Saturday, December 5, 2009

The History of Love - December 10th choice

It’s time to talk books with the Fairfax Library Book Discussion Group!
When? Thursday, December 10th at 7 p.m.
Where? Fairfax Library meeting room
What Book? The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
Going Green: Instead of printing copies of background material for the meeting, it’s attached to this e-mail for you to read before or after our discussion or check out these links for more background info
Blog, blog, blog: Be sure to bookmark our book blog which has information about upcoming meeting dates and the books we've chosen: http://fairfaxbookgroup.blogspot.com/
Book Swap: If you’d like, please feel free to bring a wrapped book (it MUST be used) to exchange with others at our meeting.
Upcoming book selections:

Thursday, January 14th – we’ll discuss The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society By Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer
Winding up her book tour promoting her collection of lighthearted wartime newspaper columns, Juliet Ashton casts about for a more serious project. Opportunity comes in the form of a letter she receives from Mr. Dawsey Adams, who happens to possess a book that Julia once owned. Adams is a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society-no ordinary book club. Rather, it was formed as a ruse and became a way for people to get together without raising the suspicions of Guernsey's Nazi occupiers. Written in the form of letters (a lost art), this novel by an aunt-and-niece team has loads of charm.

Thursday, February 11th – we’ll discuss Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
When the conflict between the natives and the invading soldiers erupts on an unnamed tropical island in the early 1990s, 13-year-old Matilda and her mother, Dolores, are unified with the rest of their village in their efforts for survival. Amid the chaos, Mr. Watts, the only white local, offers to fill in as the children's schoolteacher and teaches from Dickens's Great Expectations. The precocious Matilda, who forms a strong attachment to the novel's hero, Pip, discovers independent thought. Jones's prose is faultless, and the story is innovative.

Thursday, March 11th – we’ll discuss The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker
Baker's brilliant debut is infused with vibrant language and quirky, original characters. Narrator Truly Plaice is unusually large and considered ugly. Growing up in rural Aberdeen in upstate New York in the 1950s, Truly finds shelter with the Dyersons, hard-luck people living on a farm at the outskirts of town. There, Truly and best friend Amelia Dyerson do their best to grow up. This book is both a work of literature and an easy read. Truly may struggle for love in the novel, but she will find no such trouble among readers; she is an unforgettable heroine with a story that begs to be read and read again.

I look forward to seeing you at the library.
Beth Bailey-Gates
Friends of the Fairfax Library