September Book Club Titles / Marathon County Public Library
High Society: The Life of Grace Kelly
by Donald Spoto
Published 2009 by Harmony
Edgar Branch Library Book Club meets Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 4:00 pm
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Jacket Notes:
Drawing on his unprecedented access to Grace Kelly, bestselling biographer Donald Spoto at last offers an intimate, honest, and authoritative portrait of one of Hollywood's legendary actresses. In just seven years-from 1950 through 1956-Grace Kelly embarked on a whirlwind career that included roles in eleven movies. From the principled Amy Fowler Kane in "High Noon" to the thrill-seeking Frances Stevens of "To Catch a Thief," Grace established herself as one of Hollywood's most talented actresses and iconic beauties. Her astonishing career lasted until her retirement at age twenty-six, when she withdrew from stage and screen to marry a European monarch and became a modern, working princess and mother.
Based on never-before-published or quoted interviews with Grace and those conducted over many years with her friends and colleagues-from costars James Stewart and Cary Grant to director Alfred Hitchcock-as well as many documents disclosed by her children for the first time, acclaimed biographer Donald Spoto explores the transformation of a convent schoolgirl to New York model, successful television actress, Oscar-winning movie star, and beloved royal.
As the princess requested, Spoto waited twenty-five years after her death to write this biography. Now, with honesty and insight, "High Society" reveals the truth of Grace Kelly's personal life, the men she loved, the men she didn't, and what lay behind the facade of her fairy-tale life.
Publishers Weekly 07/13/2009
Noted film biographer Spoto ("Spellbound by Beauty") gives readers a previously unseen glimpse into the life of Grace Kelly (19291982), who went from Academy Awardwinning actress to princess of Monaco. Drawing on hours of personal interviews with Kelly as well as with her numerous co-stars including Cary Grant and James Stewart, Spoto traces the star's life from her childhood in a wealthy Philadelphia neighborhood through her brief but noteworthy career in Hollywood to her years as the wife of Monaco's Prince Rainer. Kelly attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Manhattan, where she developed a love of theater, nurtured by her uncle, the actor and playwright George Kelly. Though she spent less than seven years in Hollywood, Kelly became an icon of the era. Spoto, as an expert in the films of Alfred Hitchcock and one of the late director's few confidantes, spends considerable time revisiting the trio of films Kelly made with the master of suspense: "Dial M for Murder" (1953), "Rear Window" (1954) and "To Catch a Thief" (1955). Though she admitted to missing acting, Kelly settled into her life as a royal, raising three children until her death in a car crash. Cinephiles will love Spoto's insider look at Hollywood in the 1950s, and even those unfamiliar with Kelly's films will be drawn to the author's warm and generous portrayal of a woman who was more than a pretty face. "(Nov.)" Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
Shanghai Girls
by Lisa See
Published 2009 by Random House (NY)
Athens Branch Library Book meets Thursday, September 9, 2010 at 6:30 pm
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Jacket Notes:
From the author of the bestsellers "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" and "Peony in Love" comes a stunning new novel about two sisters who leave Shanghai to find new lives in 1930s Los Angeles. In 1937, Shanghai is the Paris of Asia, a city of great wealth and glamour, the home of millionaires and beggars, gangsters and gamblers, patriots and revolutionaries, artists and warlords. Thanks to the financial security and material comforts provided by their father's prosperous rickshaw business, twenty-one-year-old Pearl Chin and her younger sister, May, are having the time of their lives. Though both sisters wave off authority and tradition, they couldn't be more different: Pearl is a Dragon sign, strong and stubborn, while May is a true Sheep, adorable and placid. Both are beautiful, modern, and carefree . . . until the day their father tells them that he has gambled away their wealth and that in order to repay his debts he must sell the girls as wives to suitors who have traveled from California to find Chinese brides.
As Japanese bombs fall on their beloved city, Pearl and May set out on the journey of a lifetime, one that will take them through the Chinese countryside, in and out of the clutch of brutal soldiers, and across the Pacific to the shores of America. In Los Angeles they begin a fresh chapter, trying to find love with the strangers they have married, brushing against the seduction of Hollywood, and striving to embrace American life even as they fight against discrimination, brave Communist witch hunts, and find themselves hemmed in by Chinatown's old ways and rules.
At its heart, Shanghai Girls is a story of sisters: Pearl and May are inseparable best friends who share hopes, dreams, and a deep connection, but like sisters everywhere they also harbor petty jealousies and rivalries. They love each other, but each knows exactly where to drive the knife to hurt the other the most. Along the way they face terrible sacrifices, make impossible choices, and confront a devastating, life-changing secret, but through it all the two heroines of this astounding new novel hold fast to who they are-Shanghai girls.
Publishers Weekly 03/23/2009
See ("Peony in Love") explores tradition, the ravages of war and the importance of family in her excellent latest. Pearl and her younger sister, May, enjoy an upper-crust life in 1930s Shanghai, until their father reveals that his gambling habit has decimated the family's finances and to make good on his debts, he has sold both girls to a wealthy Chinese-American as wives for his sons. Pearl and May have no intention of leaving home, but after Japanese bombs and soldiers ravage their city and both their parents disappear, the sisters head for California, where their husbands-to-be live and where it soon becomes apparent that one of them is hiding a secret that will alter each of their fates. As they adjust to marriage with strangers and the challenges of living in a foreign land, Pearl and May learn that long-established customs can provide comfort in unbearable times. See's skillful plotting and richly drawn characters immediately draw in the reader, covering 20 years of love, loss, heartbreak and joy while delivering a sobering history lesson. While the ending is ambiguous, this is an accomplished and absorbing novel. "(June)" Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
08/01/2009 School Library Journal
Adult/High SchoolThis extensively researched historical novel is engrossing and readable. Spanning three decades and two continents (from 1930s China to Los Angeles in the 1950s), the book explores universal themes: adolescence, family relationships, secrets, immigration, and discrimination. Readers meet Pearl and May as teenage sisters in prewar Shanghai. They revel in modern ways and defy the wishes of their parents by modeling for "Beautiful Girls" calendars and staying out until the wee hours. Pearl's narration has a confiding tone in the early chaptersshe discusses clothes, make-up, parental restrictions, and love interests. As the story develops, See balances Pearl's personal revelations with evocative descriptions of people, places, meals, and Chinese customs, as well as several suspenseful episodes of action and drama. The well-drawn characters face realistic hardships, some personal (lost love, business failures) and others global (Japanese atrocities in China, World War II, communism). Vivid descriptions of life at Angel Island Immigration Station, the development of L.A.'s Chinatown, filmmaking in 1940s Hollywood, and the 1950s Confession Program convey the stress, excitement, and longing for home that many Chinese immigrants experienced in the United States. This book will appeal to readers of historical fiction, and may be of special interest to those with ties to the Chinese community."Sondra VanderPloeg, Colby-Sawyer College, New London, NH" Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
Twilight
by Stephenie Meyer
Published 2006 by Megan Tingley Books
Hatley Branch Library Book Club meets Tuesday, September 14, at 2:00 pm
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Jacket Notes:
Isabella Swan's move to Forks, a small, perpetually rainy town in Washington, could have been the most boring move she ever made. But once she meets the mysterious and alluring Edward Cullen, Isabella's life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. Up until now, Edward has managed to keep his vampire identity a secret in the small community he lives in, but now nobody is safe, especially Isabella, the person Edward holds most dear. The lovers find themselves balanced precariously on the point of a knife-between desire and danger.Deeply romantic and extraordinarily suspenseful, Twilight captures the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires. This is a love story with bite.
Tooth and Nail
by Ian Rankin
Published 2008 by Minotaur Books
Wausau Mystery Book Club meets Thursday, September 16, at 7:00 pm
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Jacket Notes:
Scottish homicide detective John Rebus has been sent from "North of the Border" to help London police catch a serial killer with a gruesome M.O. Teamed with a London cop he wants to trust but can't, Rebus lets a beautiful psychologist into the case develops a bizarre portrait of a killer who leaves bite marks and tears on each victim's body. Now it's only a question of who is going to get busted first: the cop with the accent who breaks all the rules--or the pyscho painting London with blood...
Whistling in the Dark
by Lesley Kagen
Published 2007 by NAL Accent
Stratford Branch Library Book Club meets Monday, September 20, 2010 at 1:00 pm
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Jacket Notes:
"It was the summer on Vliet Street when we all started locking our doors..." Sally O'Malley made a promise to her daddy before he died. She swore she'd look after her sister, Troo. Keep her safe. But like her Granny always said-actions speak louder than words. Now, during the summer of 1959, the girls' mother is hospitalized, their stepfather has abandoned them for a six pack, and their big sister, Nell, is too busy making out with her boyfriend to notice that Sally and Troo are on the Loose. And so is a murderer and molester. Highly imaginative Sally is pretty sure of two things. Who the killer is. And that she's next on his list. Now she has no choice but to protect herself and Troo as best she can, relying on her own courage and the kindness of her neighbors.
Publishers Weekly 03/12/2007
The loss of innocence can be as dramatic as the loss of a parent or the discovery that what's perceived to be truth can actually be a big fat lie, as shown in Kagen's compassionate debut, a coming-of-age thriller set in Milwaukee during the summer of 1959. Ten-year-old Sally O'Malley fears that a child predator who has already murdered two girls, Junie Piaskowski and Sara Heinemann, will target her or her little sister, Troo, next. Sally's mom is in the hospital, while her big sister, Nell, is distracted by love and her stepdad, Hall, by the bottle, so who can save her if the killer is, as she suspects, her neighbor, David Rasmussen, a popular cop who has a photo of Junie hanging in his house? Though the mystery elements are sketchy, Kagen sharply depicts the vulnerability of children of any era. Sally, "a girl who wouldn't break a promise even if her life depended on it," makes an enchanting protagonist. Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
Olive Kitteridge
by Elizabeth Strout
Published 2008 by Random House (NY)
Mosinee Branch Library Book Club meets Monday, September 20, 2010 at 1:00 pm
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Jacket Notes:
In a voice more powerful and compassionate than ever before, "New York Times" bestselling author Elizabeth Strout binds together thirteen rich, luminous narratives into a book with the heft of a novel, through the presence of one larger-than-life, unforgettable character: Olive Kitteridge.
At the edge of the continent, Crosby, Maine, may seem like nowhere, but seen through this brilliant writer's eyes, it's in essence the whole world, and the lives that are lived there are filled with all of the grand human drama-desire, despair, jealousy, hope, and love.
At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town and in the world at large, but she doesn't always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance: a former student who has lost the will to live: Olive's own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.
As the townspeople grapple with their problems, mild and dire, Olive is brought to a deeper understanding of herself and her life-sometimes painfully, but always with ruthless honesty. "Olive Kitteridge" offers profound insights into the human condition-its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires.
Publishers Weekly 12/10/2007
Thirteen linked tales from Strout ("Abide with Me", etc.) present a heart-wrenching, penetrating portrait of ordinary coastal Mainers living lives of quiet grief intermingled with flashes of human connection. The opening Pharmacy focuses on terse, dry junior high-school teacher Olive Kitteridge and her gregarious pharmacist husband, Henry, both of whom have survived the loss of a psychologically damaged parent, and both of whom suffer painful attractions to co-workers. Their son, Christopher, takes center stage in A Little Burst, which describes his wedding in humorous, somewhat disturbing detail, and in Security, where Olive, in her 70s, visits Christopher and his family in New York. Strouts fiction showcases her ability to reveal through familiar detailsthe mother-of-the-grooms wedding dress, a grandmothers disapproving observations of how her grandchildren are raisedthe seeds of tragedy. Themes of suicide, depression, bad communication, aging and love, run through these stories, none more vivid or touching than Incoming Tide, where Olive chats with former student Kevin Coulson as they watch waitress Patty Howe by the seashore, all three struggling with their own misgivings about life. Like this story, the collection is easy to read and impossible to forget. Its literary craft and emotional power will surprise readers unfamiliar with Strout. "(Apr.)" Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
Carry Me Home
by Sandra Kring
Published 2004 by Delta
Wausau Women's Night Out Book Club meets Monday, September 20, 2010 at 6:30 pm
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Jacket Notes:
Publishers Weekly 11/08/2004
Earnestly narrated by brain-damaged 16-year-old Earl "Earwig" Gunderman ("Ma said that after the fever was gone, my brain was like meat cooked too long, and it just fell apart whenever I tried to learn something new"), Kring's heartfelt debut explores the effects of WWII on a smalltown Wisconsin family. Earwig, whose intellectual difficulties are balanced by his sharp emotional intelligence, gets a significant assist in the growing-up process from his older brother, Jimmy. But after enlisting in the National Guard on a drunken whim, Jimmy is shipped out with one of the first ill-equipped units to be sent to the Philippines. When his unit is overrun in Bataan, his fate is assumed to be grim. At home, Earwig sighs about rationing, discovers a dark family secret and hopes for Jimmy's safe return. And Jimmy does come home, but, shell-shocked after years as a POW, he drowns his sorrows in drink. It takes Earwig's devotion and a tender new relationship with young widow Eva Leigh to turn him around. Kring's narrative is familiar at first, but hits its stride after Jimmy's homecoming, capturing family tensions and the divisive town dynamics when Jimmy and his fellow soldiers criticize the government for abandoning them in Bataan. Strong characters, a clear community portrait and a memorable protagonist whose poignant fumblings cloak an innocent wisdom demonstrate Kring's promise. Agent, Catherine Fowler. (On sale Dec. 28) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World
by Vicki Myron
Published 2008 by Grand Central Publishing
Spencer Branch Library Book Club meets Monday, September 20, 2010 at 6:30 pm and Thursday, September 23 at 1:30 pm
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Jacket Notes:
How much of an impact can an animal have? How many lives can one cat touch? How is it possible for an abandoned kitten to transform a small library, save a classic American town, and eventually become famous around the world? You can't even begin to answer those questions until you hear the charming story of Dewey Readmore Books, the beloved library cat of Spencer, Iowa.
Dewey's story starts in the worst possible way. Only a few weeks old, on the coldest night of the year, he was stuffed into the returned book slot at the Spencer Public Library. He was found the next morning by library director, Vicki Myron, a single mother who had survived the loss of her family farm, a breast cancer scare, and an alcoholic husband. Dewey won her heart, and the hearts of the staff, by pulling himself up and hobbling on frostbitten feet to nudge each of them in a gesture of thanks and love. For the next nineteen years, he never stopped charming the people of Spencer with his enthusiasm, warmth, humility, (for a cat) and, above all, his sixth sense about who needed him most.
As his fame grew from town to town, then state to state, and finally, amazingly, worldwide, Dewey became more than just a friend; he became a source of pride for an extraordinary Heartland farming town pulling its way slowly back from the greatest crisis in its long history.
Publishers Weekly 07/28/2008
One frigid Midwestern winter night in 1988, a ginger kitten was shoved into the after-hours book-return slot at the public library in Spencer, Iowa. And in this tender story, Myron, the library director, tells of the impact the cat, named DeweyReadmore Books, had on the library and its patrons, and on Myron herself. Through her developing relationship with the feline, Myron recounts the economic and social history of Spencer as well as her own success storydespite an alcoholic husband, living on welfare, and health problems ranging from the difficult birth of her daughter, Jodi, to breast cancer. After her divorce, Myron graduated college (the first in her family) and stumbled into a library job. She quickly rose to become director, realizing early on that this was a job I could love for the rest of my life. Dewey, meanwhile, brings disabled children out of their shells, invites businessmen to pet him with one hand while holding the "Wall Street Journal" with the other, eats rubber bands and becomes a media darling. The book is not only a tribute to a catanthropomorphized to a degree that can strain credulity (Dewey plays hide and seek with Myron, can read her thoughts, is mortified by his hair balls)it's a love letter to libraries. "(Sept.)" Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.
Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen
Published 2000 by Scholastic Paperbacks
Rothschild Branch Library Book Club meets Wednesday, September 22, 2010 at 11:00 am
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Jacket Notes:
Elizabeth Bennet, the second eldest of five daughters whom Mrs. Bennet is anxious to dispose of in marriage, is the most intelligent and delightful of all Jane Austen's heroines. Her vitality, vivacity and wit, her hasty dismissal of superior Mr. Darcy-- the most disagreeable man in the world'--how he improves his manners and she changes her mind, are the central ingredients of "Pride and Prejudice. It is Jane Austen's best-loved novel and through the depth and sparkle of its comedy we are encouraged to consider what balance of energy and order, playfulness and regulation constitutes real strength of character. Jane Austen's novel about four sisters and their many suitors is one of the most beloved books of all time -- full of wit, insight, and romance.
Giant
by Edna Ferber
Published 2000 by Harper Perennial
Wausau Reader's of Classic Literature Book Club meets Wednesday, September 22, 2010 at Noon
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Jacket Notes:
Edna Ferber's classic story of a Texas family's rise to the pinnacle of society in the early days of oil wildcatting was the basis of a popular film starring Rock Hudson, James Dean, and Elizabeth Taylor. This sweeping tale captures the essence of Texas on a staggering scale as it chronicles the life and times of cattleman Jordan "Bick" Benedict, his naive young society wife, Leslie, and three generations of land-rich sons. A sensational story of power, love, cattle barons, and oil tycoons, "Giant" was the basis of the classic film starring James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, and Rock Hudson.
The Summer Kitchen
by Lisa Wingate
Published 2009 by New American Library
Marathon City Branch Library Book Club meets Thursday, September 23, 2010 at 1:00 pmFind this book in our catalog.
Jacket Notes:
From the author of "A Month of Summer," an inspiring new novel in the Blue Sky Hill series about one woman's effect on a struggling Dallas neighborhood."
With her adopted son missing and the rest of her family increasingly estranged, Sandra Kaye Darden is drawn to the little pink house where her Uncle Poppy once provided security. What begins for Sandra as a simple painting project, meant to prepare the house for sale, becomes a secret venture that eventually changes everything.
Cass Blue is having trouble keeping food on the table since she ditched foster care. When Sandra Kaye shows up with lunch one day, Cass has no way of knowing that the meeting will lead to the creation of a place of refuge that could reunite a divided community.
In this moving story of second chances, two unlikely allies realize their ability to make a difference...and the power of what becomes known as the Summer Kitchen to nourish the soul.
