Download Report

Mission Viejo Library
Book Club Kits - Quick Facts
The Art of Fielding (2012), by Chad Harbach, 512 pages
At Westish College, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for the big league until a routine throw goes disastrously off
course. In the aftermath of his error, the fates of five people are upended. An expansive, warm-hearted novel about ambition and its
limits, family, friendship and love, and commitment, it is a baseball story that goes beyond the sport and into hearts and minds
Astoria: Astor and Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire (2015), by Peter Stark, 308 pages Nonfiction
In the tradition of The Lost City of Z and Skeleton in the Zahara, Astoria is the thrilling, true-adventure tale of the 1810 Astor
Expedition, an epic, now forgotten, three-year journey to forge an American empire on the Pacific Coast. Peter Stark offers a
harrowing saga in which a band of explorers battled nature, starvation, and madness to establish the first American settlement in the
Pacific Northwest and opened up what would become the Oregon Trail, permanently altering the nation's landscape and its global
standing.
The Attack (2006), by Yasmina Khadra, 257 pages
Khadra portrays the reality of terrorism and its incalculable spiritual costs. Intense and humane, devoid of political bias, hatred, and
polemics, it probes deep inside the Muslim world and gives readers a profound understanding of what seems impossible to understand.
Khadra is the nom de plume of former Algerian army officer, Mohammed Moulessehoul.
The Aviator’s Wife (2013), by Melanie Benjamin, 434 pages
For much of her life, Anne Morrow, the shy daughter of the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, has stood in the shadows of those around her,
including her millionaire father and vibrant older sister, who often steals the spotlight. Then she meets Colonel Charles Lindbergh,
fresh off his celebrated 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic. Anne is certain the celebrated aviator has scarcely noticed her. But she is
wrong.
The Boys in the Boat (2014), by Daniel James Brown, 404 pages Nonfiction
The Boys in the Boat tells the mesmerizing tale of Joe Rantz and the 1936 Olympic eight-oar crew from the University of Washington.
But it is much more than a story of athletic endeavor. It’s about a child abandoned by indifferent parents, Americans’ struggle to
survive during the Great Depression, a young man’s love of a young woman, and the amazing physical and psychological demands of
rowing.
Brooklyn (2009), by Colm Toibin, 262 pages
Forced to leave behind her family in Ireland to accept a job in 1950s America, bookkeeper Eilis Lacey unexpectedly falls in love with
an Italian man with a big family, who she fears losing when tragic news arrives from home.
Caleb’s Crossing (2011), by Geraldine Brooks, 320 pages
Pulitzer Prize winning-author Geraldine Brooks transports the reader to 1660s Martha's Vineyard and Cambridge to tell the dramatic
tale of the intertwined destinies of Caleb Cheshahteaumuck, the first Native American to graduate from Harvard, and Bethia Mayfield,
a young woman who is struggling to find her own place in the world even as she helps enable Caleb to cross from his world into hers.
The Calligrapher’s Daughter (2009), by Eugenia Kim, 386 pages
A sweeping debut novel inspired by the life of the author’s mother, “The Calligrapher’s Daughter” follows a young woman who dares
to fight for a brighter future in occupied Korea. A compelling narrative about an intellectually curious and brave heroine.
Cleopatra: A Life (2010), by Stacy Schiff, 432 pages
Cleopatra's palace shimmered with onyx, garnets, and gold, but was richer still in political and sexual intrigue. In a masterly return to
classical sources, Schiff boldly rescues the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order. Rich in detail, epic in scope,
Schiff 's is a luminous, deeply original reconstruction of a dazzling life. Biography.
Code Name Verity (2012), by Elizabeth Wein, 368 pages
A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. One of the girls has a chance at survival.
The other has lost the game before it's barely begun. When "Verity" is arrested by the Gestapo, she's sure she doesn't stand a chance.
As a secret agent captured in enemy territory, she's living a spy's worst nightmare.
Cutting For Stone (2009), by A. Verghese, 667 pages
A sweeping, emotionally riveting first novel which spins an enthralling family saga of Africa and America, doctors and patients, exile
and home. A Publisher's Weekly starred review, this is an elegantly told, superbly structured story.
Updated 07/01/15 plr
Dear Life (2012), by Alice Munro, 319 pages
In the stories of Dear Life, Alice Munro returns to the past and to the lives of people in small Ontario towns over the course of the
twentieth century, during changes wrought by war, by the sexual revolution, by economic ups and downs. Alice opens windows into
the quiet drama of her character’s buried designs, their errors and regrets, their lives’ most memorable crises and turning points.
Defending Jacob (2012), by William Landay, 496 pages
Andy Barber has been an ADA in his suburban Massachusetts county for more than 20 years. He is respected in his community and
happy at home with his wife, Laurie, and son, Jacob. But after a shocking crime shatters their New England town, Andy is blindsided
by what happens next: His 14-year-old son is charged with the murder of a fellow student.
The Dressmaker of Khair Khana (2011), by G. Tzemach Lemmon, 304 pages
The life Kamila Sidiqi had known changed overnight when the Taliban seized control of the city of Kabul. After receiving a teaching
degree, Kamila is banned from school and confined to her home. Her father and brother are forced to flee the city and Kamila
becomes the sole breadwinner for her five siblings.
Flight Behavior (2012), by Barbara Kingsolver, 464 pages
Set in present day Appalachia, this riveting story concerns a young wife and mother on a failing farm in rural Tennessee who
experiences something she cannot explain, and how her discovery energizes various competing factions-- religious leaders, climate
scientists, environmentalists, politicians--trapping her in the center of the conflict and ultimately opening up her world.
The Friday Night Knitting Club (2007), by Kate Jacobs, 372 pages
Gathering for their weekly knitting club at a small yarn shop on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, a group of friends shares such
challenges as raising children, navigating the ups and downs of their careers, and pursuing uncertain relationships.
The Healing (2012), by Jonathan Odell, 340 pages
Troubled by his wife's disturbing mental state and concerned about a mysterious plague that is sweeping through the plantation in the
pre-Civil War South, Master Satterfield purchases a slave woman known as a healer. But the master gets more than he bargained for
when Polly's sharp tongue and troubling predictions cause unrest throughout the plantation.
The Hobbit (1937), by J. R. R. Tolkien, 300 pages
"In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit." So begins one of the most beloved and delightful tales in the English language. Set in
the imaginary world of Middle-earth, at once a classic myth and a modern fairy tale, The Hobbit is one of literature's most enduring
and well-loved novels.
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (2009), by Jamie Ford, 290 pages
When artifacts from Japanese families sent to internment camps during World War II are uncovered in Seattle, Henry Lee embarks on
a quest that leads to memories of growing up Chinese in a city rife with anti-Japanese sentiment. A compelling, moving story about
human nature at its best and worst.
Hunger Games (2008), by Suzanne Collins, 374 pages
In a future North America, where the rulers of Panem maintain control through an annual televised survival competition pitting young
people from each of the twelve districts against one another, sixteen-year-old Katniss’s skills are put to the test when she voluntarily
takes her younger sister’s place. Dystopian YA novel with adult appeal.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010), by Rebecca Skloot, 369 pages Nonfiction
This account documents the story of how scientists took cells from an unsuspecting descendant of freed slaves and created a human
cell line that has been kept alive indefinitely, enabling discoveries in such areas as cancer research, in vitro fertilization and gene
mapping. Good for men.
The Interestings (2013), by Meg Wolitzer, 538 pages
The Interestings follows six artistic friends who meet as teenagers one pivotal summer at a camp called Spirit-in-the-Woods. Over the
next 40 years, they grow up to find some of their talents developing into grand success, while others don’t.
The Invention of Wings (2014), by Sue Monk Kidd, 368 pages
Hetty Handful Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose
her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something
large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women. Kidd’s sweeping novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh
birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid.
Updated 07/01/15 plr
In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin (2011), by Erik Larson, 364 pgs.
The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America's first ambassador to Hitler's Germany in a year that
proved to be a turning point in history. A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant
daughter, Martha. Written by the bestselling author of Devil in the White City, In the Garden of Beasts lends a stunning, eyewitness
perspective on events as they unfold in real time, revealing an era of surprising nuance and complexity.
The Light Between Oceans (2012), by M. L. Stedman, 352 pages
A novel set on a remote Australian island, where a childless couple live quietly running a lighthouse, until a boat carrying a baby
washes ashore.
Little Bee (2009), by Chris Cleave, 271 pages
Presents a tale of a precarious friendship between an illegal Nigerian refugee and a recent widow from suburban London, a story told
from the alternating and disparate perspectives of both women revolving around a horrific incident on a beach in Nigeria.
Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal (2010), by Conor Grennan, 320 pgs.
In search of adventure, twenty-nine-year-old Conor Grennan embarked on a yearlong journey around the globe, beginning with a
three-month stint volunteering at an orphanage in civil war-torn Nepal. But a shocking truth would forever change his life: these
rambunctious, resilient children were not orphans at all but had been taken from their families by child traffickers who falsely
promised to keep them safe from war before abandoning them in the teeming chaos of Kathmandu. Biography.
Loving Frank (2007), by Nancy Horan, 362 pages
Fact and fiction are brilliantly blended in this compelling novel about the relationship between Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah
Cheney, the wife of a couple whose home Wright built in 1904. This groundbreaking story is given added resonance by its adherence
to remarkable real-life characters and shocking, unfolding events.
The Madonnas of Echo Park (2010), by Brando Skyhorse, 199 pages
A novel that explores the lives of those who shed their ethnic identity in pursuit of the American dream highlights a different character
in each chapter, including Hector, a middle-aged day laborer who witnesses a murder, and his ex-wife Felicia, who survives a drive-by
shooting.
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand (2010), by Helen Simonson, 358 pages
Forced to confront the realities of life in the 21st century when he falls in love with widowed Pakistani descendant Mrs. Ali, a retired
Major Pettigrew finds the relationship challenged by local prejudices. “This wry, yet optimistic comedy of manners with a
romantic twist will appeal to grown-up readers of both sexes.”
Me before You (2012), by Jojo Moyes, 369 pages
Lou Clark knows lots of things. What Lou doesn’t know is she’s about to lose her job or that knowing what’s coming is what keeps
her sane. Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. What Will doesn’t know is that Lou is about to
burst into his world in a riot of color. And neither of them knows they’re going to change the other for all time.
My California: Journeys by Great Writers (2004), by Various Authors, 204 pages
See California through the eyes of 27 of the state’s finest writers in this delicious travel and adventure anthology. All of the
contributors to “My California” donated their work so proceeds of this book can benefit the beleaguered California Arts Council, an
agency forced to suspend school writing and arts education programs in 2003.
Olive Kitteridge (2008), by Elizabeth Strout, 270 pages
At the edge of the continent, in the small town of Crosby, Maine, lives Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher who deplores the
changes in her town and in the world at large but doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her.
Orphan Train (2013), by Christina Baker Kline, 278 pages
Between 1854 and 1929, so-called orphan trains ran regularly from the cities of the East Coast to the farmlands of the Midwest,
carrying thousands of abandoned children. Would they be adopted by a kind and loving family or would they face a childhood and
adolescence of hard labor and servitude?
Piano Teacher (2009), by Janice Y. K. Lee, 328 pages
Hired by the wealthy Chen family as a piano instructor, Claire Pendleton is seduced by the social life of Hong Kong’s expatriate
community and begins an affair with Will Truesdale, an enigmatic Englishman with a devastating past.
Updated 07/01/15 plr
The Postmistress (2010), by Sarah Blake, 326 pages
In London covering the Blitz with Edward R. Murrow, Frankie Bard meets a Cape Cod doctor in a shelter and promises that she'll
deliver a letter for him when she finally returns to the United States. Filled with stunning parallels to today's world, "The Postmistress"
is a sweeping novel about the loss of innocence of two extraordinary women--and of two countries torn apart by war. Similar to “The
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society,” but the story is more complex and layered.
Quiet: the power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking (2013), by Susan Cain, 352 pages Nonfiction
At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking, reading to partying who
innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over brainstorming in teams. Passionately argued,
impressively researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet shows how dramatically we undervalue introverts, and
how much we lose in doing so.
The Rosie Project (2014), by Graeme Simsion, 295 pages
Don Tillman, a professor of genetics, sets up a project designed to find him the perfect wife, starting with a questionnaire that has to
be adjusted a little as he goes along. Then he meets Rosie, who is everything he's not looking for in a wife, but she ends up his friend
as he helps her try and find her biological father.
Run (2007), by Ann Patchett, 295 pages
“Run” takes us from the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard to a home for retired Catholic priests in down-town Boston. It
shows us how worlds of privilege and poverty can coexist only blocks apart from one another, and how family can include people
you’ve never even met. A novel about family told through the lens of birth, class and race.
Salvage the Bones (2011), by Jesmyn Ward, 288 pages
A big-hearted novel about familial love and community against all odds and a wrenching look at the lonesome, brutal, and restrictive
realities of rural poverty, "Salvage the Bones" is revelatory, real, and muscled with poetry.
San Miguel (2012) by T. C. Boyle, 367 pages
On a tiny, desolate, windswept island off the coast of Southern California, two families, one in the 1880s and one in the 1930s, come
to start new lives and pursue dreams of self-reliance and freedom. Their extraordinary stories, full of struggle and hope, are the
subject of T.C. Boyle’s haunting new novel.
The Sandcastle Girls (2012), by Chris Bohjalian, 300 pages
Syria, 1915. American Elizabeth Endicott is helping Armenian refugees from Turkey when she meets Armen Petrosian, whose family
has been wiped out by genocide. Years later, Armen and Elizabeth’s granddaughter, Laura, learns of her forebears’ history – and a
buried secret.
The Sense of an Ending (2011), by Julian Barnes, 163 pages
This intense novel follows Tony Webster, a middle-aged man, as he contends with a past he never thought much about -until his
closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. Tony thought he left this
all behind as he built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure retirement and an amicable relationship with his
ex-wife and daughter, who now has a family of her own. But when he is presented with a mysterious legacy, he is forced to revise his
estimation of his own nature and place in the world.
Shanghai Girls (2009), by Lisa See, 314 pages
Forced to leave Shanghai when their father sells them to California suitors, sisters May and Pearl struggle to adapt to life in 1930s Los
Angeles while still bound to old customs, as they face discrimination and confront a life-altering secret.
Ship of Brides (2014), by Jojo Moyes, 464 pages
From the New York Times bestselling author of Me Before You and One Plus One, in an earlier work available in the U.S. for the first
time, a post-WWII story of the war brides who crossed the seas by the thousands to face their unknown futures.
The Signature of All Things (2013) by Elizabeth Gilbert, 501 pages
Spanning much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the extraordinary Whittaker family as led
by the enterprising Henry Whittaker—a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade,
eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia. Born in 1800, Henry’s brilliant daughter, Alma (who inherits both her father’s
money and his mind), ultimately becomes a botanist of considerable gifts herself.
Updated 07/01/15 plr
The Tiger’s Wife (2011), by Tea Obreht, 353 pages
Weaving a brilliant latticework of family legend, loss, and love, Obreht, the youngest of The New Yorker's 20 best American fiction
writers under 40, spins a timeless novel about a young doctor who confronts the inexplicable circumstances surrounding her beloved
grandfather's recent death.
To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), by Harper Lee, 336 pages
The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill a Mockingbird
became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961
and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (2012), by Rachel Joyce, 343 pages
Harold Fry is convinced that he must deliver a letter to an old love in order to save her, meeting various characters along the way and
reminiscing about the events of his past and people he has known, as he tries to find peace and acceptance.
The Whistling Season (2006), by Ivan Doig, 345 pages
The saga of how a widow from Minneapolis and her brother--soon to become the new teacher in a tiny Montana community in 1909-change lives in unexpected ways has all the charm of old-school storytelling, from Dickens to Laura Ingalls Wilder. This Western,
coming-of-age story told in flashbacks, thoughtfully evokes a lost time and place.
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (2012), by Cheryl Strayed, 336 pages Nonfiction
A powerful, blazingly honest, inspiring memoir: the story of a 1,100 mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from
catastrophe--and built her back up again.
The Year We Left Home (2011), by Jean Thompson, 325 pages
In this mesmerizing saga of one ordinary American family - proud, flawed, hopeful - navigating the tumultuous final decades of the
American century, Jean Thompson delivers a sweeping, powerful novel that simultaneously captures the turbulent history of the
country at large. Spanning from the early 1970s in the Iowa farmlands to contemporary Chicago and far beyond, "The Year We Left
Home" is a vivid, moving meditation on our continual pursuit of happiness and an incisive exploration of our national character.
Updated 07/01/15 plr