Book Club

Discussion Date: Tuesday, March 22, 2011.
The epic and intimate story of young Lillian Leyb, a dangerous innocent, an accidental heroine. When her family is destroyed in a Russian pogrom, Lillian comes to America alone, determined to make her way in a new land. ALA Notable Book, 2008; Kirkus Reviews Best Books, 2007.

Discussion Date: Tuesday, October 19, 2010.
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells--taken without her knowledge--became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first "immortal" human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. The story of the Lacks family is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of. Library Journal Best Sci-Tech Books, 2010; Library Journal's 10 Best Books of the Year, 2010; Publisher Weekly Top Ten Books, 2010; New York Times Best Books of 2010; Booklist's Top 10 Sci-Tech Books, 2010; Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction, 2010; ALA Notable Books, 2011; Booklist Top of the List: 2010 Editors' Choice.

Discussion Date: Tuesday, September 7, 2010.
In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII's court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political power. England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. The quest for the king's freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. With a vast array of characters, overflowing with incident, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power but a single failure means death. New York Times Notable Book, 2009; Library Journal Best Books 2009;
Listed in Fiction Core Collection; Man Booker Prize for Fiction; National Book Critics Circle Award; Galaxy British Book Award winner.

Discussion Date: Tuesday, August 3, 2010.
Barcelona, 1945--just after the war, a great world city lies in shadow, nursing its wounds, and a boy named Daniel awakes on his eleventh birthday to find that he can no longer remember his mother's face. To console his only child, Daniel's widowed father, an antiquarian book dealer, initiates him into the secret of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a library tended by Barcelona's guild of rare-book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world, waiting for someone who will care about them again. Listed in Fiction Core Collection; ALA RUSA Reading List, 2012.

Discussion Date: Tuesday, July 13, 2010.
Ellen has difficulty believing that God will take care of her when her dying mother leaves her with the unloving Mrs. Dunscombe.

Discussion Date: Tuesday, June 22, 2010.
When twelve-year-old genius cartographer T.S. Spivet receives an unexpected phone call from the Smithsonian announcing he has won the prestigious Baird Award, life as normal-if you consider mapping family dinner table conversation normal-is interrupted and a wild cross-country adventure begins, taking T.S. from his family ranch just north of Divide, Montana, to the museum's hallowed halls.

Discussion Date: Tuesday, June 1, 2010.
In the midst of a World War II, two young brothers learn the traditional arts of sumo wrestling and mask making only to place their dreams of future careers in these traditions on hold as Japan rebuilds.