Me Before You by Jojo Moyes - January 26th 2014

We will be starting out the New Year reading 

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes.

Our Next Book Club January 26th 2014  Hostess: Susan Torosian 

New York Times bestseller—with more than one million copies sold—by the author of The Girl You Left Behind

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes  - Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life—steady boyfriend, close family—who has never been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex–Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after an accident. Will has always lived a huge life—big deals, extreme sports, worldwide travel—and now he’s pretty sure he cannot live the way he is.

Will is acerbic, moody, bossy—but Lou refuses to treat him with kid gloves, and soon his happiness means more to her than she expected. When she learns that Will has shocking plans of his own, she sets out to show him that life is still worth living.

A Love Story for this generation, Me Before You brings to life two people who couldn’t have less in common—a heartbreakingly romantic novel that asks,  

Next Book Club January 26th 2014  Hostess: Susan Torosian

Stay tuned for information on the contest Laurie won for the Book Club. The author Justin Kramon will be discussing his book, The Preservationist.

Happy Holidays!

Where'd You Go, Bernadette: by Maria Sempl

Where'd You Go, Bernadette: by Maria Sempl   
Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom.  
   Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle--and people in general--has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic.
   To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence--creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world.
Next Book Club is Sunday December 1st.
Hosted by Kelly Bell

The Paris Wife: a Novel by Paula McLain

Our next Book Club Selection...
The Paris Wife: a novel by Paula McLain (website)
Our next meeting is...........................Sunday, November 3rd, 7pm
Our next hostess is  .........................Joyce Charpentier

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paula McLain received an MFA in poetry from the University of Michigan and has been a resident of Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. She is the author of two collections of poetry, as well as a memoir, Like Family, and a first novel, A Ticket to Ride. She lives in Cleveland with her family.

Paula McLain on Reviving Ernest Hemingway and The Paris Wife  

Upcoming dates:

November meeting will be December 1st..........Kelly Bell

December is a pass. ( Joyous Christmas to all! )

One Summer by David Baldacci

One Summer by David Baldacci - Legal thriller fixture Baldacci (Deliver Us from Evil) churns out a creaky, contrived family drama about Jack Armstrong, a terminally ill family man just praying to make it to Christmas. Sadness abounds, much more so when Jack's wife, Lizzie, is killed in a car wreck while on a medicine run. Plans are made by Jack's mean mother-in-law Bonnie: the three kids will get divided up among aunts and uncles across the country, and Jack will be put into hospice. Miraculously, Jack's health turns around, and he's able to reclaim his kids and move the brood from Ohio to the South Carolina shore where Lizzie grew up. There, he tries to reassemble the family and learn how to be a single parent, and just as they're beginning to settle into a functional family again, Bonnie sues for custody of the kids. Yes, it possesses all the subtlety of a dog fight, but it's also choked with pap ("No matter what you do, no matter how hard you fight, life sometimes just doesn't make sense") and so sappy you'd think Baldacci was earning a commission on each tear jerked.

Our next meeting is..................Sunday, September 29th, 7pm
Our next hostess is ................Mary Marotta's

Our next Book Club Selection for October is .......
Upcoming Dates October - November December (skip) January 2014

Inferno - Dan Brown

Inferno - Dan Brown - In his international blockbusters The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, and The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown masterfully fused history, art, codes, and symbols. In this riveting new thriller, Brown returns to his element and has crafted his highest-stakes novel to date.


In the heart of Italy, Harvard professor of symbology, Robert Langdon, is drawn into a harrowing world centered on one of history’s most enduring and mysterious literary masterpieces . . . Dante’s Inferno.

Against this backdrop, Langdon battles a chilling adversary and grapples with an ingenious riddle that pulls him into a landscape of classic art, secret passageways, and futuristic science. Drawing from Dante’s dark epic poem, Langdon races to find answers and decide whom to trust . . . before the world is irrevocably altered. Video link

Next book club Sunday August 25h, 2013
Road Trip to Westminister with Fran Cooley (see email for details)

Upcoming Dates
September
October

Rifleman: the untold story of Stevie Flemmi, Whitey Bulger's partner " by Howie Carr

Rifleman: the untold story of Stevie Flemmi, Whitey Bulger's partner " by Howie Carr

Our next meeting is............Sunday, June 30th, 7pm

Our next hostess is  ...........LouAnn Arquilla

Our next Book Club Selection 

Stevie "the Rifleman" Flemmi was for 40 years one of the most feared gangsters in Boston, and for much of that time, he was the partner of Whitey Bulger, the 16-year fugitive with a $2 million reward on his head who was captured in 2011. Flemmi has been convicted of 10 murders and took the Fifth Amendment when asked about 10 others. His cohort, Bulger, is charged with 19 more. Their hitman, John Martorano, was convicted of 20 others. Rifleman is the story of Flemmi’s life of crime, as told to federal and state law enforcement after he pleaded guilty in 2003. The original document that the book is based on is called a DEA 6, and it ran 146 single spaced pages, covering dozens of extortions, assaults and murders, including two of his girlfriends, one of whom was also his common law stepdaughter. The book spans the years from the days of dime bets and fedora-wearing gangsters to the modern world of highflying drug smugglers, who promised Flemmi and Bulger a million dollars each in "protection money" for every boatload of drugs they could bring into Boston Harbor. Along with Flemmi’s statements, the text includes Carr’s notations whenever Flemmi appears to be stretching the truth, which is often. Supplementing the text are close to 300 photographs from Carr’s own collection, a treasure trove of mugshots and noir-style pictures of slain gunmen, hoods being taken into court under guard, as well as never-before-seen wanted posters and FBI documents. This is truly a must-have for any True Crime fan, a combination police procedural and a coffee table book of unforgettable photographs. Flemmi, now 78, is serving a life sentence at a penitentiary the Bureau of Prisons declines to identify. He is expected to be a major witness in the federal trial of Whitey Bulger, which is scheduled to begin in Boston June 6.

Follow the Live blog: The Whitey Bulger trial
Follow the stream below for updates from the courthouse. Reporters Shelley Murphy and Milton Valencia will provide most of the updates, along with Globe columnist Kevin Cullen.

The Silver Linings Playbook: A Novel - Matthew Quick

The Silver Linings Playbook: A Novel -  Matthew Quick  Meet Pat Peoples. Pat has a theory: his life is a movie produced by God. And his God-given mission is to become physically fit and emotionally literate, whereupon God will ensure him a happy ending—the return of his estranged wife, Nikki. (It might not come as a surprise to learn that Pat has spent several years in a mental health facility.)

The problem is, Pat’s now home, and everything feels off. No one will talk to him about Nikki; his beloved Philadelphia Eagles keep losing; he’s being pursued by the deeply odd Tiffany; his new therapist seems to recommend adultery as a form of therapy. Plus, he’s being haunted by Kenny G! As the award-winning novelist Justin Cronin put it: “Tender, soulful, hilarious, and true, The Silver Linings Playbook is a wonderful debut.”

Our next meeting is.............................May 31th ( Friday ) 7pm.

Our next hostess is  ...........................Dee Zarella

June 30th......................... LouAnn  Arquilla

July is a pass

Summer / Fall  2013 Dates 

August 25th..............
September 29th.......

October 27th............

Memoirs Of A Geisha - By Arthur Golden

Memoirs Of A Geisha - is a literary sensation and runaway bestseller, this brilliant debut novel tells with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism the true confessions of one of Japan's most celebrated geisha. Speaking to us with the wisdom of age and in a voice at once haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri tells the story of her life as a geisha. It begins in a poor fishing village in 1929, when, as a nine-year-old girl with unusual blue-gray eyes, she is taken from her home and sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house. We witness her transformation as she learns the rigorous arts of the geisha: dance and music; wearing kimono, elaborate makeup, and hair; pouring sake to reveal just a touch of inner wrist; competing with a jealous rival for men's solicitude and the money that goes with it. 
In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. 

Movie Trailer 
About the author - Arthur Golden who was born and brought up in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He is a 1978 graduate of Harvard College with a degree in art history, specializing in Japanese art. In 1980 he earned an MA in Japanese history from Columbia where he also learned Mandarin Chinese. In 1988 he received an MA in English from Boston. He has lived and worked in Japan, but now lives in Brookline, Massachusetts, with his wife and children. 
- Next Book Club is April 28th..............Laurie Roy 

To Heaven and Back by Mary C. Neal M.D.

To Heaven and Back:  A Doctor's Extraordinary Account of Her Death, Heaven, Angels, and Life Again:  A kayak accident during a South American adventure takes one woman to heaven — where she experienced God’s peace, joy, and angels — and back to life again. In 1999 in the Los Rios region of southern Chile, orthopedic surgeon, devoted wife, and loving mother Dr. Mary Neal drowned in a kayak accident. While cascading down a waterfall, her kayak became pinned at the bottom and she was immediately and completely submerged. Despite the rescue efforts of her companions, Mary was underwater for too long, and as a result, died. To Heaven and Back is Mary’s remarkable story of her life’s spiritual journey and what happened as she moved from life to death to eternal life, and back again. Detailing her feelings and surroundings in heaven, her communication with angels, and her deep sense of sadness when she realized it wasn’t her time, Mary shares the captivating experience of her modern-day miracle. Mary’s life has been forever changed by her new found understanding of her purpose on earth, her awareness of God, her closer relationship with Jesus, and her personal spiritual journey suddenly enhanced by a first-hand experience in heaven.  To Heaven and Back will reacquaint you with the hope, wonder, and promise of heaven, while enriching you own faith and walk with God.
Dates: March 24th ........Terrie Rigopoulas
April 28th..............Laurie Roy

The Shoemaker's Wife : A Novel by Adriana Trigiani

Our next Book Club Selection ......The Shoemaker's Wife:
A Novel by Adriana Trigiani
The fateful first meeting of Enza and Ciro takes place amid the haunting majesty of the Italian Alps at the turn of the last century. Still teenagers, they are separated when Ciro is banished from his village and sent to hide in New York's Little Italy, apprenticed to a shoemaker, leaving a bereft Enza behind. But when her own family faces disaster, she, too, is forced to emigrate to America. Though destiny will reunite the star-crossed lovers, it will, just as abruptly, separate them once again—sending Ciro off to serve in World War I, while Enza is drawn into the glamorous world of the opera . . . and into the life of the international singing sensation Enrico Caruso. Still, Enza and Ciro have been touched by fate—and, ultimately, the power of their love will change their lives forever. A riveting historical epic of love and family, war and loss, risk and destiny, inspired by the author's own family history, The Shoemaker's Wife is the novel Adriana Trigiani was born to write.
Our next meeting is............................ February 24th, 7pm (Sunday)
Our next hostess is ...........................Paula Mansour
Other Dates
March 24th ........Terrie Rigopoulas
April 28th..............Laurie Roy