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Enter Paradise
by Oscar Hijuelos
Monday, December 12
6:30-7:45 pm
Wednesday, December 14
10:15-11:30 am
A luminous work of fiction inspired by the real-life, 37-year friendship between two towering figures of the late nineteenth century, famed writer and humorist Mark Twain and legendary explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley. This novel is a richly woven tapestry of people and events that is unique among the author's works, both in theme and structure. Hijuelos ingeniously blends correspondence, memoir, and third-person omniscience to explore the intersection of these Victorian giants in a long vanished world. A compelling and deeply felt historical fantasia that utilizes the full range of Hijuelos' gifts, Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise stands as an unforgettable coda to a brilliant writing career.
~adapted from goodreads.com review
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| January Book Discussion |
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by Jennifer Chiaverini
Monday, January 23, 2017
6:30-7:45 pm
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
10:15-11:30 am
A stunning account of the friendship that blossomed between Mary Todd Lincoln and her seamstress, Elizabeth "Lizzie" Keckley, a former slave who gained her professional reputation in Washington, D.C. by outfitting the city's elite. Keckley made history by sewing for First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln within the White House, a trusted witness to many private moments between the President and his wife, two of the most compelling figures in American history. Keckley saved scraps from the dozens of gowns she made for Mrs. Lincoln, eventually piecing together a tribute known as the Mary Todd Lincoln Quilt. She also saved memories, which she fashioned into a book, Behind the Scenes: Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House. In this impeccably researched, engrossing novel, Chiaverini brings history to life in rich, moving style.
~adapted from goodreads.com review
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| February Book Discussion |
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by Anne Tyler
Monday, February 13
6:30-7:45 pm
Wednesday, February 15
10:15-11:30 am
The Whitshanks are one of those families that radiate togetherness: an indefinable, enviable kind of specialness. But they are also like all families, in that the stories they tell themselves reveal only part of the picture. Abby and Red and their four grown children have accumulated not only tender moments, laughter, and celebrations, but also jealousies, disappointments, and carefully guarded secrets, from Red's father and mother, newly-arrived in Baltimore in the 1920s, to Abby and Red's grandchildren carrying the family legacy boisterously into the twenty-first century, here are four generations of Whitshanks, their lives unfolding in and around the sprawling, lovingly worn Baltimore house that has always been their anchor. A poignant yet unsentimental story in praise of family in all its emotional complexity. It is a novel to cherish.
~adapted from goodreads.com review~
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