Pemberville Library Book Discussion Group Schedule 2010
Pemberville Library Community Room 7:30 p.m.
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
. Russo has constructed a sensitive, endearingly oddball portrait of small-town life, a wonderful story that should appeal to a wide audience. By turns funny, poignant, satiric and shocking, “Empire Falls” captures humanity at its best and worst.
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
"Three Cups of Tea is one of the most remarkable adventure
stories of our time. Greg Mortenson's dangerous and difficult quest to
build schools in the wildest parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan is not only
a thrilling read, it's proof that one ordinary person, with the right
combination of character and determination, really can change the
world."
-Tom Brokaw
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
This heartbreaking, bracingly unsentimental debut describes in poetic detail the travails of a Japanese family living in an internment camp during World War II, raising the specter of wartime injustice in bone-chilling fashion. The novel's honesty and matter-of-fact tone in the face of inconceivable injustice are the source of its power. Anger only comes to the fore during the last segment, when the father is allowed to tell his story-but even here, Otsuka keeps rage neatly bound up, luminous beneath the dazzling surface of her novel.
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Life is good for Jacob Jankowski. He's about to graduate from veterinary school and about to bed the girl of his dreams. Then his parents are killed in a car crash, leaving him in the middle of the Great Depression with no home, no family, and no career. Almost by accident, Jacob joins the circus. There he falls in love with the beautiful performer Marlena, who is married to the circus' psychotic animal trainer. He also meets the other love of his life, Rosie the elephant. This lushly romantic novel travels back in forth in time between Jacob's present day in a nursing home and his adventures in the surprisingly harsh world of 1930s circuses.
Rocket Boys by Homer H. HIckam, Jr.
The #1 New York Times bestselling memoir that inspired the film October Sky, Rocket Boys is a uniquely American memoir--a powerful, luminous story of coming of age at the dawn of the 1960s, of a mother's love and a father's fears, of a group of young men who dreamed of launching rockets into outer space . . . and who made those dreams come true.
