The Lemon Orchard by Luanne Rice

Tuesday

January 21, 2014

7:00pm

(No December Meeting)

Christmas Party December 16

Call for Details

Still devastated by grief five years after the death of her husband and teenage daughter in a car accident, Julia hopes to find solitude and solace while house-sitting at her aunt and uncle’s California estate. Amid the lush landscapes and lemon groves of Malibu, Julia does find these things—in addition to an unexpected relationship with Roberto, who oversees the estate. Roberto, an undocumented immigrant, connects with Julia over her loss: he became separated from his young daughter during their crossing from Mexico and believes her to be dead. Set in the sea and citrus-scented air of the breathtaking Santa Monica Mountains, The Lemon Orchard is an affirming story about the redemptive power of compassion and the kind of love that seems to find us when we need it most.

Meetings are the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or emailing Connie Gray at grayco@oplin.org

The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe

Tuesday

November 19, 2013

7:00 pm

During her treatment for cancer, Mary Anne Schwalbe and her son Will spent many hours sitting in waiting rooms together. To pass the time, they would talk about the books they were reading. Once, by chance, they read the same book at the same time—and an informal book club of two was born. Through their wide-ranging reading, Will and Mary Anne—and we, their fellow readers—are reminded how books can be comforting, astonishing, and illuminating, changing the way that we feel about and interact with the world around us.

Meetings are the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm

 Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or emailing Connie Gray at grayco@oplin.org

Heading Out to Wonderful by Robert Goolrick

Tuesday

October 15, 2013

7:00 pm

It is the summer of 1948 when a handsome, charismatic stranger, Charlie Beale, recently back from the war in Europe, shows up in the town of Brownsburg, a sleepy village nestled in the Valley of Virginia. All he has with him are two suitcases: one contains his few possessions, including a fine set of butcher knives; the other is full of money. A lot of money. Heading Out to Wonderful is a haunting, heart-stopping novel of love gone terribly wrong in a place where once upon a time such things could happen.

Join Mercer County Library's Newest Book Discussion Group

Meeting the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm

Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or

email Connie Gray at grayco@oplin.org or Janie Stammen at jstammen@oplin.org

CANADA by Richard Ford

Tuesday

September 17, 2013

7:00 pm

When fifteen-year-old Dell Parsons' parents rob a bank, his sense of normal life is forever altered. In an instant, this private cataclysm drives his life into before and after, a threshold that can never be uncrossed. His parents' arrest and imprisonment mean a threatening and uncertain future for Dell and his twin sister, Berner. Willful and burning with resentment, Berner flees their home in Montana, abandoning her brother and her life. But Dell is not completely alone. A family friend intervenes, spiriting him across the Canadian border, in hopes of delivering him to a better life. A work of haunting and spectacular vision from a Pulitzer Prize winning author, Canada is a novel of boundaries traversed, innocence lost and reconciled, and the mysterious bonds of family. Told in spare, elegant prose it is destined to become a classic.

Meetings are the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or emailing Connie Gray at grayco@oplin.org

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler

Tuesday

August 20, 2013

7:00 pm

In this historical fiction gem, Fowler explores the highs and the lows of the marriage of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.  While many accounts of the Fitzgerald’s marriage sympathize with her charming, famous, booze-loving husband— the more famous of the two — this book is completely Zelda’s. It is fascinating to see F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife and muse come to life. Readers can see how the real Zelda influenced many of Fitzgerald's characters, most famously Daisy in "The Great Gatsby." 

Meetings are the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or emailing Connie Gray at grayco@oplin.org

The Sandcastle Girls By Chris Bohjalian

Tuesday

July 16, 2013

7:00 pm

In this sweeping historical love story the little known Armenian genocide of 1915-16 is the focus. Elizabeth Endicott, a recent Mount Holyoke graduate, accompanies her Bostonian banker father on his philanthropic mission to Aleppo, Syria, to aid Armenian refugees fleeing atrocities committed by the Ottoman government. Her friendship with Armenian engineer Armen, who has lost his wife and baby daughter, flourishes when they are apart and can only communicate in letters. Years later, Laura Petrosian, seeking out a photograph of a woman rumored to be her Armenian grandmother, uncovers these letters among a wealth of documents—a treasure trove for an Armenian American novelist searching for pieces of her family history.

Meetings are the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or emailing Connie Gray at grayco@oplin.org

Where’d You Go Bernadette By Maria Semple

Tuesday

June 18, 2013

7:00 pm

Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom. Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. Semple paints each character with depth and tenderness while keeping the tone upbeat, in fact laugh out loud funny; no easy feat for a novel about a mother who pulls a disappearing act.

Meetings are the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm 

Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or emailing Connie Gray at grayco@oplin.org

The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro

Tuesday,

May 21, 2013

7:00 pm

The Art Forger

By

B.A. Shapiro

Making a living reproducing famous artworks for a popular online retailer and desperate to improve her situation, Claire Roth, a struggling young artist, is lured into a Faustian bargain with Aiden Markel, a powerful gallery owner.  She agrees to forge a painting--a Degas masterpiece stolen from the Gardner Museum--in exchange for a one-woman show in his renowned gallery.  But when that very same long-missing Degas painting is delivery to Claire's studio, she begins to suspect that it may itself be a forgery.

Meetings are the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm 

Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or emailing Connie Gray at grayco@oplin.org

A Good American by Alex George

Tuesday

April 16, 2013

7:00 pm

A Good American

by

Alex George

 A Good American tells of Jette’s dogged determination to feed a town sauerkraut and soul food; the loves and losses of her children, Joseph and Rosa; and the precocious voices of James and his brothers, sometimes raised in discord…sometimes in perfect harmony.

This is the story of the Meisenheimer family, told by James, a third-generation American living in Beatrice, Missouri. It’s where his German grandparents—Frederick and Jette—found themselves after journeying across the turbulent Atlantic, fording the flood-swollen Mississippi, and being brought to a sudden halt by the broken water of the pregnant Jette.

 

Meetings are the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm 

Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or emailing Connie Gray at grayco@oplin.org

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

Tuesday

February 15, 2013

7:00 pm

People of the Book 

by

Geraldine Brooks

From the Pulitzer Prize winning author of March, the journey of  a rare manuscript through centuries of exile and war. Inspired by a true story, People of the Book is a novel of sweeping historical grandeur. This ambitious, electrifying work traces the harrowing journey of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, a beautifully illuminated Hebrew manuscript created in fiftheenth-century Spain. When it falls to Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, to conserve this priceless work, the series of timy artifacts she discovers in its ancient binding only begin to unlcok its deep mystries and unexpectedly plunge Hanna into the intrigues of fine art forgers and ultra-nationalist fanatics.

Meetings are the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm 

Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or 

 email Connie Gray at grayco@oplin.org or Janie Stammen at jstammen@oplin.org 

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

Tuesday

January 15, 2013

7:00 pm

In this debut novel by gifted storyteller Karen Thompson Walker, the world is ending not with a bang so much as a long, drawn-out whimper. The Earth's rotation slows, gradually stretching out days and nights and subtly affecting the planet's gravity. The looming apocalypse parallels the adolescent struggles of 10-year-old Julia, as her comfortable suburban life succumbs to a sort of domestic deterioration. Julia confronts her parents' faltering marriage, illness, the death of a loved one, her first love, and her first heartbreak. Thompson Walker’s language is precise and poetic, but never overpowers the realism she imbues to her characters and the slowing Earth they inhabit. Most impressively, she has written a coming-of-age tale that asks whether it's worth coming of age at all in a world that might end at any minute. Like the best stories about the end of the world, The Age of Miracles is about the existence of hope and whether it can prevail in the face of uncertainty.

Meetings are the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or emailing Connie Gray at grayco@oplin.org