January 2nd, 2025
The Marcellus Township Wood Memorial Library’s First Thursday Book Club met on Thursday, January 2, 2025 from 12 NOON to 1:00 PM in the library with 13 readers in attendance. We enjoyed delicious Chocolate Dipped Orange Shortbread Cookies and Pumpkin Cranberry Bread with coffee and tea. The recipes for these sweet treats will be included with the meeting summary as attachments.
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Location of the Marcellus Township Wood Memorial Library’s First Thursday Book Club meeting minutes:
The Marcellus Township Wood Memorial Library’s First Thursday Book Club meeting minutes are published in “files” on the Marcellus Twp Library Book Club Facebook site. If you have not already joined this site, please do!
The Monthly First Thursday Book Club Quiz and Prize!
This month, a small ♫ has been embedded in the summary of our book club meeting. The first person to notify the library (by phone, e-mail, or in person) with the location of the ♫ (page number of the minutes), will win a $15.00 gift certificate to Lowry’s Book Store in Three Rivers, MI. Share your email responses with us at marcellusmichiganlibrary@gmail.com.
New at the Library!
Community Read!
The next Community Read! will be held on January 16, 2024 @ 6:00 PM. We will be focusing on Tom Springer’s book The Star in the Sycamore: Discovering Nature’s Hidden Virtues in the Wild Nearby. Mr. Springer, a local author, will be joining us in person to discuss his book and answer any questions that readers may have. Contact or visit the library to obtain a copy of this book. We look forward to seeing you here! At the end of Tom Springer’s presentation, we’ll be selecting our next Community Read! for our book discussion in March 2025.
Author: Tom Springer
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About the Author: Tom Springer lives in Three Rivers, Michigan, in a 19th century Michigan farmhouse on four acres where he gardens, fishes, serves as a township trustee, tends 40 species of trees -- and mistrusts any tool that's more complex than a pitch fork. He has worked in corporate communications for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and in environmental research for the University of Notre Dame. Tom's collection of essays, "The Star in the Sycamore," has been named a Michigan Notable Book for 2021 by the Library of Michigan. His earlier collection of essays, "Looking for Hickories," (University of Michigan Press) was named a Michigan Notable Book in 2009 and is now in its fourth printing. Apart from his books, Tom's writing appears in publications such as Michigan Blue, Notre Dame Magazine and The Front Porch Republic. He earned a bachelor's degree in communications from Western Michigan University and holds a master's degree environmental journalism from Michigan State University.
Description of the Book: For Tom Springer, the usual four seasons can’t begin to describe the mini solstices of a Midwestern year: “Does summer really begin on June 21? No, the first ripe Michigan strawberries say summer to me ... just as a sumac that flames crimson in an August fencerow sends up the first semaphore flag of autumn. While these milestones aren’t measured by celestial reckoning, learning to know and observe them can greatly enrich a life.” "The Star in the Sycamore" takes readers on a journey of rare insight and local discovery. In the ecstasy of a dusk feeding frenzy, Springer catches a slew of fat bass and toothsome pike in "a little river gone wild in the city." In his love for country dogs, un
pampered on their beds of barn straw, he sees an ancient link to musky, wild pleasures that “fur babies” will never know. In his quest to learn dozens of star constellations, he reveals a striking connection between stars, trees and souls. Along the way, he meets people forever changed and healed by wildness. A combat soldier on a flight home, whose agitated demeanor grows calm and joyful as he describes an upcoming leave in the north woods. A burned-out nonprofit executive who becomes a native plant herbalist to cure herself and then the bodies and psyches of others. Through it all, Springer weaves humor, grace and a luminous sense of the ordinary.
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Adult Bookish Bingo!
Instructions for completing Adult Bookish Bingo!
- Participation is voluntary! You can obtain a Bookish Bingo Card from any library staff member, and you can start any time prior to December 31, 2025.
- Adult Bookish Bingo begins January 2, 2025, and ends December 31, 2025.
- Read a book matching the description in the square on your Bookish Bingo Cared to complete or fill that square. Write the name and author of the book you read to fill a particular square in that square.
- When you have read 5 books in a row (vertically, horizontally or diagonally), you have achieved Book Bingo! At this point, you can turn in your completed Bingo card to any library staff member, OR you can keep going and fill all of the boxes on the Bookish Bingo card and then turn in your completed card into any library staff member.
- Once you’ve turned in your Bookish Bingo card, you’ll be included when we give out Bookish Bingo prizes after the end of 2025!
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Books discussed at the December 2024 First Thursday Book Club meeting:
Title and Author: The Other Dr. Gilmer: Two Men, a Murder, and an Unlikely Fight for Justice by Dr. Benjamin Gilmer
Description: Fresh out of medical residency, Dr. Benjamin Gilmer joined a rural North Carolina clinic only to find that its previous doctor shared his last name. Dr. Vince Gilmer was loved and respected by the community—right up until he strangled his ailing father and then returned to the clinic for a regular week of work. Vince’s eventual arrest for murder shocked his patients. How could their beloved doctor be capable of such violence? The deeper Benjamin looked into Vince’s case, the more he became obsessed with discovering what pushed a good man toward darkness. When Benjamin visited Vince in prison, he met a man who appeared to be fighting his own mind, constantly twitching and veering into nonsensical tangents. Sentenced to life in prison, Vince had been branded a cold-blooded killer and a “malingerer”—a person who fakes an illness. But it was obvious to Benjamin that Vince needed help. Alongside This American Life journalist Sarah Koenig, Benjamin resolved to understand what had happened to his predecessor. Time and again, the pair came up against a prison system that cared little about the mental health of its inmates—despite more than a third of them suffering from mental illness. The Other Dr. Gilmer takes readers on a riveting and heart wrenching journey through our shared human fallibility, made worse by a prison system that is failing our most vulnerable citizens. With deep compassion and an even deeper sense of justice, Dr. Benjamin Gilmer delves into the mystery of what could make a caring doctor commit a brutal murder. And in the process, his powerful story asks us to answer a profound question: In a country with the highest incarceration rates in the world, what would it look like if we prioritized healing rather than punishment?
Genre: Adult Non-Fiction
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Availability:
In Library: No.
Libby: No.
MeLCat: Yes-book.
Club member comment(s): A fascinating true story about Dr. Benjamin Gilmer’s quest to determine what would cause the much beloved physician, Dr. Vince Gilmer (no relation to Dr. Benjamin Gilmer) who previously ran Dr. Benjamin Gilmer’s medical practice to murder his own father resulting in his arrest and a life sentence for the murder. This book is part medical mystery and part an examination of the abysmal state of our prison system’s care and management of the incarcerated mentally ill. Dr. Benjamin Gilmer’s advocacy for Dr. Vincent Gilmer is admirable and inspiring. The book educates the reader about the current state of mental health care in our prison systems and the need for radical change. The reader highly recommended this book to the others. Excellent read. This book is often included on lists of potential “community read” options and for good reason.
Title and Author: The Deep, Deep Snow (Shelby Lake, Book #1) by Brian Freeman
Description: Deputy Shelby Lake was abandoned as a baby, saved by a stranger who found her in the freezing cold. Now, years later, a young boy is missing -- and Shelby is the one who must rescue a child. The only evidence of what happened to ten-year-old Jeremiah Sloan is a bicycle left behind on a lonely road. After a desperate search fails to locate him, the close bonds of Shelby's hometown begin to fray under the weight of accusations and suspicion. Everyone around her is keeping secrets. Her adoptive father, her best friend, her best friend's young daughter -- they all have something to hide. Even Shelby is concealing a mistake that could jeopardize her career and her future. Unearthing the lies of the people in Jeremiah's life doesn't get the police and the FBI any closer to finding him. As time passes and the case grows cold, Shelby worries that the mystery will stay buried forever under the deep, deep snow. But even the deepest snow melts in the spring. When a tantalizing clue finally comes to light, Shelby must confront
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the darkest lie of all. Exposing the truth about Jeremiah will leave no one's life untouched -- including her own.
Genre: Adult Fiction-Mystery
Availability:
In Library: No.
Libby: No.
MeLCat: Yes–book, MP3 player, audiobook
Club member comment(s): A solid missing person mystery that kept our reader guessing until the end!
Title and Author: Whose Names are Unknown: A Novel by Sanora Babb
Description: Sanora Babb’s long-hidden novel Whose Names Are Unknown tells an intimate story of the High Plains farmers who fled drought dust storms during the Great Depression. Written with empathy for the farmers’ plight, this powerful narrative is based upon the author’s firsthand experience. This clear eyed and unsentimental story centers on the fictional Dunne family as they struggle to survive and endure while never losing faith in themselves. In the Oklahoma Panhandle, Milt, Julia, their two little girls, and Milt’s father, Konkie, share a life of cramped circumstances in a one-room dugout with never enough to eat. Yet buried in the drudgery of their everyday life are aspirations, failed dreams, and fleeting moments of hope. The land is their dream. The Dunne family and the farmers around them fight desperately for the land they love, but the droughts of the thirties force them to abandon their fields. When they join the exodus to the irrigated valleys of California, they discover not the promised land, but an abusive labor system arrayed against destitute immigrants. The system labels all farmers like them as worthless “Okies”
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and earmarks them for beatings and worse when hardworking men and women, such as Milt and Julia, object to wages so low they can’t possibly feed their children. The informal communal relations these dryland farmers knew on the High Plains gradually coalesce into a shared determination to resist. Realizing that a unified community is their best hope for survival, the Dunnes join with their fellow workers and begin the struggle to improve migrant working conditions through democratic organization and collective protest. Babb wrote Whose Names are Unknown in the 1930s while working with refugee farmers in the Farm Security Administration (FSA) camps of California. Originally from the Oklahoma Panhandle herself, Babb, who had first come to Los Angeles in 1929 as a journalist, joined FSA camp administrator Tom Collins in 1938 to help the uprooted farmers. As Lawrence R. Rodgers notes in his foreword, Babb submitted the manuscript for this book to Random House for consideration in 1939. Editor Bennett Cerf planned to publish this “exceptionally fine” novel but when John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath swept the nation, Cerf explained that the market could not support two books on the subject. Babb has since shared her manuscript with interested scholars who have deemed it a classic in its own right. In an era when the country was deeply divided on social legislation issues and millions drifted unemployed and homeless, Babb recorded the stories of the people she greatly respected, those “whose names are unknown.” In doing so, she returned to them their identities and dignity, and put a human face on economic disaster and social distress.
Genre: Adult historical fiction
Availability:
In Library: Yes—book.
Libby: No
MeLCat: Yes—book and audiobook.
Club member comment(s): As indicated above, this author’s work which was based on her first hand knowledge of family experiences during the Dust Bowl time period, was unfortunately submitted for publication at the same time as Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. His book was published. Hers was not. The University of Oklahoma eventually published her book and worked with the Dunne family to do so. A historically accurate book that is difficult to read related to the devastating experiences of the Dust Bowl, the author includes threads of hope throughout the book. Our reader enjoyed the read, telling the group that she learned a great deal about this time period that she did not yet know.
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Title and Author: Melania by Melania
Description: Melania is a compelling and inspirational memoir that offers a glimpse into the life of a remarkable woman who has navigated challenges with grace and determination. In her memoir, Melania reflects on her Slovenian childhood, the pivotal moments that led her to the world of high fashion in Europe and New York, and the serendipitous meeting with Donald Trump, a chance encounter that forever changed the course of her life. Melania opens up about their courtship, life in the spotlight, and experiencing the joy of motherhood. She shares behind-the-scenes stories from her time in the White House, shedding light on her advocacy work and the causes close to her heart. Melania offers an unprecedented look into her time as a First Lady who was born outside the United States -- a role she embraced with honor and dedication. It brings readers into her world and presents an in-depth account of a woman who has led a remarkable life on her own terms. Melania Trump's story is one of resilience and independence, showcasing her strength and unwavering commitment to her true self.
Genre: Adult non-fiction
Availability:
In Library: Yes–book.
Libby: No.
MeLCat: Yes–book.
Club member comment(s): Melania Trump will soon be the country’s First Lady for the second time. Our reader picked up this book to learn more about her and certainly did. An independent, self-sufficient, educated, multilingual, and business savvy woman in her own right, Melania’s book takes the reader back to her childhood, her modeling career, meeting Donald Trump, motherhood, and her life as First Lady during Trump’s first term. Our reader felt the book would have benefitted from additional editing;
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however, it was a fascinating look into the life of an influential woman in today’s world and for the next several years at least.
Title and Author: Shelterwood: A Novel by Lisa Wingate
Description: A sweeping novel inspired by the untold history of women pioneers who fought to protect children caught in the storm of land barons hungry for power and oil wealth. Oklahoma, 1909. Eleven year-old Olive Augusta Radley knows that her stepfather doesn’t have good intentions toward the two Choctaw girls boarded in their home as wards. When the older girl disappears, Ollie flees to the woods, taking six-year-old Nessa with her. Together they begin a perilous journey to the rugged Winding Stair Mountains, the notorious territory of outlaws, treasure hunters, and desperate men. Along the way, Ollie and Nessa form an unlikely band with others like themselves, struggling to stay one step ahead of those who seek to exploit them . . . or worse. Oklahoma, 1990. Law Enforcement Ranger Valerie Boren O’dell arrives at Horsethief Trail National Park seeking a quiet place to balance a career and single parenthood. But no sooner has Valerie reported for duty than she’s faced with local controversy over the park’s opening, a teenage hiker gone missing from one of the trails, and the long-hidden burial site of three children deep in a cave. Val’s quest to uncover the truth wins an ally among the neighboring Choctaw Tribal Police but soon collides with old secrets and the tragic and deadly history of the land itself. In this emotional and enveloping novel, Lisa Wingate traces the story of children abandoned by the law and the battle to see justice done. Amid times of deep conflict over who owns the land and its riches, Ollie and Val traverse the wild and beautiful terrain, each leaving behind one life in search of another.
Genre: Adult Historical Fiction
Availability:
In Library: Yes-large
Libby: Yes-eBook
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MeLCat: Yes-book, audiobook
Club member comment(s): A dual timeline historical fiction novel based on a true story, our reader described Wingate’s book as a “tough emotional story…about children.” Our reader told the group that well into the book, the story captured her attention and overall that she was pleased she read this novel.
Title and Author: Snake Oil: A Novel by Kelsey Rae Dimberg
Description: A razor-sharp literary thriller about three women vying for power at a wellness startup, where the cost of ambition might be deadly. One woman’s elixir is another woman’s poison…Rhoda West is Silicon Valley’s favorite female CEO: the luminously charismatic founder of the fast-growing startup Radical, a wellness company whose core mission is the betterment of women’s lives. Rhoda’s Instagram page offers intimate glimpses of her personal life alongside promotions for the cult-status products developed in the Well, Radical’s secretive lab. Dani Lang is a “quester,” as Rhoda calls her most avid followers. Dani found Radical at a low point in her life, and took an entry level job just to get in the door. When she volunteers to test a controversial new supplement, Dani wins an opportunity to rise in the company, even to work with Rhoda herself. Cecelia Cole is a “quasher.” She grinds away at the Customer Worship queue, resenting the entitled customers, the woo-woo Radical jargon, and Rhoda’s smiling hypocrisy. Cecelia, who suffers from a miserable chronic illness, knows that the remedies Rhoda sells can’t cure real sickness. Just as Rhoda announces another fundraising round that could turn Radical into a billion-dollar unicorn, an anonymous Twitter account begins spilling snarky gossip from inside the startup. Is Rhoda really the nurturing leader she presents to the world, or a fraud? Or is this just another case of a woman in business being punished for her strength and audacity? Tensions rise and loyalties clash, then tragedy strikes during a company party. In the aftermath of what looks more and more like a crime, even the most faithful questers begin to wonder to what lengths Rhoda will go to protect her company. Part page-turning suspense, part darkly comic skewering of startup culture, Snake Oil is a gripping exploration of ambition and authenticity, shining a revealing light on the wellness world.
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Genre: Adult fiction-mystery
Availability:
In Library: Yes-large print book
Libby: No
MeLCat: Yes-book
Club member comment(s): Our club member shared that this is a good story and that she enjoyed the book, recommending it to the others.
Title and Author: How Not to Act Old: 185 Ways to Pass for Phat, Sick, Hot, Dope, Awesome, or at Least Not Totally Lame by Pamela Redmond Satran
Description: Sure, you can try to stay younger by exercising, coloring your hair, and wearing stylish clothes—but how do you respond when someone asks, "Do you Twitter?" How Not to Act Old gives you simple ways to come back from over the hill and to act as young as you look. Covering everything from old-people entertainment (cancel that dinner party!) to old-people communication (it's called a "voice mail," not a "message," and no one leaves or listens to them anyway), Pamela Redmond Satran decodes the behaviors, viewpoints, and cultural touchstones that separate you from the hip young person you wish you still were. This irreverent guide is essential for anyone who doesn't want to embarrass their kids—or themselves.
Genre: Adult non-fiction
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Availability:
In Library: No
Libby: No
MeLCat: Yes-book
Club member comment(s): Our reader selected this book because the title and cover were interesting. Written in 2009, some of the book’s content is outdated; however, most of this selection is interesting and laugh out loud funny. Our reader enjoyed the experience.
Title and Author: The Boyfriend by Freida McFadden
Description: She's looking for the perfect man. He's looking for the perfect victim. Sydney Shaw, like every single woman in New York, has terrible luck with dating. She’s seen men who lie in their dating profile, men who stick her with the dinner bill, and worst of all, men who can't shut up about their mothers. But finally, she hits the jackpot. Her new boyfriend is utterly perfect. He's charming, handsome, and works as a doctor at a local hospital. Sydney is swept off her feet. Then the brutal murder of a young woman―the latest in a string of deaths across the coast―confounds police. The primary suspect? A mystery man who dates his victims before he kills them. Sydney should feel safe. After all, she is dating the guy of her dreams. But she can’t shake her own suspicions that the perfect man may not be as perfect as he seems. Because someone is watching her every move, and if she doesn’t get to the truth, she’ll be the killer’s next victim…A dark story about obsession and the things we’ll do for love,
Genre: Adult fiction-thriller
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Availability:
In Library: Yes-book
Libby: Yes-audiobook
MeLCat: Yes-book
Club member comment(s): Our reader described this book as a great rollercoaster of a mystery with many unexpected twists and turns and highly recommended it to the other club members.
Title and Author: Dead Med by Freida McFadden
Description: When Heather McKinley dreamed of becoming a doctor, she imagined curing sick kids and sporting pink stethoscopes. She never anticipated the sleepless nights, grueling exams, and endless labs. And she certainly never knew that her medical school earned the nickname Dead Med thanks to the tragic history of students overdosing on illegal drugs. But Heather would never consider doing anything like that. That is, until her longtime boyfriend dumps her, she finds herself failing anatomy, and her world starts to crumble. Everyone has a breaking point. Then, on the night before the final exam in anatomy, a shot rings out through the hallways of Dead Med. The school has claimed yet another casualty. One of Heather's classmates has done the unthinkable, and before her desperate 911 call even connects, it will happen again. And the night is just beginning.
Genre: Adult fiction-mystery
Availability:
In Library: No
Libby: No
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MeLCat: Yes-book
Club member comment(s): This book was also endorsed as a terrific mystery with an unexpected ending.
Title and Author: Free Fire (Joe Pickett #7) by C.J. Box
Description: Joe Picket returns, this time to the wilds of Yellowstone National Park. Deftly plotted and full of intrigue, Free Fire is C. J. Box's best novel yet. Joe Pickett, having recently been fired from his job as a Wyoming game warden, is working on his father-in-law's ranch when he receives a call from the governor's office. Governor Rulon-a devious but down-home politico-has a special request, one Joe knows he can't refuse. For weeks, the headlines have been abuzz with the story of Clay McCann, a lawyer who slaughtered four campers in cold blood in a far-off corner of Yellowstone National Park. After the murders, McCann immediately turned himself in at the nearest park ranger station. It seemed like a slam-dunk case for law enforcement-except that the crimes were committed in a thin sliver of land with zero residents and overlapping jurisdiction, the so-called free-fire zone. McCann had taken advantage of a loophole in the law: neither the state of Wyoming nor the federal government can try him for his crime, so he walks out of prison a free man.
Governor Rulon, sensitive to the rising tide of public outrage over the McCann case, wants his own investigation into the murders. The governor will reinstate Joe as a game warden if he'll go to Yellowstone to investigate. Joe, happy to get his badge back, even under these circumstances, agrees. However, it quickly becomes clear to Joe that McCann is deeply involved with some illegal activity taking place in the park-something tremendously lucrative and unusually dangerous. As Joe and his partner Nate Romanowski search in the unlikeliest places to find the key to the murders, they find out that it may be hidden in the rugged terrain of the park itself.
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Genre: Adult fiction-mystery
Availability:
In Library: No
Libby: No
MeLCat: Yes-book
Club member comment(s): Our club member recommended this book as a very good mystery.
Title and Author: Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle
Description: "I am confiding this manuscript to space, not with the intention of saving myself, but to help, perhaps, to avert the appalling scourge that is menacing the human race. Lord have pity on us!" With these words, Pierre Boulle hurtles the reader onto the Planet of the Apes. In this simian world, civilization is turned upside down: apes are men and men are apes; apes rule and men run wild; apes think, speak, produce, wear clothes, and men are speechless, naked, exhibited at fairs, used for biological research. On the planet of the apes, man, having reached to apotheosis of his genius, has become inert. To this planet come a journalist and a scientist. The scientist is put into a zoo, the journalist into a laboratory. Only the journalist retains the spiritual strength and creative intelligence to try to save himself, to fight the appalling scourge, to remain a man. Out of this situation, Pierre Boulle has woven a tale as harrowing, bizarre, and meaningful as any in the brilliant roster of this master storyteller. With his customary wit, irony, and disciplined intellect and style, the author tells a swiftly moving story dealing with man's conflicts, and takes the reader into a suspenseful and strangely fascinating orbit.
Genre: Adult fiction-science fiction
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Availability:
In Library: No
Libby: No
MeLCat: Yes-book
Club member comment(s): When reviewing this classic for the group, our club member described it as cerebral, thoughtful science fiction. He also pointed out that the book is quite different from the movie.
Title and Author: The Martian: A Novel by Andy Weir
Description: Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.
Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error” are much more likely to kill him first. But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?
Genre: Adult fiction-science fiction
Availability:
In Library: Yes-book
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Libby: Yes-eBook
MeLCat: Yes-book, audiobook
Club member comment(s): Another “very good” endorsement for this science fiction novel from our reviewing club member.
Title and Author: Year of Yes: How to Dance it Out, Stand in the Sun, and Be Your Own Person by Shonda Rhimes
Description: In this poignant, hilarious and deeply intimate call to arms, Hollywood's most powerful woman, the mega-talented creator of Grey's Anatomy and Scandal and executive producer of How to Get Away with Murder and Catch, reveals how saying YES changed her life -- and how it can change yours too. With three hit shows on television and three children at home, Shonda Rhimes had lots of good reasons to say no when invitations arrived. Hollywood party? No. Speaking engagement? No. Media appearances? No. And to an introvert like Shonda, who describes herself as 'hugging the walls' at social events and experiencing panic attacks before press interviews, there was a particular benefit to saying no: nothing new to fear. Then came Thanksgiving 2013, when Shonda's sister Delorse muttered six little words at her: You never say yes to anything. Profound, impassioned and laugh-out-loud funny, in Year of Yes Shonda Rhimes reveals how saying YES changed -- and saved -- her life. And inspires readers everywhere to change their own lives with one little word: Yes.
Genre: Adult non-fiction
Availability:
In Library: Yes-book
Libby: No
MeLCat: Yes-book, audiobook
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Club member comment(s): This book’s author also wrote Grey’s Anatomy. Our club member described Year of Yes as funny, inspiring, engaging, and a fast read that was a great way to start the new year. She highly recommended it to the other members.
Title and Author: The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Description: As indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution insures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.” Elizabeth Gilbert writes, Robin Wall Kimmerer is “a great teacher, and her words are a hymn of love to the world.” The Serviceberry is an antidote to the broken relationships and misguided goals of our times, and a reminder that “hoarding won’t save us, all flourishing is mutual.”
Genre: Adult non-fiction
Availability:
In Library: Yes-book
Libby: No
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MeLCat: Yes-book, audiobook
Club member comment(s): Robin Wall Kimmerer is also the author of Braiding Sweetgrass. In her new book, Kimmerer makes the reader engage with and relearn lessons about the natural world. She addresses changes we can and need to make in our own lives to preserve this world for future generations. Our reader found the book to be profound yet down to earth and relatable.
Title and Author: 11/22/63: A Novel by Stephen King
Description: ON NOVEMBER 22, 1963, THREE SHOTS RANG OUT IN DALLAS, PRESIDENT KENNEDY DIED, AND THE WORLD CHANGED. WHAT IF YOU COULD CHANGE IT BACK? In this brilliantly conceived tour de force, Stephen King—who has absorbed the social, political, and popular culture of his generation more imaginatively and thoroughly than any other writer—takes readers on an incredible journey into the past and the possibility of altering it. It begins with Jake Epping, a thirty-five-year-old English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching GED classes. He asks his students to write about an event that changed their lives, and one essay blows him away—a gruesome, harrowing story about the night more than fifty years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a sledgehammer. Reading the essay is a watershed moment for Jake, his life—like Harry’s, like America’s in 1963—turning on a dime. Not much later his friend Al, who owns the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to the past, a particular day in 1958. And Al enlists Jake to take over the mission that has become his obsession—to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson, in a different world of Ike and JFK and Elvis, of big American cars and sock hops and cigarette smoke everywhere. From the dank little city of Derry, Maine (where there’s Dunning business to conduct), to the warmhearted small town of Jodie, Texas, where Jake falls dangerously in love, every turn is leading eventually, of course, to a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and to Dallas, where the past becomes heart-stoppingly suspenseful, and where history might not be history anymore. Time-travel has never been so believable. Or so terrifying.
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Genre: Adult fiction-science fiction
Availability:
In Library: Yes-book
Libby: Yes-audiobook
MeLCat: Yes-book, audiobook
Club member comment(s): This is a very long book, but our reader, listening to a friend, considered that she had read three books in one by taking on King’s novel. With an element of the paranormal, our reader found this to be an interesting and engaging read. She was glad that she opted to take on the challenge of reading it!
Title and Author: I Paint the Sky: A Novel by Laura Kemp
Description: She came west to start a new life... But what is she running from? Married to a man she barely knows, nineteen- year- old Emily Ives has hopes of starting a new life in her small, Michigan town. Soon she is pregnant, and shocked to discover her husband's charm masks a violent nature. When a fire claims the lives of her loved ones, she has one choice, escape on the Oregon Trail to the Black Hills, where her uncle and his wife are waiting. But there's one hitch… Caleb Merritt has lived his life in shadow since the death of his wife. When he finds Emily about to give birth in the back of a wagon, he offers to help, only to find himself drawn to her when he should be running the other way. She has secrets, that's for certain, and the last thing Caleb needs is more heartbreak. When tragedy splits the wagon party in two, Emily discovers the husband she thought was dead is not only alive, but hunting her. With her life and a long-lost treasure hanging in the balance, Emily must confront the past if she ever hopes to see the future.
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Genre: Adult historical fiction
Availability:
In Library: Yes-book
Libby: No
MeLCat: Yes-book
Club member comment(s): Our reader told that group that she enjoyed this 1850s period novel written about a 10 month period in the main character’s life. She told the group that the book should have been subtitled “Calamity Jane” because everything that could go wrong did go wrong in Emily’s life. The number of problems, issues, and hurdles this main character faced, our reader felt, added a comical edge to this book.
Title and Author: Bootstrapper: From Broke to Badass on a Northern Michigan Farm by Mardi Jo Link
Description: Poignant, irreverent, and hilarious: the memoir of a woman who, after ending her nineteen year marriage, staves off a perpetually empty bank account, saves her century-old farmhouse from foreclosure with the help of her three young sons, and reclaims her life. It's the summer of 2005, and Mardi Jo Link's dream of living the simple life has unraveled into debt, heartbreak, and perpetually ragged cuticles. Still, when she and her husband call it quits, leaving her more broke than ever, Link makes a seemingly impossible resolution: to hang on to her northern Michigan farm and continue to raise her boys on well water and wood chopping and dirt. Armed with an unfailing sense of humor and her three resolute accomplices, Link confronts blizzards and coyotes, learns about Zen divorce and the best way to butcher a hog, dominates a zucchini-growing contest and wins a year's supply of local bread, masters the art of bargain cooking, deals with rampaging poultry, and finds her way to a truly rich existence. Told with
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endless heart and candor, Bootstrapper is a story of motherhood and survival and self-discovery, of an indomitable woman who, against all the odds, holds on to what matters most.
Genre: Adult non-fiction
Availability:
In Library: Yes-book
Libby: Yes-book, audiobook
MeLCat: Yes-book, audiobook
Club member comment(s): Our club member enjoyed this funny and moving memoir, recommending it to the others.
Title and Author: The Perfect Son by Freida McFadden
Description: All families have secrets. But some secrets are deadly.
Erika Cass has a perfect family and a perfect life. Until, one quiet evening, two detectives show up at her front door. "Mrs. Cass, we were hoping your son could answer a few questions about the girl who disappeared last night..." A high school girl has vanished from their quiet neighborhood, and the police suspect the worst. Erika's teenage son, Liam, was the last person to see the girl alive. Erika has always sensed something… different in her seemingly perfect oldest child. He's charming, smart, and popular, but mothers have the best instincts, and Erika knows there's more to her son than meets the eye. She wants to believe he's innocent, but as the evidence mounts, she can't deny the truth―Liam may have done the unthinkable.
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Genre: Adult fiction-mystery
Availability:
In Library: No
Libby: No
MeLCat: Yes-book, audiobook
Club member comment(s): Our reader enjoyed this mystery and recommended it to the others.
Title and Author: The Stand by Stephen King
Description: A patient escapes from a biological testing facility, unknowingly carrying a deadly weapon: a mutated strain of super-flu that will wipe out 99 percent of the world’s population within a few weeks. Those who remain are scared, bewildered, and in need of a leader. Two emerge—Mother Abagail, the benevolent 108-year-old woman who urges them to build a peaceful community in Boulder, Colorado; and Randall Flagg, the nefarious “Dark Man,” who delights in chaos and violence. As the dark man and the peaceful woman gather power, the survivors will have to choose between them—and ultimately decide the fate of all humanity.
Genre: Adult fiction-horror
Availability:
In Library: No
Libby: Yes-book, audiobook
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MeLCat: Yes-book, audiobook
Club member comment(s): This book, also a long one, is written about the impact of a 1980s pandemic. Our reader enjoyed the book overall but told the group that the second half is “really weird.”
Title and Author: Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
Description: The visionary author’s masterpiece pulls us—along with her Black female hero—through time to face the horrors of slavery and explore the impacts of racism, sexism, and white supremacy then and now. Dana, a modern Black woman, is celebrating her 26th birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana’s life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.
Genre: Adult fiction-science fiction
Availability:
In Library: No
Libby: Yes-book
MeLCat: Yes-book, audiobook
Club member comment(s): Our club member thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommended it to the other readers.
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Title and Author: A Redbird Christmas: A Novel by Fannie Flagg
Description: Bestselling author Fannie Flagg has written an enchanting Christmas story of faith and hope for all ages. Deep in the southernmost part of Alabama, along the banks of a lazy winding river, lies the sleepy little community known as Lost River, a place that time itself seems to have forgotten. After a startling diagnosis from his doctor, Oswald T. Campbell leaves behind the cold and damp of the oncoming Chicago winter to spend what he believes will be his last Christmas in the warm and welcoming town of Lost River. There he meets the postman who delivers mail by boat, the store owner who nurses a broken heart, the ladies of the Mystic Order of the Royal Polka Dots Secret Society, who do clandestine good works. And he meets a little redbird named Jack, who is at the center of this tale of a magical Christmas when something so amazing happened that those who witnessed it have never forgotten it. Once you experience the wonder, you too will never forget A Redbird Christmas.
Genre: Adult fiction
Availability:
In Library: Yes-book
Libby: Yes-book
MeLCat: Yes-book, audiobook
Club member comment(s): A Christmas classic, our club member shared that she picked this book because of its holiday theme and enjoyed it because of its southern charm, sense of community, and the hospitality shown by the book’s characters.
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Title and Author: James by Percival Everett
Description: A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and ferociously funny—told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins ♫ the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first-century American literature.
Genre: Adult historical fiction
Availability:
In Library: Yes-large print book
Libby: Yes-book, audiobook
MeLCat: Yes-book
Club member comment(s): Wishing she had read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn before reading James, our reader told the group that this book is written from Jim’s point of view. She described the book’s author as an amazing literary writer that brought lightheartedness, hope, and laughter into the book. She highly recommended James to the other readers.
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The next meeting of the Marcellus Township Wood Memorial Library’s First Thursday Book Club will be held on Thursday, February 6, 2024, at 12 NOON in the library.
/es/Tammy Terpstra
Library Technician
Marcellus Township Wood Memorial Library
