Placer County Library Book Share

November BYOBooks

2011-11-09T19:04:00.000-08:00

Book (and one DVD) shares for Novemeber 2011

Lana:
The Greater Journey by David McCullough
The Bible in 90 Days

Arlene:
Here Comes Trouble by Michael Moore
The Compassion of Animals: True Stories of Animal Courage and Kindness by Kristin van Kreisler

Lorraine:
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
Ape House by Sarah Gruen

Terri:
Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro
Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green & David Levithan
The Small Hotel by Robert Olen Butler

Thanks for all your book shares! It was a really good discussion and please come next month on December 14th at 11:30. Tell your friends!

Red Bike Connections

2011-10-24T13:15:00.000-07:00

This was a fun meeting. I was asked by Loyce Smallwood to come talk to her Monday morning gathering at the Red Bike Cafe. Unfortunately there were just three of us. But we had a spirited discussion about books which, for me, is always fun! We grabbed some other teen girls where I told them about Beauty Queens. We also talked about Kindle and eBooks and library providing eBooks as well as downloadable audio books.

Here is the list of books that I shared with our small group:

I'm currently reading:

Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro (on audio)
The Girl of His Dreams by Donna Leon

My previous reads:

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray (on audio...loved it!)
Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Recently published books that I haven't read yet that I want to read:

Falling Together by Marisa de los Santos
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

October Book Share

2011-10-24T13:07:00.000-07:00

Lana's Share:

The Horse Boy by Rupert Isaacson

Terri's Share:

A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny

September 2011 Book Shares

2011-09-14T17:46:00.000-07:00

Arlene's Shares:

Currently reading: Animals Make Us Human by Temple Grandin

Arlene wants to read: The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda by Ali H. Soufan

Terri's Shares:

A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Night Circus by Erin Morganstern

Beauty Queens by Libby Bray (listening to this book on audio)

Participant Book Shares from August Meeting

2011-08-19T14:58:00.000-07:00

Here are our Book Shares for the month:

From Arlene:

Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne

1493: Uncovering the World Columbus Created by Charles C. Mann

The Horse Boy by Rupert Isaacson

From Lana:

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

An addtional book from Terri:

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading by Nina Sankovitch

August 2011 Book Share

2011-08-09T19:01:00.000-07:00

Books to share from Terri:

Currently reading: Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner. Only a 1/4 way through. I love her writing. This one is a bit more serious not as funny as past books. It is about four women are who are involved in a surrogacy pregnacy. She portrays class differences in a way that I can immediately feel the way these women live and the struggles that go with each level of class.

Just finished reading Janet Evanovich's Smokin' Seventeen. As usual, fun light read. And as usual I laugh out loud and wish for more at the end of each book.

Listening to: Bent Road by Lori Roy. Takes place in 1960's Kansas. A man who had been living in Detroit moves his family back to his hometown in Kansas when race becomes such a huge issue. The problems he ran away from are still there but in different form. I love how his wife is handling the power struggle she feels with her mother-in-law. I am as horrified by the surroundings as this woman is about the small town traditions she encounters. Funny about my reaction...I grew up in similar situation.

September's Selection: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

2009-08-14T12:39:00.000-07:00

From Reading Group Guides:

About this book:

Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow.

This improbable story of Christopher's quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years.

Please join us to discuss this book on September 9 at 11:30 in the Beecher Room of the Auburn Library. If you cannot join us there, start a discussion here.

Questions for discussion: http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides3/curious_incident_dog1.asp

July Selection: My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

2009-07-09T11:11:00.000-07:00

From Reading Group Guides:

Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate -- a life and a role that she has never challenged...until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister -- and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.

My Sister's Keeper examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person. Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child's life, even if that means infringing upon the rights of another? Is it worth trying to discover who you really are, if that quest makes you like yourself less? Should you follow your own heart, or let others lead you? Once again, in My Sister's Keeper, Jodi Picoult tackles a controversial real-life subject with grace, wisdom, and sensitivity.

Join us at the Auburn Library to discuss My Sister's Keeper on July 15 at 11:30 in the Beecher Room. If you cannot join us, please add your thoughts here in the comments section of this blog. Here are some questions to help your reading but, beware, there are spoilers in these questions: http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides3/my_sisters_keeper1.asp

Books & Lunch June Selection:

2009-05-19T13:35:00.001-07:00

The Soloist by Steve Lopez:

From Publishers Weekly:
Starred Review. Scurrying back to his office one day, Lopez, a columnist for the L.A. Times, is stopped short by the ethereal strains of a violin. Searching for the sound, he spots a homeless man coaxing those beautiful sounds from a battered two-string violin. When the man finishes, Lopez compliments him briefly and rushes off to write about his newfound subject, Nathaniel Ayers, the homeless violinist. Over the next few days, Lopez discovers that Nathaniel was once a promising classical bass student at Juilliard, but that various pressures—including being one of a few African-American students and mounting schizophrenia—caused him to drop out. Enlisting the help of doctors, mental health professionals and professional musicians, Lopez attempts to help Nathaniel move off Skid Row, regain his dignity, develop his musical talent and free himself of the demons induced by the schizophrenia (at one point, Lopez arranges to have Ayers take cello lessons with a cellist from the L.A. Symphony). Throughout, Lopez endures disappointments and setbacks with Nathaniel's case, questions his own motives for helping his friend and acknowledges that Nathaniel has taught him about courage and humanity. With self-effacing humor, fast-paced yet elegant prose and unsparing honesty, Lopez tells an inspiring story of heartbreak and hope.

Please link here for more information about this true story, the author and Nathaniel Ayers. Included are some discussion question. http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/soloist.html

Come back here and offer your comments and questions. Let's get a good online discussion going!

Note: this blog has not been updated in a few months

2009-05-19T13:33:00.000-07:00

Last update was for the February selection.

February Selection: Justice by Faye Kellerman

2009-01-21T18:09:00.000-08:00

From Booklist: Kellerman's latest Pete Decker/Rina Lazarus novel begins with a teen prom queen who has been found dead in a fleabag motel, apparently strangled after a night of drink, drugs, and kinky sex. Handsome, clean-cut Chris Whitman has confessed to the killing, but LAPD detective Decker is uncomfortable with the easy resolution of the case and the way things just don't add up. Chris, the son of Mob boss Joe Donatti, is way too cool, too smooth, and too sure of himself. Evidence taken from the dead prom queen's body shows she had sex with at least one other person besides Whitman on the night she died. And sweet, innocent Teresa McLaughlin is in love with Whitman, but there's more to the romance than the usual teen hormonal attraction. So, despite his superiors' objections, Pete digs into the case more deeply and finds, to his horror, what really happened. --review by Emily Melton

Join us at the Auburn Library for a discussion of this book on February 11 at noon until 1 P.M. Bring your lunch for Books & Lunch at the Auburn Library. If you cannot make it at this time, discuss it here by adding your comments. Here are some discussion questions to get you started (spoilers ahead so stop reading if you haven't finished the book):

1. By the end of the book what did you think of Chris Whitman? Did he really do it or is he an innocent with a not so innocent family?
2. Did you like the book? Would you recommend it to a friend?
3. If you were to cast a movie of this book, who would you cast as Peter Decker; as Rina; as Chris Whitman; as Cindy?
4. Add your own discussion question...

January Selection: Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen

2008-12-16T13:05:00.000-08:00

Join other Auburn readers for a discussion of Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen on January 14 from noon to 1 P.M. This book is described by "Library Journal":

When his parents are killed in a traffic accident, Jacob Jankowski hops a train after walking out on his final exams at Cornell, where he had hoped to earn a veterinary degree. The train turns out to be a circus train, and since it's the Depression, when someone with a vet's skills can attach himself to a circus if he's lucky, Jacob soon finds himself involved with the animal acts--specifically with the beautiful young Marlena, the horse rider, and her husband, August. Jacob falls for Marlena immediately, and the ensuing triangle is at the center of this novel, which follows the circus across the states. Jacob learns the ins and outs of circus life, in this case under the rule of the treacherous Uncle Al, who cheats the workers and deals roughly with patrons who complain about blatant false advertising and rip-off exhibits. Jacob and Marlena are attracted to each other, but their relationship is fairly innocent until it becomes clear that August is not merely jealous but dangerously mentally deranged. Old-fashioned and endearing, this is an enjoyable, fast-paced story told by the older Jacob, now in his nineties in a nursing home. --Jim Coan, SUNY Coll. at Oneonta

Please share your impressions of this book with other Auburn Readers by adding a comment. Here is a reader's guide but be careful, plot details are revealed.

Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich is our December Selection

2008-11-25T16:26:00.001-08:00

Fearless Fourteen is not really a holiday book but it will help you get away from the holiday stresses through a fun romp with Stephanie Plum, girl bond enforcer! This time out, Stephanie needs to find Loretta who has been kidnapped before Loretta's son gets into too much trouble. Stephanie has also been drafted by security man extrodinare, Ranger to act as a body guard to world famous singer, Brenda. There is also lost treasure involved!?

Fun, not deep, and laugh out loud!

November Book: Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott

2008-10-29T10:48:00.000-07:00

Books and Lunch will meet on November 12 at noon in the Beecher Room to discuss Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott. From the author's website:

"A Cambridge historian, Elizabeth Vogelsang, is found drowned, clutching a glass prism in her hand. The book she was writing about Isaac Newton’s involvement with alchemy—the culmination of her lifelong obsession with the seventeenth century—remains unfinished. When her son, Cameron, asks his former lover, Lydia Brooke, to ghostwrite the missing final chapters of his mother’s book, Lydia agrees and moves into Elizabeth’s house—a studio in an orchard where the light moves restlessly across the walls. Soon Lydia discovers that the shadow of violence that has fallen across present-day Cambridge, which escalates to a series of murders, may have its origins in the troubling evidence that Elizabeth’s research has unearthed. As Lydia becomes ensnared in a dangerous conspiracy that reawakens ghosts of the past, the seventeenth century slowly seeps into the twenty-first, with the city of Cambridge the bridge between them."

Here is a Reading Guide for Ghostwalk but beware, some of these questions may give away plot points within the book.

Books & Lunch @ the Auburn Library

2008-09-29T17:07:00.000-07:00

Here is a brief description of Through a Glass, Darkly by Donna Leon and following that is a frew questions to help in our discussion of the novel:

From Booklist: Leon's Guido Brunetti novels have been justly celebrated for their nuanced portrayal of Venice and their character-driven emphasis on human relationships. Both of those attributes are displayed nicely in her latest effort, the fifteenth in this long-running and much-loved series. When police commissario Brunetti and his assistant, Vianello, help out one of Vianello's friends, who has been arrested in an environmental protest, they find themselves embroiled in a family feud involving the friend's wife and her father, the owner of a centuries-old glass factory on the nearby island of Murano. No actual crime takes place until the novel is nearly half over, and even then, the death of a night watchman at the glass factory appears accidental. More than ever in this series, the emphasis here is not on mystery--the bad guy is obvious from the beginning--but on ambience and character. Leon delves deeply into the fascinating world of Murano glassmakers, and as always, she lingers lovingly over Brunetti's family life and the commissario's abiding empathy with everyone he encounters. Satisfying as always, but the lack of an engaging mystery plot leaves a bit of a hole this time. Bill Ott Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Discussion Questions of Through a Glass, Darkly:

1. Does this book make you want to travel to Venice? Have you been to Venice? Would Venice be a place that you would want to move to?
2. In many of Donna Leon's books featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti, she points to the different ways things work in Venice from the police, to the building codes, to medical establishment, and other aspects of life in Venice. What do you think of this and is it something you could put up with if you could live in Venice?
3. What do you think of Burnetti's relationship with his wife and family?
4. Do you have any thoughts about the Murano glass business and culture?

For further reading about Venice and the island of Morano's glassblowering culture:
City of Fallen Angels by John Berendt. In the tradition the author set with his first book, In the Garden of Good and Evil, Berendt gives the reader his first person observations of the city of Venice including exploring one of the great families of Murano glassblowing and watching the effect the burning down of the Fenice Opera Theater had on the city.

New Book Discussion Series At Auburn Library

2008-09-22T17:57:00.000-07:00

Books and Lunch will begin on October 15th from Noon to 1 p.m. (1ish--if you can stay longer...so can I).

Our first book will be a mystery novel set in Venice, Italy. It is by author, Donna Leon, called Through the Glass, Darkly. The library will have a few more copies within a couple of weeks.

Join us on Oct. 15th or if you can't, post your comments about the book here.

Great Discussion of Three Cups of Tea!

2008-09-22T17:52:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all who attended Auburn Library's discussion of Three Cups of Tea. It was enjoyable by all including me! There were a few comments that this discussion is a great forum for the discussion of important issues facing our world wide society. It is also a springboard for building community here in Auburn.

If anyone agrees with this and is interested in forming a discussion group via the library, I would be happy to organized a place and time. Write your comment here or call me at the library: Terri at 530-886-4512.

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

2008-08-19T09:55:00.000-07:00

Join us at Auburn Library on Wednesday, September 17 from 10:30 to noon for a discussion of Three Cups of Tea. Or join us here at BlogaBook and add your comments to the discussion.

From The Three Cups of Tea website:

In THREE CUPS OF TEA: One Man’s Mission to Promote . . . One School at a Time (Viking/On-sale date: March 6, 2006) Greg Mortenson, and acclaimed journalist David Oliver Relin, recount the unlikely journey that led Mortenson from a failed attempt to climb Pakistan’s K2, the world’s second highest mountain, to successfully building schools in some of the most remote regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. By replacing guns with pencils, rhetoric with reading, Mortenson combines his unique background with his intimate knowledge of the third-world to fight terrorism with books, not bombs, and successfully bring education and hope to remote villages in central Asia. THREE CUPS OF TEA is at once an unforgettable adventure and the inspiring true story of how one man really is changing the world—one school at a time.

In 1993 Mortenson was descending from his failed attempt to reach the peak of K2. Exhausted and disoriented, he wandered away from his group into the most desolate reaches of northern Pakistan. Alone, without food, water, or shelter he eventually stumbled into an impoverished Pakistani village where he was nursed back to health.

While recovering he observed the village’s 84 children sitting outdoors, scratching their lessons in the dirt with sticks. The village was so poor that it could not afford the $1-a-day salary to hire a teacher. When he left the village, he promised that he would return to build them a school.
From that rash, heartfelt promise grew one of the most incredible humanitarian campaigns of our time: Greg Mortenson’s one-man mission to counteract extremism and terrorism by building schools—especially for girls—throughout the breeding ground of the Taliban.

Mortenson had no reason to believe he could fulfill his promise. In an early effort to raise money he wrote letters to 580 celebrities, businessmen, and other prominent Americans. His only reply was a $100 check from NBC’s Tom Brokaw. Selling everything he owned, he still only raised $2,000. But his luck began to change when a group of elementary school children in River Falls, Wisconsin, donated $623 in pennies, thereby inspiring adults to take his cause more seriously. Twelve years later he’s built fifty-five schools.

Mortenson and award-winning journalist David Oliver Relin have written a spellbinding account of his incredible accomplishments in a region where Americans are feared and hated. In pursuit of his goal, Mortenson has survived an armed kidnapping, fatwas issued by enraged mullahs, repeated death threats, and wrenching separations from his wife and children. Yet his success speaks for itself. This year the schools will educate 24,000 children.

A reading guide for Three Cups of Tea can be found here.