And the winners are . . . well, there are no winners yet, just nominations. We're off to a good start with some books I can't wait to dive into!
Shauna writes:
The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I loved this book because the protagonists are three strong women. Two are domestic black servants who work in Southern households during the early 1960s. The third is a white college graduate intent on becoming a famous writer. The three of them collaborate to tell what it is like to be a black maid during this period of American history when Civil Rights is in the forefront. The dialect is authentic; characters are sympathetic, the ending is satisfying. I laughed and I cried.
Harriet and Isabella by Patricia O'Brien. This is a page turner about one of the most scandalous trials in American history because it involved one of the most influential families of that time period . . . the Beecher family. Harriet Beecher Stowe, her sister, Isabella and her brother, Henry Ward Beecher are the main characters. This is about family relationships, family loyalty, and sibling rivalry. I love the courtroom scenes.
Happier by Tal Ben Shahar. The author is a Harvard professor of psychology and 80% of the Harvard studentbody has attended his lectures because he is so engaging and the topic is something we all strive for . . . 'how to be happier.' His book is based on scientific studies and scholarly research, but he presents it in a common sense way. This book is motivating, inspiring and very applicable. There are exercises at the end of each chapter that would lend themselves to great book club discussions.
Iris says her recommendations are:
"Sarah's Key" by Tatiana de Rosnay (fiction, about a journalist in Paris who investigates the 1942 Vel' d'Hiv' round up and the subsequent disappearance of a 10-year-old girl, 60 years after the fact)
"Mafia to Mormon" by Mario Facione (exc. conversion story of a high-level Detroit Mafia man)
"Yearning For the Living God, Recollections from the Life of F. Enzio Busche" (excellent)
"Death of a Dissident" by Alex Goldfarb w/Marina Litvinenko (true story abt. assassination
of former Russian KGB agent, Sasha Litvinenko – frightening political mystery thriller)
"Grace" by Richard Paul Evans (excellent, heart-wrenching story, short)
"The Lemon Tree, An Arab, A Jew, and the Middle East" by Sandy Tolan (audio, very long,
but helpful in giving historical background of the problems in the Middle East)
"The 5000 Year Leap: A Miracle That Changed the World" by W. Cleon Skousen -
[“the 28 Principles of Freedom our Founding Fathers said must be understood and perpetuated
by every people who desire peace, prosperity, and freedom. . . . adherence to these beliefs during
the past 200 years has brought about more progress than was made in the previous 5000 years"]
Gail suggests:
Making Toast by Roger Rosenblatt. Family tragedy is healed by domestic routine in this quiet, tender memoir. When his daughter Amy died suddenly at the age of 38 from an asymptomatic heart condition, journalist and novelist Rosenblatt and his wife moved into her house to help her husband care for their three young children. Not much happens except for the mundane, crucial duties of child care: reading stories, helping with schoolwork, chasing after an indefatigable toddler, making toast to order for finicky kids. Building on the small events of everyday life, Rosenblatt draws sharply etched portraits of his grandchildren; his stoic, gentle son-in-law; his wife, who feels slightly guilty that she is living her daughter's life; and Amy emerges as a smart, prickly, selfless figure whose significance the author never registered until her death. Rosenblatt avoids the sentimentality that might have weighed down the story; he writes with humor and an engagement with life that makes the occasional flashes of grief all the more telling. The result is a beautiful account of human loss, measured by the steady effort to fill in the void.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot. A fascinating and moving story of medicine and family, of how life is sustained in laboratories and in memory. Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five in Baltimore, a poor African American migrant from the tobacco farms of Virginia, who died from a cruelly aggressive cancer at the age of 30 in 1951. A sample of her cancerous tissue, taken without her knowledge or consent, as was the custom then, turned out to provide one of the holy grails of mid-century biology: human cells that could survive--even thrive--in the lab. Known as HeLa cells, their stunning potency gave scientists a building block for countless breakthroughs, beginning with the cure for polio. Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution--and her cells' strange survival--left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion. For a decade, Skloot doggedly but compassionately gathered the threads of these stories, slowly gaining the trust of the family while helping them learn the truth about Henrietta, and with their aid she tells a rich and haunting story that asks the questions, Who owns our bodies? And who carries our memories?
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. There's something for everyone in this book: windswept castles, difficult and neurotic family members, dark secrets about tragic former lovers, good triumphing over evil, all that good juicy stuff that makes a great romantic story. It's a must read for those who haven't read it yet, and a great book to re-read for those who read it in high school.