January 2015: The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd + 2014 Holiday Party Recap!

From the 2014 Viking/Penguin hardcover edition: "Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimkes’ daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.

Sue Monk Kidd’s sweeping new novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh birthday in 1803, when she is given ownership of ten-year-old Handful, who is to be her waiting maid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty-five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement, and the uneasy ways of love.

As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women’s rights movements.

Inspired in part by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handful’s cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in search for something better, and Charlotte’s lover, Denmark Vesey, a charismatic free black man who is planning insurrection."

We will meet to discuss The Invention of Wings on Thursday, January 29, 2015, at 7pm at the Atlantic Highlands Branch of the Monmouth County Library located at 100 First Avenue (inside Borough Hall) in Atlantic Highlands.

Looking ahead, here is the list of books for 2015 (starting with February):

Feb - Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
March - Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple
April - Pavilion of Women by Pearl S. Buck
May - The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
June - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
July - Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
August - Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis
Sep - Middletown, America by Gail Sheehy
Oct - Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Nov/Dec - The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

Now it's time for our Holiday Party Wrap-Up from 12/4/14!

Here are the results for the most and the least favorite books we read in 2014:

Favorite - The Light between Oceans
Runner up - The City of Ember
Least favorite - The Prince

And here are some photos from our Seabiscuit chat and Holiday Party:

Photo credits: Lori M.

Photo credits: Jo W.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Here's a virtual sparkling cider toast to a healthy and Happy New Year for 2015 and here's to another year filled with more great discussions!

Nov/Dec 2014: Seabiscuit (An American Legend) by Laura Hillenbrand + Holiday Party Info!

From the 2002 First Trade Paperback edition:

"He was a cultural icon. A world-class athlete. A champion who triumphed over terrible handicaps to become a legend of the racetrack. No other racehorse has rivaled Seabiscuit's fame or his sway over the Nation's imagination. Now Laura Hillenbrand unfolds the spellbinding story of this marvelous animal, the world he lived in, and the men who staked their lives and fortunes on his dazzling career. A riveting tale of grit, grace, luck, and an underdog's stubborn determination, Seabiscuit is an American classic."

A New York Times Notable Book.

For the Wikipedia author bio, click here.

For the author's facebook page, click here.

For an article about the author living with chronic illness, click here.

With Thanksgiving falling on the last Thursday of this month, we will meet to discuss Seabiscuit on Thursday, December 4, 2014, at 7pm at the Atlantic Highlands Branch of the Monmouth County Library, located at 100 First Avenue (inside Borough Hall). We will also have our annual Holiday party on December 4th, during which we will hold our annual Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down review of our 2014 books!  (If you are unable to attend, you may leave your votes on the next post here on our blog where we will share the results in January, or reply to one of your AHELBC emails with your votes).  Also, if you wish to bring in gently loved/used books for a book exchange, please feel free.  Any books not taken home will be donated to the Free Books cart in the Library.  Please feel free to bring something festive & delish to share with the group as well!

October 2014: Dear Life (stories) by Alice Munro

From the 2012 Vintage International paperback edition:

"In story after story in this brilliant new collection, Alice Munro pinpoints the moment a person is forever altered by a chance encounter, an action not taken, or a simple twist of fate. Her characters are flawed and fully human: a soldier returning from war and avoiding his fiancée, a wealthy woman deciding whether to confront a blackmailer, an adulterous mother and her neglected children, a guilt-ridden father, a young teacher jilted by her employer. Illumined by Munro’s unflinching insight, these lives draw us in with their quiet depth and surprise us with unexpected turns. And while most are set in her signature territory around Lake Huron, some strike even closer to home: an astonishing suite of four autobiographical tales offers an unprecedented glimpse into Munro’s own childhood. Exalted by her clarity of vision and her unparalleled gift for storytelling, Dear Life shows how strange, perilous, and extraordinary ordinary life can be."

Winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize In Literature. (Click here for the NY Times article - spoilers may be possible).

For the Wikipedia bio of Alice Munro, click here. For the author's facebook page, click here. (She has no official website).

We will meet to discuss Dear Life (stories) on Thursday, October 30, 2014, at 7pm in the Community Room of the Atlantic Highlands Branch of the Monmouth County Library located at 100 First Avenue inside Borough Hall in downtown Atlantic Highlands. Lori will bring candy so feel free to bring something in keeping with the (Halloween) holiday! Any questions regarding treats, please email Lori at AHLEBC@gmail.com.

September 2014: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison + Photos from Elita's Bon Voyage Party!

From the 1995 Vintage International paperback:

"First published in 1952 and immediately hailed as a masterpiece, Invisible Man is one of those rare novels that have changed the shape of American literature. For not only does Ralph Ellison's nightmare journey across the racial divide tell unparalleled truths about the nature of bigotry and its effects on the minds of both victims and perpetrators, it gives us an entirely new model of what a novel can be.

As he journeys from the Deep South to the streets and basements of Harlem, from a horrifying "battle royal" where black men are reduced to fighting animals, to a Communist rally where they are elevated to the status of trophies, Ralph Ellison's nameless protagonist ushers readers into a parallel universe that throws our own into harsh and even hilarious relief. Suspenseful and sardonic, narrated in a voice that takes in the symphonic range of the American language, black and white, Invisible Man is one of the most audacious and dazzling novels of our century."

Biography information on author Ralph Ellison (spoilers are possible):

Wikipedia, click here.
BIO Channel, click here.
Library of Congress, click here. 

Invisible Man is longer in length than the books we usually read so that members have the time to read our monthly selection along with their personal reading, so if you're unable to finish reading the novel, please don't feel badly or let it discourage you from coming!

We will meet to discuss Invisible Man on Thursday, September 25, 2014, at 7pm at the Atlantic Highlands branch of the Monmouth County Library, located at 100 First Avenue in downtown Atlantic Highlands (inside Borough Hall).  

Here are photos from our August meetup on 8/28, during which we had a going away party for founding member, Elita:

August 2014: The Devil In The White City by Erik Larson + Reminders

Murder, Magic, And Madness At The Fair That Changed America

From the First Vintage Books Edition 2004:
"Bringing Chicago circa 1893 to vivid life, Erik Larsen's spell-binding bestseller intertwines the true tale of two men - the brilliant architect behind the legendary 1893 World's Fair, striving to secure America's place in the world; and the cunning serial killer who used the fair to lure his victims to their death. Combining meticulous research with nail-biting storytelling. Erik Larsen has crafted a narrative with all the wonder of newly discovered history and the thrills of the best fiction."

For the author's site, click here. (Spoilers may be possible). 

Reminder: Our August meeting will be the last one co-founder Elita will attend. Newer members may not know Elita very well because she hasn't been able to come recently, but she still plays a very big roll behind the scenes of AHLEBC. Also, if it wasn't for her, there wouldn't be an evening book club or evening bookclub blog! Lori and Elita started it together and without her encouragement it never would have been possible. If you have time, please stop by to say good-bye and wish Elita well. We will have cake and sparkling cider for her send-off.

Also: We have a few months in 2015 still open for members to pick a book for! They are August, October, and November/December.  (Since Thanksgiving 2015 falls on the last Thursday, we will not meet in November 2015, we will meet on the first Thursday in December 2015). Even if you don't yet have a book in mind, but one of those months works for you, please let Lori know and she can put you on the schedule. If anyone would be interested in facilitating the novel Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, please let Lori know. You can email her at ahlebc@gmail.com.

Our schedule for 2015 so far is as follows:

Jan:  The Invention of Wings by Susan Monk Kidd
Feb:  Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
March:  month taken, book not chosen yet
April:  month taken, book not chosen yet
May:  Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri (this title may change)
June:  Possibly something by a Russian author
July:  Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
Aug:  Open
Sept:  The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Oct:  Open
Nov/Dec:  Open

We will meet to discuss The Devil In The White City and say goodbye to AHLEBC co-founder Elita on Thursday, August 28, 2014, at 7pm at the Atlantic Highlands Library branch of the Monmouth County Library located at 100 First Avenue in downtown Atlantic Highlands (inside Borough Hall) where copies of the book are available at the front desk.

July 2014: The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli + AHLEBC News *Updated 7/22

Synopsis from Amazon:
"Here is the world's most famous master plan for seizing and holding power.  

Astonishing in its candor The Prince even today remains a disturbingly realistic and prophetic work on what it takes to be a prince... a king... a president.  

When, in 1512, Machiavelli was removed from his post in his beloved Florence, he resolved to set down a treatise on leadership that was practical, not idealistic.  

In The Prince he envisioned would be unencumbered by ordinary ethical and moral values; his prince would be man and beast, fox and lion.  

Today, this small sixteenth-century masterpiece has become essential reading for every student of government, and is the ultimate book on power politics."

For the Wikipedia analysis of the novel, click here. (Spoilers are likely).  For the Wikipedia bio of Niccolo Machiavelli, click here. (Spoilers are possible). 

We will meet to discuss The Prince on Thursday, July 31, at 7pm at the Atlantic Highlands Branch of the Monmouth County Library, located at 100 First Avenue inside Borough Hall. 

We have some sad news to announce: Elita is moving back to Australia in September*. Our August* meeting will be the last one she will attend. Newer members may not know Elita very well because she hasn't been able to come recently, but she still plays a very big roll behind the scenes. Also, if it wasn't for her, there wouldn't be an evening book club. Lori and Elita started it together and without her encouragement it never would have been possible. So if you have time, please stop by to say good-bye and wish Elita well.

June 2014: The City Of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau

(Book of Ember, 1)

Many hundreds of years ago, the city of Ember was created by the Builders to contain everything needed for human survival. It worked…

but now the storerooms are almost out of food, crops are blighted, corruption is spreading through the city and worst of all - the lights are failing. Soon Ember could be engulfed by darkness…

But when two children, Lina and Doon, discover fragments of an ancient parchment, they begin to wonder if there could be a way out of Ember. Can they decipher the words from long ago and find a new future for everyone? Will the people of Ember listen to them?

For the author's website, click here. (Spoilers may be possible).

We will meet to discuss The City Of Ember on Thursday, June 26, at the Atlantic Highlands branch of the Monmouth County Library, located at 100 First Avenue (inside Borough Hall) in downtown Atlantic Highlands.

May 2014: Madam Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

From the 1996 Dover Thrift Edition paperback:
Bored and unhappy in a lifeless marriage, Emma Bovary yearns to escape from the dull circumstances of provincial life. Married to a simple-minded but indulgent country doctor, she takes one lover, then another, hastens her husband's financial ruin with her extravagance...

Gustave Flaubert (1821-1888) was brought to trial by the French government on the grounds of the novel's alleged immorality, but unlike his less fortunate contemporary, Baudelaire, he narrowly escaped conviction.

Falubert's powerful and deeply moving examination of the moral degeneration of a middle-class Frenchwoman is universally regarded as one of the landmarks of 19th-century fiction. It is reproduced here, complete and unabridged, in the classic translation by Eleanor Marx-Aveling, daughter of Karl Marx.

Unabridged, slightly corrected Dover (1996) republication of the translation first published by Vizetelly and Company, London, 1886.

For those reading via Kindle, this free e-edition is listed as having the same translator as the paperback above available via the library: Click here. (Nook doesn't have a free e-edition and was unable to find one with the same translator as the paperback available at the library).  To see if you can borrow an e-edition via your e-reader device, go to Library On The Go via http://www.monmouthcountylib.org/.

We will meet to discuss Madam Bovary on Thursday, May 29, 2014, at 7pm at the Atlantic Highlands branch of the Monmouth County Library, located at 100 First Avenue in downtown Atlantic Highlands inside Borough hall.

April 2014: The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls + AHLEBC is 4 years old!

From the 2005 Scribner paperback edition:
"The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of raising a family.

The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered.

The Glass Castle is truly astonishing--a memoir permeated by the intense love of a peculiar but loyal family."

For the author's official website, click here. For her facebook page, click here.

We will meet to discuss The Glass Castle on Thursday, April 24, 2014, at 7pm, at the Atlantic Highlands Branch of the Monmouth County Library, located at 100 First Avenue inside Borough Hall.

Lastly, a belated Happy 4th Anniversary to the Atlantic Highlands Library Evening Bookclub! (We turned 4 last month). Here's to many more years of great discussions! And a big Thank You to Elita and Lori for starting the AHLEBC! 

March 2014: Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

From the Publisher:
"The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks on over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying.

And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot-searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier.

What unfolds is a dazzling, yet deeply human, roller coaster of a novel, spanning fifty years and nearly as many lives. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Walter introduces us to the tangled lives of a dozen unforgettable characters: the starstruck Italian innkeeper and his long-lost love; the heroically preserved producer who once brought them together and his idealistic young assistant; the army veteran turned fledgling novelist and the rakish Richard Burton himself, whose appetites set the whole story in motion-along with the husbands and wives, lovers and dreamers, superstars and losers, who populate their world in the decades that follow.

Gloriously inventive, constantly surprising, Beautiful Ruins is a story of flawed yet fascinating people, navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams."

For the author website, please click here. (Spoilers may be possible).

The AHLEBC will meet to discuss Beautiful Ruins on Thursday, March 27, 2014, at 7pm at the Atlantic Highlands Branch of the Monmouth County Library, located at 100 First Avenue in downtown Atlantic Highlands (inside Borough Hall).

February 2014: The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

From the 2012 Scribner hardback edition:

"After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.

Tom, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.

 M. L. Stedman’s mesmerizing, beautifully written novel seduces us into accommodating Isabel’s decision to keep this “gift from God.” And we are swept into a story about extraordinarily compelling characters seeking to find their North Star in a world where there is no right answer, where justice for one person is another’s tragic loss.

The Light Between Oceans is exquisite and unforgettable, a deeply moving novel."

(There is no author site for this particular author).

We will meet to discuss The Light Between Oceans on Thursday, February 26, 2014, at 7pm, at the Atlantic Highlands branch of the Monmouth County Library, located at 100 First Avenue in Atlantic Highlands (inside Borough Hall).

January 2014: The Submission

Our first book of 2014 is The Submission by Amy Waldman.

Synopsis from the Picador 2011 paperback edition:

"A jury chooses a memorial for the victims of a devastating terrorist attack on Manhattan, only to learn that the anonymous designer is an American Muslim - an enigmatic architect named Mohammad Khan. His selection reverberates across a divided, traumatized country and, more intimately, through individual lives. Claire Burwell, the sole widow on the jury, becomes Khan's fiercest defender. But when the news of his selection becomes public, she comes under pressure from outraged family members and into collision with hungry journalists, opportunistic politicians, and even Khan himself. A story of clashing convictions and emotions, and a cunning satire of political ideals, The Submission is a resonant novel for our times."

To visit the official website for this novel, please click here. (Spoilers are possible!)  You can find author info via this site as well.

We will meet to discuss The Submission on Thursday, January 30, 2014, at 7pm.  We meet in the Community Room of the Atlantic Highlands Branch of the Monmouth County Library located at 100 First Avenue in downtown Atlantic Highlands inside of Borough Hall.  Copies of this book are available at the front desk.