have very little in common except that we are terrible at small talk,” muses Lila at an Easter gathering. “e size each other up and glance for the nearest exit and wonder, Why are you here? Why am I here? 

” Gracie’s unborn child promises both conflict and hope. As Catharine, haunted by loving ghosts of the past, recalls, “There was order to our family then, and small children running around filling the rooms with laughter…. hen the baby comes, when the laughter of children fill our rooms again, everything will settle down. This family will be whole.” Catharine’s hopes becomes the readers’ hopes as well, as they watch her family—her “life’s work”—grow and endure. – Publishers Weekly Review  

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The Woman King (2022) (Movie): Inspired by true events, this is the remarkable, action-packed story about the all-female unit of warriors who protected the African Kingdom of Dahomey with skills and a fierceness unlike anything the world has ever seen. Follow the epic and intense journey of General Nanisca (Oscar® winner VIOLA DAVIS; 2016, Best Supporting Actress, Fences) as she trains the next generation of recruits and readies them for battle against an enemy determined to destroy their way of life. 

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Have a great day,

Linda Reimer, SSC Library

Hi everyone, just a reminder, The May 2024 Book Club for Adults, at the Southeast Steuben County Library, will be meeting this Friday, May 10, 2024, from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. in the Conference Room.

Our May read is The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride.

Looking forward to June, a early heads up; that due to the annual library staff training conference being held the second Friday in June, we’ll deviate from our usual second Friday of the month schedule that month, meeting instead, on the first Friday of the month – Friday, June 7, 2024, from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. as usual.

Our June read is Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward, copies of which can be picked up at the library at any time through the last week of May.

Just an FYI if you haven’t already joined our book club – everyone is welcome! No need to register, just show up on Friday!

Have a great day,

Linda Reimer, SSCL

Hi everyone, first the info. on our upcoming April 2024 Book Club for Adult Gathering! 

The Southeast Steuben County Library Book Club for Adults will hold our next meeting at the library on Friday, April 12, 2024, from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. in the Conference Room at the library.  

Our April Read is: The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant 

Looking forward a month, our May 2024 gathering will be held at the library on Friday, May 10, 2024. Our May Read is The Heaven & Earth Book Store by James McBride.  

Copies of both the April & May Reads may be picked up at the Circulation Desk at any time! 

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And here are the notes on our March 2024 Gathering & Read:  

The March 2024 Book Club for Adults gathering was held at the library on Friday, March 8, 2024. 

Our March Read was The Half Moon by Mary Beth Keane 

The Half Moon is the story of a long-married couple Malcolm & Jess Gephardt, during a time of crisis.   

Martin, a bar manager, has an outgoing personality and loves to interact with people, making him the perfect bartender. He has been the head bartender of the local Half Moon bar for years, and he has recently achieved his long-held dream of owning the Half Moon bar, by naively making an oral deal with the bar’s previous owner Hugh.   

In contrast, Jess is a more reserved person, a lawyer who works at a local law firm and who has worked hard for years to climb the corporate ladder, but has lost rungs along the way due to her struggles with I.V.F. Jess’s two main life goals have been to make partner at her law firm and to have a baby.   

During the book readers discover that Malcolm and Jess, originally married in their twenties because they were unexpectedly expecting a baby, that they subsequently lost that baby, and have more recently tried multiple times to conceive via I.V.F. without success. The couple recently came to a crossroads on the baby making front, with Jess wanting to continue to try and conceive and Malcolm having concluded that they are never going to conceive and deciding he prefers to stop trying, thus eliminating the related struggle and stress from his life. 

In a sense, you could say both Malcolm and Jess are having a mid-life crisis. Malcolm was so determined to buy The Half Moon that he didn’t thoroughly vet the sale with Hugh and so he got a bad deal; and despite Malcolm’s best efforts to turn a profit the Half Moon is losing money, and Martin knows the business isn’t sustainable.  And Jess has become aware that having to take time off from work, for I.V.F. treatments has cost her the opportunity to become a partner at her law firm, and now it seems her other big dream, to have a baby will not be coming to fruition either, so to put it succinctly, she feels as if all the dedication and hard work she has put in towards her goals has been wasted and gained her nothing. 

During the book, a distraught Jess leaves Malcolm and temporarily takes up with another man, a man without a wife but with three young children, and Malcolm struggles to live without Jess, taking care of the bar while trying to figure out what to do about his failing business.  

Toward the end of the book, the couple, in what might be bending believability a bit, reconcile. Jess users her sharp lawyer skills to get Malcolm out his bad deal with Hugh and as part of the new deal, Malcolm sells the land the Half Moon building is set on, which he discovers his mother actually owns and gives to him; in doing so Malcolm discharges all his debts and is able to start over with a clean slate.  

Malcolm then accepts an offer from a friend to manage a bar on St. John’s Island, in the Caribbean, with Jess seeing him off and expecting to join him on the island shortly.  

The consensus of book club members is to give the book two thumbs down as a “don’t read it!” title.  

Some book club members didn’t find the story believable; others thought the characters weren’t well drawn and several book club members just generally didn’t like the book and didn’t finish it. There were one or two book club members who thought the book was okay; but suffice to say the book club will not be reading another title by Mary Beth Keane! 

In contrast, I have spoken to several book club members about our April Read, The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant, and they have all said they either have and/or are enjoying reading the book. So, I have high hopes that the majority of book club members will enjoy reading our next read! 

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Book Club Members Recommended Reads: March 2024 

Elderhood by Louise Aronson  

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction 

Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction 

Winner of the WSU AOS Bonner Book Award 

The New York Times bestseller from physician and award-winning writer Louise Aronson–an essential, empathetic look at a vital but often disparaged stage of life, as revelatory as Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal. 

For more than 5,000 years, “old” has been defined as beginning between the ages of 60 and 70. That means most people alive today will spend more years in elderhood than in childhood, and many will be elders for 40 years or more. Yet at the very moment that humans are living longer than ever before, we’ve made old age into a disease, a condition to be dreaded, denigrated, neglected, and denied. 

Reminiscent of Oliver Sacks, noted Harvard-trained geriatrician Louise Aronson uses stories from her quarter century of caring for patients, and draws from history, science, literature, popular culture, and her own life to weave a vision of old age that’s neither nightmare nor utopian fantasy–a vision full of joy, wonder, frustration, outrage, and hope about aging, medicine, and humanity itself. 

Elderhood is for anyone who is, in the author’s own words, “an aging, i.e., still-breathing human being.” 

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Erasure by Percival Everett 

Percival Everett’s blistering satire about race and publishing, now adapted for the screen as AMERICAN FICTION, directed by Cord Jefferson and starring Jeffrey Wright and Tracee Ellis Ross 

Thelonious “Monk” Ellison’s writing career has bottomed out: his latest manuscript has been rejected by seventeen publishers, which stings all the more because his previous novels have been “critically acclaimed.” He seethes on the sidelines of the literary establishment as he watches the meteoric success of We’s Lives in Da Ghetto, a first novel by a woman who once visited “some relatives in Harlem for a couple of days.” Meanwhile, Monk struggles with real family tragedies―his aged mother is fast succumbing to Alzheimer’s, and he still grapples with the reverberations of his father’s suicide seven years before. 

In his rage and despair, Monk dashes off a novel meant to be an indictment of Juanita Mae Jenkins’s bestseller. He doesn’t intend for My Pafology to be published, let alone taken seriously, but it is―under the pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh―and soon it becomes the Next Big Thing. How Monk deals with the personal and professional fallout galvanizes this audacious, hysterical, and quietly devastating novel. 

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Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness by Jon Kabat-Zinn and Thich Nhat Hanh 

Stress. It can sap our energy, undermine our health if we let it, even shorten our lives. It makes us more vulnerable to anxiety and depression, disconnection and disease. Based on Jon Kabat-Zinn’s renowned mindfulness-based stress reduction program, this classic, groundbreaking work—which gave rise to a whole new field in medicine and psychology—shows you how to use medically proven mind-body approaches derived from meditation and yoga to counteract stress, establish greater balance of body and mind, and stimulate well-being and healing. By engaging in these mindfulness practices and integrating them into your life from moment to moment and from day to day, you can learn to manage chronic pain, promote optimal healing, reduce anxiety and feelings of panic, and improve the overall quality of your life, relationships, and social networks. This second edition features results from recent studies on the science of mindfulness, a new Introduction, up-to-date statistics, and an extensive updated reading list. Full Catastrophe Living is a book for the young and the old, the well and the ill, and anyone trying to live a healthier and saner life in our fast-paced world. 

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If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Your Mother by Julia Sweeney 

“I took so long to assemble my lovely family. If only they would disappear.”  

While Julia Sweeney is known as a talented comedienne and writer and performer of her one-woman shows, she is also a talented essayist. Happily for us, the past few years have provided her with some rich material. Julia adopted a Chinese girl named Mulan (“After the movie?”) and then, a few years later, married and moved from Los Angeles to Chicago. She writes about deciding to adopt her child, strollers, nannies (including the Chinese Pat), knitting, being adopted by a dog, The Food Network, and meeting Mr. Right through an email from a complete stranger who wrote, “Desperately Seeking Sweeney-in-Law.” She recounts how she explained the facts of life to nine-year-old Mulan, a story that became a wildly popular TED talk and YouTube video.  

Some of the essays reveal Julia’s ability to find that essential thread of human connection, whether it’s with her mother-in-law, who candidly reveals a story that most people would keep a secret, or with an anonymous customer service rep during a late-night phone call. But no matter what the topic, Julia always writes with elegant precision, pinning her jokes with razor-sharp observations while articulating feelings that we all share.  

Poignant, provocative, and wise, this is a funny, and at times powerful, memoir by a woman living her life with originality and intelligence. 

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Meditation by Marcus Arelius  

 Written in Greek by an intellectual Roman emperor without any intention of publication, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius offer a wide range of fascinating spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the leader struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe. Spanning from doubt and despair to conviction and exaltation, they cover such diverse topics as the question of virtue, human rationality, the nature of the gods and the values of leadership. But while the Meditations were composed to provide personal consolation, in developing his beliefs Marcus also created one of the greatest of all works of philosophy: a series of wise and practical aphorisms that have been consulted and admired by statesmen, thinkers and ordinary readers for almost two thousand years. 

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Recipe for a Perfect Wife: A Novel by Karma Brown  

In this intriguing dual narrative novel, a modern-day woman finds inspiration in hidden notes left by her home’s previous owner, a quintessential 1950s housewife. As she discovers remarkable parallels between this woman’s life and her own, it causes her to question the foundation of her own relationship with her husband—and what it means to be a wife fighting for her place in a patriarchal society. 

When Alice Hale leaves a career in publicity to become a writer and follows her husband to the New York suburbs, she is unaccustomed to filling her days alone in a big, empty house. But when she finds a vintage cookbook buried in a box in the old home’s basement, she becomes captivated by the cookbook’s previous owner—1950s housewife Nellie Murdoch. As Alice cooks her way through the past, she realizes that within the cookbook’s pages Nellie left clues about her life—including a mysterious series of unsent letters penned to her mother. 

Soon Alice learns that while baked Alaska and meatloaf five ways may seem harmless, Nellie’s secrets may have been anything but. When Alice uncovers a more sinister—even dangerous—side to Nellie’s marriage, and has become increasingly dissatisfied with the mounting pressures in her own relationship, she begins to take control of her life and protect herself with a few secrets of her own. 

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West Heart Kill: A novel by Dann McDorman 

LOOKING FOR AN ANYTHING-BUT-ORDINARY WHODUNIT? • Welcome to the West Heart Club. Where the drinks are neat but behind closed doors . . . things can get messy. Where upright citizens are deemed downright boring. Where the only missing piece of the puzzle is you, dear reader. 
 
A unique and irresistible murder mystery set at a remote hunting lodge where everyone is a suspect, including the erratic detective on the scene—a remarkable debut that gleefully upends the rules of the genre. 
 
“A thoroughly original suspense novel that hops across elements of the genre—a diabolical locked-room mystery interspersed with a fascinating primer on the form—while always being tremendous fun to read.”—Chris Pavone, best-selling author of Two Nights in Lisbon 
 
An isolated hunt club. A raging storm. Three corpses, discovered within four days. A cast of monied, scheming, unfaithful characters. 
 
When private detective Adam McAnnis joins an old college friend for the Bicentennial weekend at the exclusive West Heart club in upstate New York, he finds himself among a set of not-entirely-friendly strangers. Then the body of one of the members is found at the lake’s edge; hours later, a major storm hits. By the time power is restored on Sunday, two more people will be dead . . . 

Have a great day!

Linda Reimer, SSCL

Tel: 607-936-3713 x212

Email: reimerl@stls.org

Hi everyone, just a reminder! The March 2024 Southeast Steuben County Library Book Club for Adults gathering will be held this Friday, March 8, 2024.

We’ll be meeting in the Conference Room at the library, from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m., and will be discussing the novel, The Half Moon by Mary Beth Keane.

Also of note, due to the popularity of our originally scheduled read for April (which translates into the book having a long holds list); we’re going to switch our April and May Reads, to give us time to get copies of the book The Heaven And Earth Grocery Store, our original April Read (now our May Read). Copies of our switched May with April Read, The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant are available in system, have been requested and are already starting to arrive although we may not have enough copies on hand for everyone until next week – so let me know you’d like a copy sent to you.

And as that last paragraph may be confusing, here is a more straight-forward way of accessing the updated schedule information; here is the book club schedule with reading list for March – August 2024!

Book Club for Adults Schedule & Reading List: March – August 2024

Friday, March 8, 2024 The Half Moon: A Novel by Mary Beth Keane (296 pages)

Friday, April 12, 2024 The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant (322 pages)

Friday, May 10, 2024 The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store: A Novel by James McBride  (385 pages)

Friday, June 14, 2024 Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward (305 pages)

Friday, July 12, 2024 The Amazing Grace Adams by Fran Littlewood (256 pages)

Friday, August 9, 2024 Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (368 pages)

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And we’ll discuss book club selections for fall 2024, tomorrow, at our March gathering.

Also, if you are unable to attend our March gathering and have a suggestion for a book you’d like to have our group read and discuss – feel free to let me know in person, via phone, tel: 607-936-3713 x 212, or via email: reimerl@stls.org

Have a great day!

Linda Reimer, SSCL