November 7th, 2024
New at the Library!
The next Community Read! will be held on November 21, 2024 @ 6:00 PM. We will be focusing on Jim DeFede’s book The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland. At the Community Read!, we’ll watch a prerecorded interview of the author and then engage in a discussion about his book. Light refreshments will be provided. Contact or visit the library to obtain a copy of this book. We look forward to seeing you here!
Author: Jim DeFede
Description: When 38 jetliners bound for the United States were forced to land at Gander International Airport in Canada by the closing of U.S. airspace on September 11, the population of this small town on Newfoundland Island swelled from 10,300 to nearly 17,000. The citizens of Gander met the stranded passengers with an overwhelming display of friendship and goodwill. As the passengers stepped from the airplanes, exhausted, hungry and distraught after being held on board for nearly 24 hours while security checked all of the baggage, they were greeted with a feast prepared by the townspeople. Local bus drivers who had been on strike came off the picket lines to transport the passengers to the various shelters set up in local schools and churches. Linens and toiletries were bought and donated. A middle school provided showers, as well as access to computers, email, and televisions, allowing the passengers to stay in touch with family and follow the news. Over the course of those four days, many of the passengers developed friendships with Gander residents that they expect to last a lifetime. As a show of thanks, scholarship funds for the children of Gander have been formed and donations have been made to provide new computers for the schools. This book recounts the inspiring story of the residents of Gander, Canada, whose acts of kindness have touched the lives of thousands of people and been an example of humanity and goodwill.
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Books discussed at the October 2024 First Thursday Book Club meeting:
Title and Author: I’ve Seen the End of You: A Neurosurgeon’s Look at Faith, Doubt, and the Things We Think We Know by W. Lee Warren, MD
Description: Dr. W. Lee Warren, a practicing brain surgeon, assumed he knew most outcomes for people with glioblastoma, head injuries, and other health-care problems. Yet even as he tried to give patients hope, his own heart would sink as he realized, I’ve seen the end of you. But it became far more personal when the acclaimed doctor experienced an unimaginable family tragedy. That’s when he reached the end of himself. Page-turning medical stories serve as the backdrop for a raw, honest look at how we can remain on solid ground when everything goes wrong and how we can find light in the darkest hours of life. I’ve Seen the End of You is the rare book that offers tender empathy and tangible hope for those who are suffering. No matter what you’re facing, this doesn’t have to be the end. Even when nothing seems to makes sense, God can transform your circumstances and your life. And he can offer a new beginning.
Genre: Adult Non-Fiction
Availability:
In Library: Yes.
Libby: No.
MeLCat: Yes
Club member comment(s): Our reader described this book as a “hidden gem.” Dr. W. Lee Warren, a neurosurgeon, diagnoses and treats patients with glioblastomas, deadly brain tumors. Often, he sees the patient’s brain MRI before he sees the patient. When looking at the MRI, he can diagnose the glioblastoma and thinks to himself, “I’ve seen the end of you” about the patient with the brain tumor. His medical training tells him that this patient will die. Glioblastomas are treated with brain surgery,
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chemotherapy, and/or radiation therapy and despite these rigorous treatment regimens, the patients with these tumors do not survive. The treatments are palliative at best. As a surgeon and a man of faith, he struggles with what he knows about the disease trajectories of his patients–that they will die–alongside his faith that tells him God can heal and that he, Dr. Warren, needs to offer hope to those he treats. Dr. Warren consults with faith leaders as he attempts to come to terms with his science versus faith quandary. Throughout the book, Dr. Warren describes the patients with glioblastomas that he treats. It is his patients that ultimately point him to the answers that he is looking for. Our reader wanted to copy the last couple of chapters of this book and save them for future reference. An exceptional read!
Title and Author: Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
Description: We were going out stealing horses. That was what he said, standing at the door to the cabin where I was spending the summer with my father. I was fifteen. It was 1948 and one of the first days of July. Trond’s friend Jon often appeared at his doorstep with an adventure in mind for the two of them. But this morning would turn out to be different. What began as a joy ride on “borrowed” horses ends with Jon falling into a strange trance of grief. Trond soon learns what befell Jon earlier that day—an incident that marks the beginning of a series of vital losses for both boys. Set in the easternmost region of Norway, Out Stealing Horses begins with an ending. Sixty-seven-year-old Trond has settled into a rustic cabin in an isolated area to live the rest of his life with a quiet deliberation. A meeting with his only neighbor, however, forces him to reflect on that fateful summer.
Genre: Adult fiction-literary
Availability:
In Library: Yes.
Libby: No.
MeLCat: Yes.
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Club member comment(s): Another library “hidden gem.” This book is set in rural Norway and was originally written in Norwegian and then translated into English. Nothing has been lost in the translation. The book examines the life of Trond, the main character, and what happened to him when he was fifteen that would determine the direction of his life. The phrase “out stealing horses” has deep implications for both Trond and his father but for completely different reasons. Well written and paced, this was a great read.
Title and Author: When All Is Said: A Novel by Anne Griffin
Description: A tale of a single night. The story of a lifetime. If you had to pick five people to sum up your life, who would they be? If you were to raise a glass to each of them, what would you say? And what would you learn about yourself, when all is said and done? This is the story of Maurice Hannigan, who, over the course of a Saturday night in June, orders five different drinks at the Rainford House Hotel. With each he toasts a person vital to him: his doomed older brother, his troubled sister-in-law, his daughter of fifteen minutes, his son far off in America, and his late, lamented wife. And through these people, the ones who left him behind, he tells the story of his own life, with all its regrets and feuds, loves and triumphs.
Genre: Adult Fiction-Literary
Availability:
In Library: Yes.
Libby: No.
MeLCat: Yes.
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Club member comment(s): Our reader enjoyed this poignant book. The main character, Maurice Hannigan, drinks a toast to five people who significantly impacted his life during one Saturday evening in a bar. As he toasts these five people, the reader learns who Maurice is and why each of these people impacted him so profoundly. Maurice has lived a very difficult life, and the book details this life. It also portrays moments of triumph and describes his love for some of those he toasts. Moving and alternately heartbreaking and uplifting, this is a great read. The ending is unexpected, and some readers may find it triggering.
Title and Author: Bad River: An Arliss Cutter Novel (Arliss Cutter #6) by Marc Cameron
Description: From a remote village perched on Arctic permafrost to the Badlands of South Dakota, searching for answers about his brother sets Arliss Cutter on an icy trail of murder and madness into the darkest heart of the Alaskan wilderness. In the Inupiaq village of Wainwright on the Arctic Ocean, two teenagers discover a frozen body in the permafrost wall of their family’s cellar. They recognize the face through the ice. It is the face of a young woman who went missing—two years ago . . . In South Dakota, Arliss Cutter searches for answers surrounding his brother’s mysterious death. But his visit only raises more questions without any leads. Until he returns to Alaska—and learns that his brother had something in common with the frozen body in the ice cellar . . . Inside the young woman’s pocket is a fossilized animal tooth—similar to the one Arliss’s brother picked up on a trip to South Dakota. A bizarre coincidence? Or are the two connected somehow? Before Arliss can figure it out, his brother’s widow and children become the targets of a brutal home invasion. Arliss arrives on the scene in time to save them— but his actions trigger a larger investigation that puts his own neck on the line. From South Dakota to Anchorage to the Inupiaq villages of the Arctic, Arliss follows this bloodstained trail of clues to a remote lodge on the banks of the Kobuk River. Here, in this unforgiving wilderness, he will find the answers he seeks. Here, in this untamed, often violent land, he will come face to face with the terrible truth—and the man behind his brother’s murder . . .
Genre: Adult fiction-Thriller
Availability:
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In Library: Yes.
Libby: No.
MeLCat: Yes.
Club member comment(s): Our reader was ambivalent about this book. She told the group that the ending was good but that she was left with questions about what occurred prior to the ending.
Title and Author: The Witch’s Workshop: A Guide to Crafting Your Own Magical Tools by Melissa Jayne Madara
Description: From the author of The Witch's Feast, this is the first fully illustrated, comprehensive introduction to the handicrafts of witchcraft. Through over 60 craft projects, learn all the techniques you need to create your personalized magical toolkit. Empower yourself as a self-sufficient witch, and become a master of the natural arts! This in-depth guide, accompanied by step-by-step images, will show you all the craft and design skills you need to make your own, personalized and fully adaptable magical toolkit. Melissa Madara, magical expert, herbalist and witch, shares 60+ unique projects and techniques, many of which revive spells from the history of witches past. Approachable for beginners and stimulating for established practitioners, the crafts are clearly explained through luscious photographs, detailed research, useful charts, and easy-to-follow instructions. Once you are directly in touch with the power of these crafts, understanding deeply the processes and the associations of magical ingredients, you can be inspired to create all your own unique formulations. Chapters include:
- Incense, including kyphi temple incense, which once billowed from the temples of ancient Egypt, to house blessing incense for cleansing any new home.
- Inks, including dragon's blood ink and botanical drawing charcoals.
- Oils, such as flying ointment or the world's first known chemist Tapputi's royal salve.
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- Natural dyes for creating stunning eco-printed ritual gowns or a spring equinox altar tablecloth.
- Papers, like Japanese knotweed paper or autumn equinox corn husk paper. ● Powders essential for rituals and spells such as scrying powder and banishing salt. ● Candles of all shapes and types, including poured, dipped and molded.
With all of this knowledge, you can create altars, rituals and spells that are highly specific, personal and in touch with your natural environment.
Genre: Adult Non-Fiction
Availability:
In Library: Yes.
Libby: No.
MeLCat: Yes.
Club member comment(s): An interesting read about all things witchcraft!
Title and Author: Left for Dead: Shipwreck, Treachery, and Survival at the Edge of the World by Eric Jay Dolin
Description: The true story of five castaways abandoned on the Falkland Islands during the War of 1812— a tale of treachery, shipwreck, isolation, and the desperate struggle for survival. In Left for Dead, Eric Jay Dolin—“one of today’s finest writers about ships and the sea” (American Heritage)—tells the true story of a wild and fateful encounter between an American sealing vessel, a shipwrecked British brig, and a British warship in the Falkland archipelago during the War of 1812. Fraught with misunderstandings and mistrust, the incident left three British sailors and two Americans, including the captain of the sealer, Charles H. Barnard, abandoned in the barren, windswept, and inhospitable Falklands for a year and a half.
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With deft narrative skill and unequaled knowledge of the very pith of the seafaring life, Dolin describes in vivid and harrowing detail the increasingly desperate existence of the castaways during their eighteen month ordeal—an all-too-common fate in the Great Age of Sail. A tale of intriguing complexity, with surprising twists and turns throughout—involving greed, lying, bullying, a hostile takeover, stellar leadership, ingenuity, severe privation, endurance, banishment, the great value of a dog, the birth of a baby, a perilous thousand-mile open-ocean journey in a seventeen-foot boat, an improbable rescue mission, and legal battles over a dubious and disgraceful wartime prize—Left for Dead shows individuals in wartime under great duress acting both nobly and atrociously, and offers a unique perspective on a pivotal era in American maritime history.
Genre: Adult nonfiction
Availability:
In Library: Yes.
Libby: No.
MeLCat: Yes.
Club member comment(s): Although a true story, our reader did not find the book captured her interest. This was a “did not finish” book for her.
Title and Author: The Potluck Club: A Novel (The Potluck Club #1) by Linda Evans Shepherd and Eva Marie Everson
Description: In the small Colorado town of Summit View, a surprising multi-generational mix of women from Grace Church meet once a week to pass a hot dish and to pray. But the Potluck Club, as they call themselves, is a recipe for disaster when they send up enough misinformed prayers to bring down a church. And the funny thing: the more they pray, the more troubles seem to come their way. It isn't until they invite God to the table that they discover friendship is the spice of life, and a little dash of grace, just
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like salt, goes a long way. With charming, down-home characters, humor, poignancy, and a recipe in every chapter, The Potluck Club will keep readers hungering for more.
Genre: Adult fiction–inspirational
Availability:
In Library: No.
Libby: No.
MeLCat: Yes.
Club member comment(s): Our reader enjoyed this book until she came to the end. Although several members of the Potluck Club had significant issues, only two of the characters’ stories were resolved. Perhaps a sequel is in the works?
Title and Author: Tom Lake: A Novel by Ann Patchett
Description: In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew. Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.
Genre: Adult fiction–literary
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Availability:
In Library: Yes.
Libby: Yes.
MeLCat: Yes.
Club member comment(s): Our reader enjoyed this book but asked herself the question “how much of a mother’s personal story do her children want or need to know?” Our reader felt that the author had the mother reveal information to her daughters while telling her story that our reader and most mothers would not have.
Title and Author: The Mammoth Cheese: A Novel by Sheri Holman
Description: Three Chimney's, Virginia, resident Margaret Pricket, a single mother and specialty cheese maker, is in danger of losing all she holds dear. Her century-old family dairy farm is falling deeper into debt. Her thirteen-year-old daughter, Polly, whom Margaret has tried to shelter from the modern world, is becoming perilously drawn toward her charismatic, subversive history teacher. Margaret's loyal farmhand, August, a Thomas Jefferson impersonator by night, is secretly in love with her. And she's been convinced by the town's pastor to re-create the original Thomas Jefferson-era, 1,234-point "Mammoth Cheese," as a gift for the president-elect. Soon the entire town is wrapped up in the endeavor, and Margaret finds herself torn between her principles and her passions. An American pastoral like no other, The Mammoth Cheese is a delicious and satisfying tour de force.
Genre: Adult fiction–literary
Availability:
In Library: No.
Libby: No.
MeLCat: Yes.
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Club member comment(s): An interesting, enjoyable, and uplifting read, our club member believed a central theme to this book is that things are not as bleak as you think they are if you only look around and seek out the community–your community–around you.
Title and Author: Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
Description: COLD COMFORT FARM is a wickedly funny portrait of British rural life in the 1930s. Flora Poste, a recently orphaned socialite, moves in with her country relatives, the gloomy Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm, and becomes enmeshed in a web of violent emotions, despair, and scheming, until Flora manages to set things right.
Genre: Adult general fiction
Availability:
In Library: No.
Libby: No.
MeLCat: Yes.
Club member comment(s): A humorous novel in which character and even animal names have more than one meaning. Our reader came across words in this book she had never heard of before. When she researched the meaning of these words, she learned that the author coined them when writing this book. There are questions that are posed throughout the book (e.g., What did Aunt Ada find in the woodshed?) that are not necessarily resolved and this was somewhat frustrating for the reader.
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Title and Author: Tell Me Everything: A Novel (Amgash #5) by Elizabeth Strout
Description: With her remarkable insight into the human condition and silences that contain multitudes, Elizabeth Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine, and to her beloved cast of characters—Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess, and more—as they deal with a shocking crime in their midst, fall in love and yet choose to be apart, and grapple with the question, as Lucy Barton puts it, “What does anyone’s life mean?” It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer Lucy Barton, who lives down the road in a house by the sea with her ex-husband, William. Together, Lucy and Bob go on walks and talk about their lives, their fears and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, is finally introduced to the iconic Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. They spend afternoons together in Olive’s apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known— “unrecorded lives,” Olive calls them—reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning. Brimming with empathy and pathos, Tell Me Everything is Elizabeth Strout operating at the height of her powers, illuminating the ways in which our relationships keep us afloat. As Lucy says, “Love comes in so many different forms, but it is always love.”
Genre: Adult literary fiction.
Availability:
In Library: Yes.
Libby: Yes.
MeLCat: Yes.
Club member comment(s): Our reader gravitates to this writer because she likes the writer’s style, her economy of words, and her great prose. This book is no style exception for the author, but the book is dark with the main characters exchanging depressing stories. Our reader was asking “where does the love come in?” while going through the book. She did see small glimmers of hope and redemption.
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Title and Author: The Christmas Tree Ship by Cris Kohl and Joan Forsberg
Description: A story as big as the Great Lakes comes crashing ashore. There once were dozens of ships that hauled fresh-cut Christmas trees from northern Michigan to Chicago and other ports, their crews braving the dangerously unpredictable waters of a wintry Great Lake. The story of the schooner Rouse Simmons is one of the most tragic tales of ships lost in those often treacherous waters. Loaded with trees for Chicago celebrants, the ship sailed into the year’s worst storm and disappeared on November 23, 1912. Its beloved Captain Herman Schuenemann and his crew of 15 were lost with it. The authors, two of the best-known Great Lakes maritime historians, recall the many ships that carried Christmas trees, and especially this one tragic ship, its jovial captain, his amazing family, the discovery of the shipwreck, and the modern rekindling of the Christmas Tree Ship tradition.
Genre: Adult non-fiction
Availability:
In Library: No.
Libby: No.
MeLCat: Yes.
Club member comment(s): A fun and interesting true historical read about the transportation of Christmas trees across Lake Michigan in 1912. At that time, Christmas trees were reserved for the wealthy, and they had to be shipped in. The first part of this book was slow; however, our reader found the book enjoyable overall.
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Title and Author: The Chicken Sisters: A Novel by K. J. Dell’Antonia
Description: In tiny Merinac, Kansas, Chicken Mimi's and Chicken Frannie's have spent a century vying to serve up the best fried chicken in the state--and the legendary feud between their respective owners, the Moores and the Pogociellos, has lasted just as long. No one feels the impact more than thirty-five-year old widow Amanda Moore, who grew up working for her mom at Mimi's before scandalously marrying Frank Pogociello and changing sides to work at Frannie's. Tired of being caught in the middle, Amanda sends an SOS to Food Wars, the reality TV restaurant competition that promises $100,000 to the winner. But in doing so, she launches both families out of the frying pan and directly into the fire. . .The last thing Brooklyn-based organizational guru Mae Moore, Amanda's sister, wants is to go home to Kansas. But when her career implodes, Food Wars becomes her chance to step back into the limelight. Mae is certain she can make the fading Mimi's look good--even if that pits her against Amanda and Frannie's. With a greedy producer stoking the flames, their friendly rivalry quickly turns into a game of chicken. Yet when family secrets become public knowledge, the sisters must choose: Will they fight with each other, or for their heritage?
Genre: Adult general fiction
Availability:
In Library: No.
Libby: No.
MeLCat: Yes.
Club member comment(s): Our reader described this book as a fun read with a good ending. She told the group that the book became a Netflix miniseries, and she watched this as well. She found the book to be much better than the miniseries primarily because the series did not adhere well to the book.
Title and Author: The Ex: A Novel by Alafair Burke
Description: Widower Jack Harris has resisted the dating scene ever since the shooting of his wife Molly by a fifteen-year-old boy three years ago. An early morning run along the Hudson River changes that when he spots a woman in last night’s party dress, barefoot, enjoying a champagne picnic alone, reading his favorite novel. Everything about her reminds him of what he used to have with Molly. Eager to help Jack find love again, his best friend posts a message on a popular website after he mentions the encounter. Days later, that same beautiful stranger responds and invites Jack to meet her in person at the waterfront. That’s when Jack’s world falls apart. Olivia Randall is one of New York City’s best criminal defense lawyers. When she hears that her former fiancé, Jack Harris, has been arrested for a triple homicide—and that one of the victims was connected to his wife’s murder—there is no doubt in her mind as to his innocence. The only question is who would go to such great lengths to frame him—and why? For Olivia, representing Jack is a way to make up for past regrets, to absolve herself of guilt from a tragic decision, a secret she has held for twenty years. But as the evidence against him mounts, she is forced to confront her doubts. The man she knew could not have done this. But what if she never really knew him?
Genre: Adult fiction–mystery.
Availability:
In Library: No.
Libby: No.
MeLCat: Yes.
Club member comment(s): Many, many characters in this book with a complicated story line. Interesting mystery.
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The next meeting of the Marcellus Township Wood Memorial Library’s First Thursday Book Club will be held on Thursday, December 5, 2024, at 12 NOON in the library. At this meeting, we agreed to hold a Christmas Cookie Exchange! Please bring enough cookies to taste and share with fellow members along with your cookie recipes. We can’t wait! We look forward to seeing you here!
Tammy Terpstra
Interlibrary Loan Specialist/Library Assistant
Marcellus Township Wood Memorial Library
