Knox Book Group

Choices for 2010/2011

(All book descriptions are shamelessly copied from Amazon. )

Knox book group choices 2010/2011

Aug. 1  The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows—this epistolary novel, based on Mary Ann Shaffer’s painstaking, lifelong research, is a homage to booklovers and a nostalgic portrayal of an era. As her quirky, loveable characters cite the works of Shakespeare, Austen, and the Brontës, Shaffer subtly weaves those writers’ themes into her own narrative. However, it is the tragic stories of life under Nazi occupation that animate the novel and give it its urgency; furthermore, the novel explores the darker side of human nature without becoming maudlin.  Discussion leader: Patty

Aug 29 The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon—Call it the “book book” genre: this international sensation (it has sold in more than 20 countries and been number one on the Spanish best-seller list), newly translated into English, has books and storytelling–and a single, physical book–at its heart. In post-World War II Barcelona, young Daniel is taken by his bookseller father to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a massive sanctuary where books are guarded from oblivion. Told to choose one book to protect, he selects The Shadow of the Wind, by Julian Carax. He reads it, loves it, and soon learns it is both very valuable and very much in danger because someone is determinedly burning every copy of every book written by the obscure Carax.  Discussion leader: Robbie

Oct. 3  The Widow’s War: A Novel by Sally Gunning—In a colonial whaling village, Lyddie Berry is very happy with her husband, Edward, the home they’ve built together over the years, and the children they’ve raised. When Edward is lost in a whaling disaster, Lyddie discovers her new status as a widow is not equal to her former status as a wife. All of the property Lyddie and Edward have acquired is now the responsibility of Lyddie’s tight-fisted son-in-law. Although destitute and grieving, Lyddie finds righteous anger and strength, …Historical fiction isn’t usually known for quick pacing, but readers will be swiftly turning the pages  Discussion leader: Dorothy

Nov. 7 Sing Them Home by Stephanie Kallos— Hope Jones, Nebraska mother of three, is whisked away by a 1978 tornado, her body never found. The novel opens 25 years later, when Hope’s children—grown but not grown up—gather for their father’s funeral after he’s killed by a lightning strike. Llewelyn’s death is one of many quandaries haunting his children: . …Themes of family bonds and conflicts, secrets and sorrows also marked Kallos’s debut, and this time she weaves in an idiosyncratic view of the role of the dead in the lives of the living, sharp takes on business, academic and sexual politics, and a palpable empathy for small Midwestern towns.  Discussion leader: Linda

Dec. 12  Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy—though not considered one of Thomas Hardy’s masterpieces, it is an engaging and readable classic.  Much of the first part of the short novel is about the trials of the Mellstock village choir.  Including a romance and a sadness for the disappearance of rural life. Discussion leader: Becky

 Jan. 16, 2011 The Help by Kathryn Stockett—“Set in the rural South of the 1960’s, THE HELP is a startling, resonant portrait of the intertwined lives of women on opposite sides of the racial divide. Stockett’s many gifts – a keen eye for character, a wicked sense of humor, the perfect timing of a natural born storyteller – shine as she evokes a time and place when black women were expected to help raise white babies, and yet could not use the same bathroom as their employers. Her characters, both white and black, are so fully fleshed they practically breathe – no stock villains or pious heroines here.  Discussion leader: Lois

Feb. 20, 2011 The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell—Essayist and public radio regular Vowell (Assassination Vacation) revisits America’s Puritan roots in this witty exploration of the ways in which our country’s present predicaments are inextricably tied to its past. In a style less colloquial than her previous books, Vowell traces the 1630 journey of several key English colonists and members of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Foremost among these men was John Winthrop, who would become governor of Massachusetts. …Gracefully interspersing her history lesson with personal anecdotes, Vowell offers reflections that are both amusing (colonial history lesson via The Brady Bunch) and tender (watching New Yorkers patiently waiting in line to donate blood after 9/11).  Discussion leader: Nick

March 27, 2011  In Defense of Food:An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan—Food is the one thing that Americans hate to love and, as it turns out, love to hate. What we want to eat has been ousted by the notion of what we should eat, and it’s at this nexus of hunger and hang-up that Michael Pollan poses his most salient question: where is the food in our food? What follows in In Defense of Food is a series of wonderfully clear and thoughtful answers that help us omnivores navigate the nutritional minefield that’s come to typify our food culture.  Discussion leader: Lois

May 1, 2011 – The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer—American readers will have their imaginations challenged by 14-year-old Kamkwamba’s description of life in Malawi, a famine-stricken, land-locked nation in southern Africa…. After starving for five months on his family’s small farm, the corn harvest slowly brings Kamkwamba back to life. Witnessing his family’s struggle, Kamkwamba’s supercharged curiosity leads him to pursue the improbable dream of using “electric wind”(they have no word for windmills) to harness energy for the farm.  Discussion leader: Eric

June 5, 2011 - Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford—Henry Lee is a 12-year-old Chinese boy who falls in love with Keiko Okabe, a 12-year-old Japanese girl, while they are scholarship students at a prestigious private school in World War II Seattle. Henry hides the relationship from his parents, who would disown him if they knew he had a Japanese friend. …This is an old-fashioned historical novel that alternates between the early 1940s and 1984, after Henry’s wife Ethel has died of cancer.  Discussion leader: Barbara

The Knox Book Group began in 2001 with the reading of The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. The Group meets about every six weeks during the year to discuss a variety of books, chosen by the members.  We bring our lunches and rotate the duty of leading the discussion.  Anyone may attend.

Some books we have read:

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver

Excellent Women by Barbara Pym

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Evensong by Gail Godwin

The Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard by Kiran Desai

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich

The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom

The #1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

The Women Who Raised Me by Victoria Rowell

The Good Thief by Hanna Tinti

We have heard several authors speak, including Alexander McCall Smith and Khaled Hosseini, both at George Mason University.