May 4, 2023
The Marcellus Township Wood Memorial Library
Book Club Meeting Minutes
May 4, 2023
The Marcellus Township Wood Memorial Library Book Club Meeting took place on May 4, 2023, from 12 Noon to 1:00 PM at the library with 6 members in attendance. The members enjoyed light refreshments while they discussed books that each had read in the past month. The books, their descriptions, and member comments can be found below.
Flowers and Foul Play by Amanda Flower
Availability:
In Library: Book
MelCat: Book
Description: “Fiona Knox lost her fiancé and her flower shop—but when she flies to Scotland to inherit her godfather’s cottage and possibly magical walled garden, she may lose her life as well when she’s swept into a murder investigation. Florist Fiona Knox’s life isn’t smelling so sweet these days. Her fiancé left her for their cake decorator. Then, her flower shop wilted after a chain florist opened next door. So when her godfather, Ian MacCallister, leaves her a cottage in Scotland, Fiona jumps on the next plane to Edinburgh. Ian, after all, is the one who taught her to love flowers. But when Ian’s elderly caretaker Hamish MacGregor shows her to the cottage upon her arrival, she finds the once resplendent grounds of Duncreigan in a dreadful shambles—with a dead body in the garden. Minutes into her arrival, Fiona is already being questioned by the handsome Chief Inspector Neil Craig and getting her passport seized. But it’s Craig’s fixation on Uncle Ian’s loyal caretaker, Hamish, as a prime suspect, that really makes her worried. As Fiona strolls the town, she quickly realizes there are a whole bouquet of suspects much more likely to have killed Alastair Croft, the dead lawyer who seems to have had more enemies than friends. Now it’s up to Fiona to clear Hamish’s name before it’s too late in Flowers and Foul Play…” (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/622328/flowers-and-foul-play-by-amanda-flower/)
Club member comment(s): This was a relaxing, enjoyable but not necessarily complex murder mystery. The reader noticed a number of grammatical errors and/or editing oversights which was surprising because the author is a writer and a librarian.
My Little Michigan Kitchen: Recipes and Stories from a Homemade Life Lived Well by Mandy McGovern
Availability:
In Library: Book
MelCat: Book
Description: “A collection of over 100 homestyle recipes, stunning photos, and stories inspired by a life lived well in Michigan from Mandy McGovern, creator of the food blog Kitchen Joy®. In My Little Michigan Kitchen, Mandy shares tried-and-true recipes for Michigan classics including "Secret Ingredient" Tart Cherry Pie, UP North Pasties, Detroit Coney Dogs, Mackinac Island Fudge, Detroit Deep-Dish Pizza, Boston Coolers, Smoked Whitefish Chowder, Hot Fudge Cream Puffs, and MANY more. She also shares dishes that are a staple at her family’s table, including Bacon and Sweet Corn Breakfast Galette, Potato Rolls, Michigan Cherry Chicken Salad, Boeuf Bourguignon, Salted Maple Pie, and her popular Cut-Out Sugar Cookies. Mandy shares stories from her adventures in Michigan, and features full-color photography of nearly every recipe, as well as several gorgeous landscape photos capturing the beauty and joy that the Great Lakes State has to offer.” (https://kitchenjoyblog.com/cookbook/)
Club member comment(s): This book has delightful Michigan focused recipes and gorgeous photographs of Michigan points of interest. The reader so enjoyed the book that she plans on purchasing it so that she can add it to her personal library.
Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
Availability:
In Library: Book, Libby e-book, Libby audiobook
MelCat: Book, Audiobook
Description: “Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve “American culture” in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic—including the work of Bird’s mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old. Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn’t know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn’t wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is drawn into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken, and finally to New York City, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change. Our Missing Hearts is an old story made new, of the ways supposedly civilized communities can pretend to ignore the most searing injustice. It’s a story about the power—and limitations—of art to create change, the lessons and legacies we pass on to our children, and how any of us can survive a broken world with our hearts intact.” (https://www.celesteng.com/our-missing-hearts)
Club member comment(s): The book has a slow start but hooked the reader fairly quickly. The reader found the book’s theme very interesting but disturbing.
The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave
Availability:
In Library: Libby e-book, Libby audiobook
MelCat: Book, Audiobook
Description: “Before Owen Michaels disappears, he smuggles a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers—Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. Bailey, who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother. As Hannah’s increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, as the FBI arrests Owen’s boss, as a US marshal and federal agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn’t who he said he was and that Bailey just may hold the key to figuring out Owen’s true identity—and why he really disappeared. Hannah and Bailey set out to discover the truth. But as they start putting together the pieces of Owen’s past, they soon realize they’re also building a new future—one neither of them could have anticipated.
With its breakneck pacing, dizzying plot twists, and evocative family drama, The Last Thing He Told Me is a “page-turning, exhilarating, and unforgettable” (PopSugar) suspense novel.” (https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Last-Thing-He-Told-Me/Laura-Dave/9781501171352)
Club member comment(s): The central issue in this book is the disappearance of a woman’s husband and their child’s father. The reader enjoyed the book and recommended it to the club members.
House of Gold by Natasha Solomons
Availability:
In Library: Not available.
MelCat: Book, Large Print Book, Audiobook
Description: “…an epic family saga about a headstrong Austrian heiress who will be forced to choose between the family she's made and the family that made her at the outbreak of World War I. Vienna, 1911. Twenty-one-year-old Greta Goldbaum has always hungered after what's forbidden: secret university lectures, unseemly trumpet lessons, and most of all, the freedom to choose her life's path.
The Goldbaum family has different expectations. United across Europe by unsurpassed wealth and power, Goldbaum men are bankers, while Goldbaum women marry Goldbaum men to produce Goldbaum children. Greta will do her part. So Greta moves to England to wed Albert, a distant cousin. The marriage is not a success. Yet, when Albert's mother gives Greta a garden, things at Temple Court begin to change. First Greta falls in love with her garden, then with England, and finally with her husband. But when World War I sends both Albert and Greta's beloved brother, Otto, to the front lines--one to fight for the Allies, one to fight for the Central Powers--the House of Gold is left vulnerable as never before, and Greta must choose: the family she's created or the one she was forced to leave behind. Set against a nuanced portrait of World War I, this is a sweeping family saga rich in historical atmosphere and heartbreakingly human characters. House of Gold is Natasha Solomons's most dazzling and moving novel yet.” (https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/38526385)
Club member comment(s): The reader listened to the audiobook version of this novel and thoroughly enjoyed listening because the narration was fantastic. Four different narrators were utilized and each narrator was able to effect a variety of accents which contributed to the authenticity of the book’s international settings. A garden was a central theme to the novel, and the author’s detailed descriptions of the plants and garden layout were really quite wonderful. The book also details how antisemitism existed even before WWI and plays a part in the plot. The reader recommended the book to the others.
Win, Place, and Show by Dick Francis
Availability:
In Library: Not available.
MelCat: Book
Description: “A hard fall took hotshot jockey Sid Halley out of the horse racing game, leaving him with a crippled hand, a broken heart, and a desperate need for a new job. In Odds Against, he lands a position with a detective agency. His first case brings him up against a field of thoroughbred criminals, and the odds against him are making it a long shot that he'll even survive. Whip Hand finds Halley haunted by his glory days, although he still finds a certain satisfaction in solving a case. Hired by the wife of one of England's top racehorse trainers, Halley needs to figure out why her husband's most promising horses have been performing so poorly, and winds up haunted by more than just memories. In Come to Grief, Halley becomes convinced that one of his closest friends-and one of the racing world's most beloved figures--is behind a series of shockingly violent acts. No one wants to believe that Ellis Quint could be guilty, so the public and press are turning their wrath against Halley instead. Now he's facing opposition at every turn-and finding danger lies straight ahead. This description may be from another edition of this product.” (https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/win-place-or-show-odds-againstwhip-handcome-to-grief_dick-francis/483839/#edition=8626622&idiq=9369055)
Club member comment(s):
The Catch Me If You Can: One Woman’s Journey to Every Country in the World by Jessica Nabongo
Availability:
In Library: Book
MeCat: Book
Description: “In this inspiring travelogue, celebrated traveler and photographer Jessica Nabongo—the first Black woman on record to visit all 195 countries in the world—shares her journey around the globe with fascinating stories of adventure, culture, travel musts, and human connections. It was a daunting task, but Jessica Nabongo, the beloved voice behind the popular website The Catch Me if You Can, made it happen, completing her journey to all 195 UN-recognized countries in the world in October 2019. Now, in this one-of-a-kind memoir, she reveals her top 100 destinations from her global adventure.
Beautifully illustrated with many of Nabongo's own photographs, the book documents her remarkable experiences in each country, including:
A harrowing scooter accident in Nauru, the world’s least visited country,
Seeing the life and community swarming around the Hazrat Ali Mazar mosque in Afghanistan,
Horseback riding and learning to lasso with Black cowboys in Oklahoma,
Playing dominoes with men on the streets of Havana,
Learning to make traditional takoyaki (octopus balls) from locals in Japan,
Dog sledding in Norway and swimming with humpback whales in Tonga,
A late night adventure with strangers to cross a border in Guinea Bissau,
And sunbathing on the sandy shores of Los Roques in Venezuela.
Along with beloved destinations like Peru and South Africa, you'll also find tales from far-flung corners and seldom visited destinations, including Tuvalu, North Korea, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic. Nabongo's stories are love letters to diversity, beauty, and culture—and most of all, to the people she meets along the way. Throughout, she offers bucket-list experiences for other travel-lovers looking to follow in her footsteps.” (https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/58950864)
Club member comment(s):
The Beauty in Breaking: A Memoir by Michele Harper
Availability:
In Library: Not available.
MelCat: Book
Description: “An emergency room physician explores how a life of service to others taught her how to heal herself. Michele Harper is a female, African American emergency room physician in a profession that is overwhelmingly male and white. After taking her first breath in NYC, she was brought up in Washington, D.C., in a complicated family, she went to Harvard, where she met her husband. They stayed together through medical school until two months before she was scheduled to join the staff of a hospital in central Philadelphia, when he told her he couldn’t move with her. Her marriage at an end, Harper began her new life in a new city, in a new job, as a newly single woman. In the ensuing years, as Harper learned to become an effective ER physician, bringing insight and empathy to every patient encounter, she came to understand that each of us is broken–physically, emotionally, psychically. How we recognize those breaks, how we try to mend them, and where we go from there are all crucial parts of the healing process. The Beauty in Breaking is the poignant true story of Harper’s journey toward self-healing. Each of the patients Harper writes about taught her something important about recuperation and recovery. How to let go of fear even when the future is murky. How to tell the truth when it’s simpler to overlook it. How to understand that compassion isn’t the same as justice. As she shines a light on the systemic disenfranchisement of the patients she treats as they struggle to maintain their health and dignity, Harper comes to understand the importance of allowing ourselves to make peace with the past as we draw support from the present. In this hopeful, moving, and beautiful book, she passes along the precious, necessary lessons that she has learned as a daughter, a woman, and a physician.” (https://micheleharper.com/the-beauty-in-breaking)
Club member comment(s):
The Plum Tree by Ellen Marie Wiseman
Availability:
In Library: Book, Libby e-book
MelCat: Book, Large Print Book, Audiobook
Description: “A deeply moving and masterfully written story of human resilience and enduring love, The Plum Tree follows a young German woman through the chaos of World War II and its aftermath.
“Bloom where you’re planted,” is the advice Christine Bolz receives from her beloved Oma. But seventeen-year-old domestic Christine knows there is a whole world waiting beyond her small German village. It’s a world she’s begun to glimpse through music, books—and through Isaac Bauerman, the cultured son of the wealthy Jewish family she works for. Yet the future she and Isaac dream of sharing faces greater challenges than their difference in stations. In the fall of 1938, Germany is changing rapidly under Hitler’s regime. Anti-Jewish posters are everywhere, dissenting talk is silenced, and a new law forbids Christine from returning to her job—and from having any relationship with Isaac. In the months and years that follow, Christine will confront the Gestapo’s wrath and the horrors of Dachau, desperate to be with the man she loves, to survive—and finally, to speak out. Set against the backdrop of the German home front, this is an unforgettable novel of courage and resolve, of the inhumanity of war, and the heartbreak and hope left in its wake.” (https://ellenmariewiseman.com/books/the-plum-tree/)
Club member comment(s):
Beyond Possible by Nims Purja
Availability:
In Library: Not available.
MelCat: Book
Description: “Nepali climber Nims Purja is the first man ever to summit all fourteen of the world’s 8000 meter “Death Zone” peaks in less than seven months. His breakthrough timing beat the previous record of seven years. In this spellbinding memoir, tied to the acclaimed Netflix documentary "14 Peaks," Purja reveals the man behind the climbs, explaining how his early life in Nepal and training as a soldier in Britain’s elite Gurkha and SBS units allowed him to achieve a mountaineering mission few thought was attainable. Purja shows how leadership, integrity, and collaboration drive world's greatest climbing feats, including the first-ever winter ascent of Pakistan’s K2―another mountaineering milestone that he achieved in January 2021. Both profound and inspiring, this intimate book reveals what it takes to go miles beyond the possible.” (https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Possible-Fourteen-Mountaineering-Achievement/dp/142622253X)
Club member comment(s):
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Availability:
In Library: Book, Libby e-book, Libby audiobook
MelCat: Book, Large Print Book, Audiobook
Description: “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.” (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7445.The_Glass_Castle)
Club member comment(s):
A Man Named Pearl (DVD) Directors Brent Pierson, Scott Galloway; Producers Brent Pierson, Scott Galloway
Availability:
In Library: DVD
MelCat: DVD
Description: “A Man Named Pearl tells the inspiring story of self-taught topiary artist Pearl Fryar, whose unlikely journey to national prominence began with a bigoted remark. In 1976, Pearl took a job in a can factory in Bishopville, South Carolina. New to this rural southern town, he and his wife Metra looked at a house for sale in an all-white neighborhood. The Fryars' real estate agent was notified by neighbors in the prospective neighborhood that a black family was not welcome. A homeowner voiced the collective concern: "Black people don't keep up their yards." Pearl was stung by the racial stereotype. But rather than become angry and embittered, it motivated him to prove that misguided man wrong. Pearl bought a house in a ‘black’ neighborhood and began fashioning a garden that would attract positive attention. His goal was modest, but clear: to become the first African-American to win Bishopville's ‘Yard of the Month’ award. Realizing he would have to do something spectacular to impress the Bishopville garden club, Pearl began cutting every bush and tree in his yard into unusual, abstract shapes. He didn't know it then, but he was creating a magical wonderland that would, in time, not only garner local recognition, but also draw thousands of visitors from across the United States and around the world. Now 68, Pearl has been featured in dozens of magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, as well as several television programs such as CBS Sunday Morning. The media interest that Pearl and his topiary garden generates helps steer much-needed tourist dollars into the declining town of Bishopville and Lee County, the poorest county in the state of South Carolina. But the impact that Pearl and his art have had on his community is not just economic. He's also had a profound spiritual influence. As Pearl's minister, Rev. Jerome McCray, says of the garden: ‘It's the one place in all of South Carolina that people can go, both black and white, and feel love.’” (https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/11506133)
Club member comment(s):
