Nov/Dec 2017: A Man Called Ove

A Man Called Ove: A Novel by Fredrik Backman (author), Henning Koch (translator)

From Goodreads:

"A grumpy yet loveable man finds his solitary world turned on its head when a boisterous young family moves in next door.

Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon, the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him the bitter neighbor from hell, but must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?

Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents' association to their very foundations."

Author site: Click here.

We will meet to discuss A Man Called Ove on Thursday, December 7, 2017 at 7pm in the Community Room of the Atlantic Highlands branch of the Monmouth County Library located inside Borough Hall at 100 First Avenue in downtown Atlantic Highlands. (If we are having a holiday party during this discussion, look for details in the email preceding this meetup).

Oct 2017: Orphan Train

Orphan Train: A Novel by Christina Baker Kline

From christinabakerkline.com:

"Between 1854 and 1929, so-called orphan trains ran regularly from the cities of the East Coast to the farmlands of the Midwest, carrying thousands of abandoned children whose fates would be determined by luck or chance. Would they be adopted by a kind and loving family, or would they face a childhood and adolescence of hard labor and servitude?

As a young Irish immigrant, Vivian Daly was one such child, sent by rail from New York City to an uncertain future a world away. Returning east later in life, Vivian leads a quiet, peaceful existence on the coast of Maine, the memories of her upbringing rendered a hazy blur. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past.

Seventeen-year-old Molly Ayer knows that a community-service position helping an elderly widow clean out her attic is the only thing keeping her out of juvenile hall. But as Molly helps Vivian sort through her keepsakes and possessions, she discovers that she and Vivian aren’t as different as they appear. A Penobscot Indian who has spent her youth in and out of foster homes, Molly is also an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past.

Moving between contemporary Maine and Depression-era Minnesota, Orphan Train is a powerful tale of upheaval and resilience, second chances, and unexpected friendship."

Author background on writing Orphan Train (spoilers likely): Click here.
Author site: Click here.
Google search on orphan trains: Click here.

We will meet to discuss Orphan Train on Thursday, 26, 2017 at 7pm in the Community Room of the Atlantic Highlands branch of the Monmouth County Library located inside Borough Hall at 100 First Avenue in downtown Atlantic Highlands.

Sep 2017: Euphoria

Euphoria by Lily King

From Goodreads:

"Inspired by events in the life of revolutionary anthropologist Margaret Mead, Euphoria is the story of three young, gifted anthropologists of the 1930s caught in a passionate love triangle that threatens their bonds, their careers, and, ultimately, their lives."

Author site: Click here.

We will meet to discuss Euphoria on Thursday, 28, 2017 at 7pm in the Community Room of the Atlantic Highlands branch of the Monmouth County Library located inside Borough Hall at 100 First Avenue in downtown Atlantic Highlands.

Aug 2017: Frankenstein

Frankenstein; Or, the Modern Prometheus Mary Shelley

From BN.com:

"Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein when she was only eighteen. At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, Frankenstein tells the story of committed science student Victor Frankenstein. Obsessed with discovering "the cause of generation and life" and "bestowing animation upon lifeless matter," Frankenstein assembles a human being from stolen body parts but; upon bringing it to life, he recoils in horror at the creatures hideousness. Tormented by isolation and loneliness, the once-innocent creature turns to evil and unleashes a campaign of murderous revenge against his creator, Frankenstein.

Frankenstein, an instant bestseller and an important ancestor of both the horror and science fiction genres, not only tells a terrifying story, but also raises rofound, disturbing questions about the very nature of life and the place of humankind within the cosmos: What does it mean to be human? What responsibilities do we have to each other? How far can we go in tampering with Nature? In our age, filled with news of organ donation genetic engineering, and bio-terrorism, these questions are more relevant than ever."

Poetry Foundation author bio: Click here.

We will meet to discuss Frankenstein on Thursday, 31, 2017 at 7pm in the Community Room of the Atlantic Highlands branch of the Monmouth County Library located inside Borough Hall at 100 First Avenue in downtown Atlantic Highlands.

Jul 2017: Being Mortal

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande

From Goodreads:

"In Being Mortal, bestselling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending. 

Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit. Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs. Hospitals isolate the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot. Doctors, committed to extending life, continue to carry out devastating procedures that in the end extend suffering.

 Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession’s ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families. Gawande offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that a person's last weeks or months may be rich and dignified.

Full of eye-opening research and riveting storytelling, Being Mortal asserts that medicine can comfort and enhance our experience even to the end, providing not only a good life but also a good end."

Author site: Click here.

We will meet to discuss Being Mortal on Thursday, 27, 2017 at 7pm in the Community Room of the Atlantic Highlands branch of the Monmouth County Library located inside Borough Hall at 100 First Avenue in downtown Atlantic Highlands.

Jun 2017: Olive Kitteridge

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

From Goodreads:

"At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town of Crosby, Maine, and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance; a former student who has lost the will to live; Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and her husband, Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.

As the townspeople grapple with their problems, mild and dire, Olive is brought to a deeper understanding of herself and her life–sometimes painfully, but always with ruthless honesty. Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition–its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires."

Author site: Click here.
Recent New Yorker Profile: Click here.

We will meet to discuss Olive Kitteridge on Thursday, June 29, 2017 at 7pm in the Community Room of the Atlantic Highlands branch of the Monmouth County Library located inside Borough Hall at 100 First Avenue in downtown Atlantic Highlands.

May 2017: The Bridge Of San Luis Rey

The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

From Goodreads:

"By chance, a monk witnesses the tragedy. Brother Juniper seeks to prove that it was divine intervention rather than chance that led to the deaths of those who perished in the tragedy. His study leads to his own death -- and to the author's timeless investigation into the nature of love and the meaning of the human condition."

For The Thorton Wilder Society book page: Click here.

We met to discuss The Bridge Of San Luis Rey on Thursday, May 25, 2017 in the Community Room of the Atlantic Highlands branch of the Monmouth County Library located inside Borough Hall at 100 First Avenue in downtown Atlantic Highlands.

Apr 2017: When The Emperor Was Divine

When The Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka (debut novel)

From julieotsuka.com:

"On a sunny day in Berkeley, California, in 1942, a woman sees a sign in a post office window, returns to her house, and matter-of-factly begins to pack her family’s possessions. Like thousands of other Japanese Americans they have been reclassified, virtually overnight, as enemy aliens and are about to be uprooted from their homes and sent to a dusty internment camp in the Utah desert.

In this lean and devastatingly evocative first novel, Julie Otsuka tells the story of one Japanese American family from five flawlessly realized points of view—the mother receiving the order to evacuate; the daughter on the long train ride to the camp; the son in the desert encampment; the family’s return to their home; and the bitter release of the father after almost four years in captivity. When the Emperor Was Divine is a work of enormous power that makes a shameful episode of our history as immediate as today’s headlines."

Author site: Click here.

We met to discuss When The Emperor Was Divine on Thursday, April 27, 2017 in the Community Room of the Atlantic Highlands branch of the Monmouth County Library located inside Borough Hall at 100 First Avenue in downtown Atlantic Highlands.

Mar 2017: One Thousand White Women

One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus

From jimfergusbooks:

"Based on an actual historical event but told through fictional diaries, this is the story of a remarkable woman who travels west in 1875 and marries the Chief of the Cheyenne Nation.

ONE THOUSAND WHITE WOMEN begins with May Dodd’s journey west into the unknown. Yet the unknown is a far better fate than the life she left behind. Committed to an insane asylum by her blue-blood family for the crime of loving a man beneath her station, May finds that her only hope of freedom is to participate in a secret government program whereby women from the “civilized” world become the brides of Cheyenne warriors. What follows is the story of May’s breathtaking adventures: her brief, passionate romance with the gallant young army captain John Bourke; her marriage to the great chief Little Wolf; and her conflict of being caught between two worlds, loving two men, living two lives."

Author site: Click here.

We met to discuss One Thousand White Women on Thursday, March 30, 2017 in the Community Room of the Atlantic Highlands branch of the Monmouth County Library located inside Borough Hall at 100 First Avenue in downtown Atlantic Highlands.

Feb 2017: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

From OliverSacks.Com:

"Here Dr. Sacks recounts the case histories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders: people afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations; patients who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; who are no longer able to recognize people and common objects; who are stricken with violent tics and grimaces or who shout involuntary obscenities; whose limbs have become alien; who have been dismissed as retarded yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents.

If inconceivably strange, these brilliant tales remain, in Dr. Sacks’s splendid and sympathetic telling, deeply human. They are studies of life struggling against incredible adversity, and they enable us to enter the world of the neurologically impaired, to imagine with our hearts what it must be to live and feel as they do."

Helpful links:
Author webite click here.

We will meet to discuss The Man Who Misstook His Wife For A Hat on Thursday, 2/23/17, 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.

Jan 2017 - My Brilliant Friend

From Goodreads:
(L'amica geniale #1) by Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein (Translator)
"A modern masterpiece from one of Italy’s most acclaimed authors, My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense, and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante’s inimitable style lends itself perfectly to a meticulous portrait of these two women that is also the story of a nation and a touching meditation on the nature of friendship.

The story begins in the 1950s, in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples. Growing up on these tough streets the two girls learn to rely on each other ahead of anyone or anything else. As they grow, as their paths repeatedly diverge and converge, Elena and Lila remain best friends whose respective destinies are reflected and refracted in the other. They are likewise the embodiments of a nation undergoing momentous change. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her protagonists, the unforgettable Elena and Lila.

Ferrante is the author of three previous works of critically acclaimed fiction: The Days of Abandonment, Troubling Love, and The Lost Daughter, and this novel is the first in a trilogy."

Helpful Links (*Spoilers May Be Possible*):
-Author Site click here.
-"The "Unmasking" Of Elena Ferrante" New Yorker Article click here.
-"Women On The Verge" (review of her writing in general) New Yorker Article click here.

We will meet to discuss My Brilliant Friend on Thursday 1/26/17 at 7pm in the Community Room of the Atlantic Highlands branch of the Monmouth County Library (located at 100 First Avenue inside Atlantic Highlands Borough Hall in downtown Atlantic Highlands opposite Veterans Park).