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.