Upcoming Events

Our reading group averages 25 people in attendance. Some people talk and many do not. Sometimes some of us enjoy the selections, other times, we don't, but whatever we choose, we can always count on a lively discussion. We do try to stay within certain guidelines: accept selections with an open mind; read with diligence and focus; allow for everyone's opinions and viewpoints, no matter how divergent from each other; accept others for who they are and their individual likes and dislikes; avoid allowing personal issues to get in the way of the group discussions.
The books we've read so far include The Five People You Meet in Heaven, by Mitch Albom; The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd; The Mermaid Chair, by Sue Monk Kidd; The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards; Marley & Me, by John Grogran; The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold; Three Weeks with My Brother, by Nicholas Sparks, with Micah Sparks; To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee; Leave It to Claire, by Tracey Bateman; The Christmas Hope, by Donna VanLiere; Father Joe, by Tony Hendra; Monique and the Mango Rains, by Kim Holloway; The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls; Daddy's Girl, by Lisa Scottoline; The Kindness of Strangers by Katrina Kittle; Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself, by Alan Alda; Dear John, by Nicholas Sparks; The Christmas Promise, by Donna Van Liere; The God of Animals, by Aryn Kyle; Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust, by Immaculèe Ilibagiza with Steve Erwin; Eye Contact, by Cammie McGovern..

Book for the Next Meeting

The Friday Night Knitting Club

In this novel by Kate Jacobs, Georgia Walker's entire life is wrapped up in running her knitting store, Walker and Daughter, and caring for her 12-year-old daughter, Dakota. With the help of Anita, a lively widow in her seventies, Georgia starts the Friday Night Knitting Club, which draws loyal customers and a few oddballs. The yarn picks up steam as it draws to a conclusion, and an unexpected tragedy makes it impossible to put down. Pick up your copy and join the discussion on Friday, May 30, at 7:00 p.m. Refreshments will be served.

Book List for St. Anne Reading Group

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, by Lisa See

set in remote 19th-century China details the deeply affecting story of lifelong, intimate friends (laotong, or "old sames") Lily and Snow Flower, their imprisonment by rigid codes of conduct for women and their betrayal by pride and love. It begins with a detailed and heartbreaking description of Lily and her sisters' foot binding, and widens to a vivid portrait of family and village life.

In a nursing home in California, WWI vet Patrick Delaney is fighting new battles: against old age (he's 81), stomach cancer and the knowledge of his encroaching death. This earnest, elegant first novel takes the form of Patrick's diary, in which he details the humbling infirmities of an aging body and looks back at the defining moments of his life--the war itself, when he lost his best friend, Daniel, and the brief but intense love affair he had 10 years later with Daniel's grieving lover, Julia.

A dancer turned schoolteacher, Summer is still recovering from the injury that ended her promising career in the arts. Her lover, Nicholas, fears she's depending on him to fulfill her remaining dreams and hopes. And, most ominously of all, her cherished brother, Todd, is slowly dying. In the tranquil suburbs of Ohio, as these difficult days crawl forward, Summer will come to terms with life, death, relationships, and her father's enigmatic, long-ago injunction to "travel light". She will learn that true love transcends all illness, distrust, and the cruelty of time. But it is in trying to fulfill a promise made to her brother long ago that Summer will meet her greatest challenge -- and realize how truly fortunate she is.

Dair Canard has made up tales since she was a child. Now, as an adult, she finds herself lying at the slightest provocation. She has established herself as an actress and bonded with her husband, Peyton, on the premise of her greatest lie ever, a fictitious twin sister who died at the age of 10. But Dair now finds herself at a point in her life where her lies threaten to avalanche.

On a flight into Chicago, millionaire media mogul Raymond Neenan is visited by his guardian angel. Michael informs Neenan that his life is almost over and that he needs to make amends for mistreating people in his profit-centered existence, among them his wife; his estranged offspring, who hate him; and numerous business associates.

While Steinbeck's later works can be viewed as some sort of social criticism, this collection of his earlier works, rich in the feeling for the land and for its hardworking people, is simply his personal salute to human nature. He wrote for ordinary people and at the same time his works are complex enough to be appreciated by scholars.

For Deena Munger, the transformation to underappreciated housewife was subtle and gradual. Not that she didn't love her family dearly, but Deena was starting to wonder: When did I disappear? And how come I was never even noticed? Then one day she stuns her family by volunteering to raise a puppy for K-9 Eyes for the Blind. Suddenly, Deena's once-stable life is turned upside down. And, it turns out, this rambunctious, impulsive ball of fur could actually be the damage control she needs to save her family, her marriage, and her self.

In an inspirational debut novel by the author of Tuesdays with Morrie, Charles "Chick" Benetto, grieving over the death of his mother, uses alcohol as a crutch to deal with his loneliness, isolation, and depression and the disintegration of his life, until an encounter with his mother's ghost brings him new awareness and leads him to attempt to put his life back together.

When Gruwell was a first-year high school teacher in Long Beach, CA, teaching the "unteachables,” she discovered that most of her students had not heard of the Holocaust. Shocked, she introduced them to books about tolerance: first-person accounts by the likes of Anne Frank and Zlata Filopvic, who chronicled her life in war-torn Sarajevo, inspiring them to keep diaries that showed the violence, homelessness, racism, illness, and abuse in their lives.

Margaret Lea works in her father's antiquarian bookshop where her fascination for the biographies of the long-dead has led her to write them. She gets a letter from one of the most famous authors of the day, the mysterious Vida Winter, who has toyed with journalists who interview her, creating outlandish life histories for herself - all of them invention. Now she is old and ailing, and at last she wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. Her letter to Margaret is a summons.

An atmospheric, gritty, and compelling novel of star-crossed lovers, set in the circus world circa 1932, by the bestselling author of Riding Lessons.
When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and suddenly adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of freaks, drifters, and misfits, a second-rate circus struggling to survive during the Great Depression, making one-night stands in town after endless town. A veterinary student who almost earned his degree, Jacob is put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It is there that he meets Marlena, the beautiful young star of the equestrian act, who is married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. He also meets Rosie, an elephant who seems untrainable until he discovers a way to reach her.

In his 13th book, bestselling Sparks (At First Sight, etc.) limns the far-reaching implications of several seemingly ordinary choices made by Beaufort, N.C. veterinarian Travis Parker and his next-door neighbor Gabrielle Holland, a physician's assistant and recent arrival. After an inauspicious first meeting where Gabby accuses Travis's boxer of impregnating her purebred collie, the two fall hard for each other. Already dating someone else seriously, Gabby is faced with a dilemma: whether to stick with longtime boyfriend Kevin, or get involved with Travis. A tender and moving love story and a quick read, Sparks's latest does not disappoint.

After Rocky's veterinarian husband dies too young, at 42, she leaves town and her job as a psychologist and heads to secluded Peak's Island, off the coast of Portland. There, she becomes the local Animal Control Warden and reinvents her past so that it no longer includes the tragic fact of her husband's death.
When Rocky finds a dog with a strange handmade arrow sticking out of his shoulder, she both finds a soulmate, and uncovers the beginnings of a mystery. With the new friends she meets on the island, Tess, the synesthete; Melissa, the young anorexic; and Hill, her archery instructor, whom she is simultaneously suspicious of and attracted to; Rocky slowly unravels the mystery of Lloyd the dog, the arrow, and his missing owner. In doing so, she learns that her grief can be displaced, slowly but surely, by moments of joy.

Georgia Walker's entire life is wrapped up in running her knitting store, Walker and Daughter, and caring for her 12-year-old daughter, Dakota. With the help of Anita, a lively widow in her seventies, Georgia starts the Friday Night Knitting Club, which draws loyal customers and a few oddballs. The yarn picks up steam as it draws to a conclusion, and an unexpected tragedy makes it impossible to put down.

If you have a title you'd like to add, please forward to donnab194@charter.net.

Be sure to add Reading Group to subject line! It will be included on the list for our next meeting.