Book Club

Discussion Date: Tuesday, November 25, 2014.
Steve and Jabulile, an interracial couple living in a newly, tentatively, free South Africa, have a daughter, Sindiswa; they move to the suburbs; Steve becomes a lecturer at a university; Jabulile trains to become a lawyer; there is another child, a boy this time. Gordimer manages to capture the tortured, fragmented essence of a nation struggling to define itself post-apartheid. YBP Core Collection; Fiction Core Collection.

Discussion Date: Tuesday, October 10, 2014.
While a cellist plays at the site of a mortar attack to commemorate the deaths of twenty-two friends and neighbors, two other men set out in search of bread and water to keep themselves alive, and a woman sniper secretly protects the life of the cellist as her army becomes increasingly threatening.

Discussion Date: Tuesday, September 2, 2014.
A young boy in New York City, Theo Decker, miraculously survives an accident that takes the life of his mother. Alone and abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by a friend's family and struggles to make sense of his new life. In the years that follow, he becomes entranced by one of the few things that reminds him of his mother: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the art underworld. Kirkus 100 Best Fiction Books of 2013; Washington Post Notable Fiction of 2013; New York Times Notable Books 2013; Booklist Editors' Choice, 2013; Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction winner.

Discussion Date: Tuesday, August 12, 2014.
The protagonists are Stephen Wraysford, a British businessman, and Isabelle Azaire, a married Frenchwoman. They meet in 1910, she elopes with him, gives birth to his child, then remorse sends her back to her husband. But World War I will bring them together when he returns to France as an officer in the British army.

Discussion Date: Tuesday, July 22, 2014.
Contains: Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius -- Garden of Forking Paths -- Lottery in Babylon -- Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote -- Circular Ruins -- Library of Babel -- Funes the Memorious -- Shape of the Sword -- Theme of the Traitor and the Hero -- Death and the Compass -- Secret Miracle -- Three Versions of Judas -- Sect of the Phoenix -- Immortal -- Theologians -- Story of the Warrior and the Captive -- Emma Zunz -- House of Asterion -- Deutsches Requiem -- Averroes' Search -- Zahir -- Waiting -- God's Script.

Discussion Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2014.
Considered to be the first "Gothic" novel, the plot centers around Manfred, the lord of Otranto Castle, who has just witnessed the death of his son under mysterious circumstances, just as his son was about to be married. Manfred is thrust into a galloping and melodramatic series of events that lean heavily on the supernatural.

Discussion Date: Tuesday, June 10, 2014.
In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there's only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates' bullying. But before she ends it all, Nao first plans to document the life of her great grandmother, a Buddhist nun who's lived more than a century. A diary is Nao's only solace--and will touch lives in ways she can scarcely imagine. Kirkus 100 Best Fiction Books of 2013; Booklist Editors' Choice, 2013; Washington Post Notable Fiction of 2013; ALA Notable Books; Salon's What to Read Award; Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature; Los Angeles Times Book Award.