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.