April 4, 2024
The Marcellus Township Wood Memorial Library’s First Thursday Book Club met on Thursday, April 4, 2024 from 12 NOON to 1:00 PM in the library with 9 readers in attendance.
One of our group members treated us to scrumptious Lemon Bars and Pina Colada Fudge. These treats were so good, that we requested the recipes for these treats. Here are the recipes as shared with us!
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Lemon Bars
Recipe:
- Drive to Walmart.
- Go to bakery department.
- Locate the lemon bars.
- Purchase and share with Book Club friends.
Pina Colada Fudge
Recipe:
Ingredients
1 (12 oz) package (2 cups) white vanilla chips
1 (3.25 oz) jar macadamia nuts, chopped, toasted*
1 (16 oz) can Pillsbury Creamy Supreme Vanilla Frosting
½ cup chopped dried pineapple
½ cup coconut, toasted*
1 tsp. rum extract
1 tsp. coconut extract
Steps:
- Line 8- or 9-inch square pan with foil, extending foil over the edges. Place chips in medium microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on HIGH for 1 to 2 minutes or until melted, stirring every 15 seconds until smooth.
- Reserve ¼ cup nuts for garnish. Add remaining nuts and all remaining ingredients to melted chip mixture; mix well. Spread in foil-lined pan. Sprinkle with reserved nuts. Refrigerate 1 hour or until firm. 3. Remove fudge from pan by lifting foil. Remove foil; cut into squares.
* Spread on baking sheet and then place sheet in 350 degree oven for 5 to 10 minutes stirring frequently until lightly toasted.
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Location of the Marcellus Township Wood Memorial Library’s First Thursday Book Club meeting minutes:
The Marcellus Township Wood Memorial Library’s First Thursday Book Club meeting minutes are published in “files” on the Marcellus Twp Library Book Club Facebook site. If you have not already joined this site, please do!
This month, note that a literary quiz can be found at the end of these meeting minutes. Readers have been given a list of literary terms and will need to match each of these terms with its definition. Send your responses to marcellusmichiganlibrary@gmail.com. The first respondent with the correct answers will win this month’s prize—a lovely tea cup perfect for spring time. You can take a break from planting seeds from the library’s seed exchange and enjoy your tea!
This month’s prize!
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In keeping with the gardening theme, here’s a helpful guide depicting insect repellent plants for your garden.
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A thought provoking graphic for this month. What do you think the artist is trying to convey?
Books discussed at the March meeting:
Title and Author: The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Description: Four mothers, four daughters, four families, whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's telling the stories. In 1949, four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, meet weekly to play mahjong and tell stories of what they left behind in China. United in loss and new hope for their daughters' futures, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Their daughters, who have never heard these stories, think their mothers' advice is irrelevant to their modern American lives – until their own inner crises reveal how much they've unknowingly inherited of their mothers' pasts. With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the
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truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery.
Genre: Adult literary fiction
Availability:
In Library: Book
MeLCat: Book; audiobook; book made into movie (DVD)
Club member comment(s): The club member sharing thoughts about this book told the group that watched the author being interviewed on PBS. The book’s female protagonists are concerned about passing on their culture and beliefs to the next generation. Our club member told the group that the book was not one that she particularly enjoyed.
Title and Author: The Women: A Novel by Kristin Hannah
Description: “Women can be heroes, too.” When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath hears these unexpected words, it is a revelation. Raised on idyllic Coronado Island and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing, being a good girl. But in 1965 the world is changing, and she suddenly imagines a different choice for her life. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she impulsively joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path. As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is overwhelmed by the chaos and destruction of war, as well as the unexpected trauma of coming home to a changed and politically divided America. The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on the story of all women who put themselves in harm’s way to help others. Women whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has all too often been forgotten. A novel of searing insight and lyric beauty, The Women is a profoundly emotional, richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose extraordinary idealism and courage under fire define a generation.
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Genre: Adult fiction
Availability:
In Library: Book; Libby audiobook; Libby ebook
MeLCat: Book; audiobook (CD); audiobook (playaway)
Club member comment(s): Our club member found this book to be emotional and gut wrenching particularly since her brother served in Vietnam. After active duty when her brother returned to the states, he and other Veterans were told not to appear in public in their uniforms or with military gear because the general public’s opinions about Vietnam Veterans was not positive. In the book, the brother of a young female Registered Nurse (RN) goes to Vietnam. During this time period, only men could be considered “heroes.” The young RN goes to Vietnam herself. When she returns to America after serving, she finds that women are definitely not considered heroes. Our reader indicated that she will likely read this book again at some point. She had read several of Hannah’s books and shared that she considered this book to be Hannah’s best.
Title and Author: The Sons of Blackbird Mountain by Joanne Bischof
Description: A Tale of family, brotherhood, and the healing power of love. After the tragic death of her husband, Aven Norgaard is beckoned to give up her life in Norway to become a housekeeper in the rugged hills of nineteenth-century Appalachia. Upon arrival, she finds herself in the home of her late husband’s cousins–three brothers who make a living by brewing hard cider on their three-hundred acre farm. Yet, even as a stranger in a foreign land, Aven has hope to build a new life in this tight-knit family. But her unassuming beauty disrupts the bond between brothers. The youngest two both desire her hand, and Aven is caught in the middle, unsure where–and whether–to offer her affection. While Haakon is bold and passionate, it is Thor who casts the greatest spell upon her. Though deaf, mute, and dependent on hard drink to cope with his silent pain, Thor possesses sobering strength. As autumn ushers in the apple harvest, the rift between Thor and Haakon deepens and Aven faces a choice that risks hearts. Will two brothers’ longing for her quiet spirit tear apart a family? Can she find a tender belonging in this remote,
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rugged, and unfamiliar world? A haunting tale of struggle and redemption, Sons of Blackbird Mountain is a portrait of grace in a world where the broken may find new life through the healing mercy of love.
Genre: Inspirational adult fiction
Availability:
In Library: Not available.
MeLCat: Book; audiobook
Club member comment(s): Our club member listened to the audiobook version of the book and enjoyed the interactions between a cast of interesting characters. As a former Nurse Practitioner, our reader found how the book addressed the historical treatment of alcohol detoxification for one of the characters interesting considering how alcohol detoxification is managed today. Great read and recommended to the others.
Title and Author: The Rainbow by Carly Schabowski
Description: Nazi-occupied Poland, 1940. When soldiers drag Tomasz back to his family’s farm, they put a gun to his head and tell him he must join the German army, or see his loved ones forced into the camps. Staring into the wide blue eyes of his childhood sweetheart Zofia, Tomasz does the only thing he can. Over the course of the war, he will risk his life, love and the respect of his own people, to secretly fight for good against evil. All the while, he longs to be reunited with Zofia… but will his brave choices tear them apart forever? London, present day. Isla has grown up wearing her grandfather’s rainbow scarf, a beloved memento from the Second World War, and hearing his stories about his time as a young soldier bravely fighting the Germans to protect his people. But as she is collecting photos for his 95th birthday celebration, she finds an old photograph of two men standing in Nazi uniforms, next to a folded piece of paper… a newspaper article, written in German. She knows that name. Her grandfather is too weak to answer questions, so Isla begins her hunt for the truth. There is so much she doesn’t know. And what she learns about a love story and a secret from seventy years ago will change her own life forever…
Genre: Adult historical fiction
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Availability:
In Library: Not available.
MeLCat: Book
Club member comment(s): This book, our reader shared, is not for the faint of heart. Set in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II, the book’s characters must confront the morale ambiguities of war. They must make life changing decisions about what is right or wrong when one’s own life or the life of a loved one is being threatened.
Title and Author: The Spoon Stealer by Lesley Crewe
Description: Lesley Crewe’s newest novel brings readers from WWI England to 1960s Nova Scotia, following a spoon-stealing memoirist who inherits the family farm—and the family. Born into a basket of clean sheets—ruining a perfectly good load of laundry—Emmeline never quite fit in on her family’s Nova Scotian farm. After suffering multiple losses in the First World War, her family became so heavy with grief and mental illness that Emmeline felt their weight smothering her. And so, she fled across the Atlantic and built her life in England. Retired, she now lives in a small coastal town with her best friend, Vera, a small white dog. When she joins a memoir-writing course at the library, her past unfolds for her audience, and friendships form. She even shares her third-biggest secret: she is a compulsive spoon stealer. When Emmeline unexpectedly inherits the farm she grew up on, she knows she needs to see what remains of her family one last time. She arrives like a tornado in their lives, an off-kilter Mary Poppins bossing everyone around and getting quite a lot wrong. But with her generosity and hard-earned wisdom, she gets an awful lot right, too. A pinball ricocheting between people, offending and inspiring in equal measure, Emmeline, in her final years, believes that a spoonful— perhaps several spoonfuls—of kindness can set to rights the family so broken by loss and secrecy.
Genre: Adult fiction-saga
Availability:
In Library: Book; large print book; Libby audiobook; Libby ebook
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MeLCat: Book; large print book; audiobook
Club member comment(s): Usually an avid audiobook fan, our club member is reading the paperback version of this book and enjoying it immensely. The female protagonist joins a memoir writing class and tells her classmates her life story in this fantastic read. Among the other delights in this book, the main character talks to her pet dog, and her pet dog talks back to her. Highly recommended.
Title and Author: American Eclipse: A Nation's Epic Race to Catch the Shadow of the Moon and Win the Glory of the World by David Baron
Genre: Description: Richly illustrated and meticulously researched, American Eclipse ultimately depicts a young nation that looked to the skies to reveal its towering ambition and expose its latent genius. On a scorching July afternoon in 1878, at the dawn of the Gilded Age, the moon’s shadow descended on the American West, darkening skies from Montana Territory to Texas. This rare celestial event—a total solar eclipse—offered a priceless opportunity to solve some of the solar system’s most enduring riddles, and it prompted a clutch of enterprising scientists to brave the wild frontier in a grueling race to the Rocky Mountains. Acclaimed science journalist David Baron, long fascinated by eclipses, re-creates this epic tale of ambition, failure, and glory in a narrative that reveals as much about the historical trajectory of a striving young nation as it does about those scant three minutes when the blue sky blackened and stars appeared in mid-afternoon. In vibrant historical detail, American Eclipse animates the fierce jockeying that came to dominate late nineteenth-century American astronomy, bringing to life the challenges faced by three of the most determined eclipse chasers who participated in this adventure. James Craig Watson, virtually forgotten in the twenty-first century, was in his day a renowned asteroid hunter who fantasized about becoming a Gilded Age Galileo. Hauling a telescope, a star chart, and his long-suffering wife out west, Watson believed that he would discover Vulcan, a hypothesized "intra-Mercurial" planet hidden in the sun’s brilliance. No less determined was Vassar astronomer Maria Mitchell, who—in an era when women’s education came under fierce attack—fought to demonstrate that science and higher learning were not anathema to femininity. Despite obstacles erected by the male-dominated astronomical community, an indifferent government, and careless porters, Mitchell courageously charged west with a contingent of female students intent on observing the transcendent phenomenon for themselves. Finally,
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Thomas Edison—a young inventor and irrepressible showman—braved the wilderness to prove himself to the scientific community. Armed with his newest invention, the tasimeter, and pursued at each stop by throngs of reporters, Edison sought to leverage the eclipse to cement his place in history. What he learned on the frontier, in fact, would help him illuminate the world. With memorable accounts of train robberies and Indian skirmishes, David Baron’s page-turning drama refracts nineteenth-century science through the mythologized age of the Wild West, revealing a history no less fierce and fantastical.
Genre: Adult non-fiction
Availability:
In Library: Book
MeLCat: Book; audiobook
Club member comment(s): A very timely and interesting book about a historical eclipse in America.
Title and Author: The Berry Pickers: A Novel by Amanda Peters
Description: July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come. In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.
Genre: Adult non-fiction
Availability:
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In Library: Book; Libby audiobook; Libby ebook
MeLCat: Book; audiobook
Club member comment(s): A well written novel told from the perspectives of two siblings, one of whom goes missing as a young girls. Her experiences and her brother’s search for her over decades made for an excellent read. Recommended to the others.
Title and Author: Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage, and Survival by Velma Wallis
Description: Based on an Athabascan Indian legend passed along for many generations from mothers to daughters of the upper Yukon River Valley in Alaska, this is the suspenseful, shocking, ultimately inspirational tale of two old women abandoned by their tribe during a brutal winter famine. Though these women have been known to complain more than contribute, they now must either survive on their own or die trying. In simple but vivid detail, Velma Wallis depicts a landscape and way of life that are at once merciless and starkly beautiful. In her old women, she has created two heroines of steely determination whose story of betrayal, friendship, community, and forgiveness "speaks straight to the heart with clarity, sweetness, and wisdom" (Ursula K. Le Guin).
Genre: Adult literary fiction
Availability:
In Library: Not available.
MeLCat: Book
Club member comment(s): This book was read and reviewed by another club member last month. Based on the review and recommendation, a second club member read the book this month also finding it an interesting read and recommending it to the others.
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Title and Author: The Summer Book Club by Susan Mallery
Description: This summer, three friends find the courage to step into the next chapter of their lives... The rules of summer book club are simple:
- No sad books
- No pressure
- Yessssss, wine!
Besties Laurel and Paris are excited to welcome Cassie to the group. This year, the book club is all about fill-your-heart reads, an escape from the chaos of the everyday—running a business, raising a family, juggling a hundred to-dos. Even the dog is demanding (but the bestest boy). Since Laurel’s divorce, she feels like the Worst Mom Ever. Her skepticism of men may have scarred her vulnerable daughters. Cassie has an unfortunate habit of falling for ridiculous man-boys who dump her once she fixes them. Paris knows good men exist. She’s still reeling after chasing off the only one brave enough—and foolish enough—to marry her. Inspired by the heroines who risk everything for fulfillment, Laurel, Paris and Cassie begin to take chances—big chances—in life, in love. Facing an unwritten chapter can be terrifying. But it can be exhilarating, too, if only they can find the courage to change.
Genre: Adult fiction-romance
Availability:
In Library: Book
MeLCat: Book; audiobook
Club member comment(s): The club member reviewing this book described it as “fun fluff!”
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Title and Author: The Fire Keeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley
Description: As a biracial, unenrolled tribal member and the product of a scandal, Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in—both in her hometown and on the nearly Ojibwe reservation. When her family is struck by tragedy, Daunis puts her dreams on hold to care for her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother’s hockey team. After Daunis witnesses a shocking murder that thrusts her into a criminal investigation, she agrees to go undercover. But the deceptions—and deaths—keep piling up and soon the threat strikes too close to home. How far will she go to protect her community if it means tearing apart the only world she’s ever known?
Genre: Young adult fiction
Availability:
In Library: Book (multiple copies); Libby audiobook; Libby ebook
MeLCat: Book; audiobook; book club kits (multiple books)
Club member comment(s): The club member reviewing this book wanted to read it in order to participate in the upcoming library book club event focusing on this novel. That the book is set in Michigan, our home state, was interesting. The novel includes numerous unfamiliar Indian words and customs. The topics and themes make for difficult reading at times. Thought provoking book. Great opportunity to learn more about Michigan’s indigenous Indian population.
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Title and Author: The Ghost at the Table: A Novel by Suzanne Berne
Description: Strikingly different since childhood and leading dissimilar lives now, sisters Frances and Cynthia have managed to remain "devoted"—as long as they stay on opposite coasts. When Frances arranges to host Thanksgiving at her idyllic New England farmhouse, she envisions a happy family reunion, one that will include the sisters’ long-estranged father. Cynthia, however, doesn’t understand how Frances can ignore the past their father’s presence revives, a past that includes suspicions about their mother’s death twenty-five years earlier. As Thanksgiving Day arrives, with a houseful of guests looking forward to dinner, the sisters continue to struggle with different versions of a shared past, their conflict escalating to a dramatic, suspenseful climax.
Genre: Adult literary fiction
Availability:
In Library: Book
MeLCat: Book; large print book
Club member comment(s): Our club member described this novel as very interesting. Two sisters come home over a Thanksgiving weekend to see their long estranged father. Despite growing up together, the sisters have very different perceptions of their shared memories. Our club member told the group that she could relate to the characters in the book. When talking about the past, she and her sisters often see things quite differently. We all could relate! If we don’t have hard facts, we tend to fill in our knowledge gaps with what we need to believe in order for experiences to make sense.
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Title and Author: The Heiress: A Novel by Rachel Hawkins
Description: When Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore dies, she’s not only North Carolina’s richest woman, she’s also its most notorious. The victim of a famous kidnapping as a child and a widow four times over, Ruby ruled the tiny town of Tavistock from Ashby House, her family’s estate high in the Blue Ridge mountains. In the aftermath of her death, that estate—along with a nine-figure fortune and the complicated legacy of being a McTavish—pass to her adopted son, Camden. But to everyone’s surprise, Cam wants little to do with the house or the money—and even less to do with the surviving McTavishes. Instead, he rejects his inheritance, settling into a normal life as an English teacher in Colorado and marrying Jules, a woman just as eager to escape her own messy past. Ten years later, Camden is a McTavish in name only, but a summons in the wake of his uncle’s death brings him and Jules back into the family fold at Ashby House. Its views are just as stunning as ever, its rooms just as elegant, but coming home reminds Cam why he was so quick to leave in the first place. Jules, however, has other ideas, and the more she learns about Cam’s estranged family—and the twisted secrets they keep—the more determined she is for her husband to claim everything Ruby once intended for him to have. But Ruby’s plans were always more complicated than they appeared. As Ashby House tightens its grip on Jules and Camden, questions about the infamous heiress come to light. Was there any truth to the persistent rumors following her disappearance as a girl? What really happened to those four husbands, who all died under mysterious circumstances? And why did she adopt Cam in the first place? Soon, Jules and Cam realize that an inheritance can entail far more than what’s written in a will—and that the bonds of family stretch far beyond the grave.
Genre: Adult fiction-mystery
Availability:
In Library: Book; Libby audiobook
MeLCat: Book; audiobook
Club member comment(s): This book is all about greed and the lengths we take in order to get what we want. This was a good, fast read with a number of plot twists.
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Title and Author: I’ll Be You by Janelle Brown
Description: As children, Sam and Elli were two halves of a perfect whole: Gorgeous identical twins whose parents sometimes couldn’t even tell them apart. They fell asleep to the sound of each other’s breath at night, holding hands in the dark. And once Hollywood discovered them, they became B-list child TV stars, often inhabiting the same role. But as adults their lives have splintered. After leaving acting, Elli reinvented herself as a model homemaker: Married to a real-estate lawyer, in a house two blocks from the beach. Meanwhile, Sam has never recovered from her failed Hollywood career, or from her addiction to the pills and booze that have propped her up for the last fifteen years. Sam hasn't spoken to her sister since her destructive behavior finally drove a wedge between them. So when her father calls out of the blue, Sam is shocked to learn that Elli’s life has been in turmoil: Her husband moved out, and Elli just adopted a two-year-old girl. Now she’s stopped answering her phone and checked in to a mysterious spa in Ojai. Is her sister just decompressing, or is she in trouble? Could she have possibly joined a cult? As Sam works to connect the dots left by Elli’s baffling disappearance, she realizes that the bond between her and her sister is more complicated than she ever knew.
Genre: Adult fiction-mystery
Availability:
In Library: Book
MeLCat: Book
Club member comment(s): Our reader told the group that this was a good novel and that the book “has a lot going on.” Our club member felt that the author must have intimate knowledge of addiction because her writings about the experiences of an addict were spot on.
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Title and Author: That Kind of Mother: A Novel by Rumaan Alam
Description: Like many first-time mothers, Rebecca Stone finds herself both deeply in love with her newborn son and deeply overwhelmed. Struggling to juggle the demands of motherhood with her own aspirations and feeling utterly alone in the process, she reaches out to the only person at the hospital who offers her any real help—Priscilla Johnson—and begs her to come home with them as her son’s nanny. Priscilla’s presence quickly does as much to shake up Rebecca’s perception of the world as it does to stabilize her life. Rebecca is white, and Priscilla is black, and through their relationship, Rebecca finds herself confronting, for the first time, the blind spots of her own privilege. She feels profoundly connected to the woman who essentially taught her what it means to be a mother. When Priscilla dies unexpectedly in childbirth, Rebecca steps forward to adopt the baby. But she is unprepared for what it means to be a white mother with a black son. As she soon learns, navigating motherhood for her is a matter of learning how to raise two children whom she loves with equal ferocity, but whom the world is determined to treat differently. Written with the warmth and psychological acuity that defined his debut, Rumaan Alam has crafted a remarkable novel about the lives we choose, and the lives that are chosen for us
Genre: Adult literary fiction
Availability:
In Library: Book
MeLCat: Book; large print book; audiobook
Club member comment(s): The author of this book is a Black American male writing about an over indulged, self-important, privileged, white woman married to a British diplomat. Our club member very much wanted to contact the author to determine if this is how he views all white women. Race and differences in perceptions about racial difference are threads throughout the book. Our reader told the group that she couldn’t say she liked the book because she strongly disliked the characters, but she was glad she read this novel.
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Title and Author: Carry Me Home: A Novel by Sandra Kring
Description: Set in small-town Wisconsin in the years prior to, during, and after World War II, Carry Me Home is seen through the eyes of Earl “Earwig” Gunderman. Teenage Earwig has been “simple” since a childhood bout of scarlet fever, and Kring handles his unique narrative with skill. His older brother Jimmy and Jimmy’s friends, all of whom treat him with rough affection, go off to war, and Earwig goes through his own growth in their absence, leaving his job at his mother’s store to work at the bowling alley and befriending an abused young wife and her sister-in-law, the town slut. The war takes its toll on the home front when rationing on gas and tires forces Earwig’s father to leave his gas station and take a factory job out of town to earn more money. Jimmy and his friend Floyd finally come home, both beaten down in body and mind after serving as POWs in the Pacific, and in the hierarchy of war service, they are not accorded the same respect that those who fought the Germans are. Despite these hardships and the pain felt by Earwig that his beloved older brother is not the same, his story ultimately ends on a note of hope. The author has lovingly recreated small town life with all its insularities and made it especially affecting with the price that the war has exacted upon it. At times Earwig’s narration is shrewder than seems possible with his deficiency, but in the end that pales beside the power of this heartfelt tale.
Genre: Adult fiction
Availability:
In Library: Not available.
MeLCat: Book; audiobook.
Club member comment(s): Our club member listened to the audiobook version of this novel. The events and experiences in the book are told by the younger son in a family of four. This young man experienced brain damage as a very young child causing cognitive and developmental challenges. The book is a coming of age story for this character as he moves from being a teenager to a young adult. The concepts of friendship, family, family secrets, prejudice, and care for Veterans experiencing PTSD are explored. The older brother returns from the Pacific Theater as a Japanese POW a changed man suffering from PTSD. At that time, what he was experiencing was not well understood even by the Veterans Health
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Administration. Soldiers experiencing this after WW2 were dismissed, told to “get on with life,” and were not recompensed for their pain and suffering for years in POW camps. The brothers’ love for each other strengthens them both. A poignant, well written, thought provoking novel.
Title and Author: A Monstrous Regiment of Women: A Novel of Suspense Featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes by Laurie R. King
Description: It is 1921 and Mary Russell--Sherlock Holmes's brilliant apprentice, now an Oxford graduate with a degree in theology--is on the verge of acquiring a sizable inheritance. Independent at last, with a passion for divinity and detective work, her most baffling mystery may now involve Holmes and the burgeoning of a deeper affection between herself and the retired detective. Russell's attentions turn to the New Temple of God and its leader, Margery Childe, a charismatic suffragette and a mystic, whose draw on the young theology scholar is irresistible. But when four bluestockings from the Temple turn up dead shortly after changing their wills, could sins of a capital nature be afoot? Holmes and Russell investigate, as their partnership takes a surprising turn in A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R. King.
Genre: Adult historical fiction-mystery
Availability:
In Library: Book
MeLCat: Book; audiobook
Club member comment(s): See below.
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Title and Author: A Letter of Mary: A Novel of Suspense Featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes by Laurie R. King
Description: The third book in the Mary Russell–Sherlock Holmes series. It is 1923. Mary Russell Holmes and her husband, the retired Sherlock Holmes, are enjoying the summer together on their Sussex estate when they are visited by an old friend, Miss Dorothy Ruskin, an archaeologist just returned from Palestine. She leaves in their protection an ancient manuscript which seems to hint at the possibility that Mary Magdalene was an apostle—an artifact certain to stir up a storm of biblical proportions in the Christian establishment. When Ruskin is suddenly killed in a tragic accident, Russell and Holmes find themselves on the trail of a fiendishly clever murderer. A Letter of Mary by Laurie R. King is brimming with political intrigue, theological arcana, and brilliant Holmesian deductions.
Genre: Adult historical fiction-mystery
Availability:
In Library: Not available.
MeLCat: Book; audiobook
Club member comment(s): See below.
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Title and Author: The Moor: A Novel of Suspense Featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes by Laurie R. King
Description: In the eerie wasteland of Dartmoor, Sherlock Holmes summons his devoted wife and partner, Mary Russell, from her studies at Oxford to aid the investigation of a death and some disturbing phenomena of a decidedly supernatural origin. Through the mists of the moor there have been sightings of a spectral coach made of bones carrying a woman long-ago accused of murdering her husband--and of a hound with a single glowing eye. Returning to the scene of one of his most celebrated cases, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Holmes and Russell investigate a mystery darker and more unforgiving than the moors themselves, in Laurie R. King's The Moor.
Genre: Adult historical fiction-mystery
Availability:
In Library: Not available.
MeLCat: Book; audiobook
Club member comment(s): Additional installments in the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series. The first book was discussed last month. Our reader enjoyed the first and opted to move on to the second and third!
Upcoming events:
Mondays:
Yoga with Instructor Dave Sivley. Mondays at 6PM, April 8th-May 20th. Please bring a yoga mat, towel, water and $5 payable to Instructor Dave!
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Tuesdays:
Teen Advisory Board Meeting, April 23rd. Drop in any time 3-5:00 PM to enjoy snacks, make a fun craft, and share your thoughts to influence future library collections & programs! Grades 7-12 are encouraged to attend!
Wednesdays:
Preschool Story Hour, 10:15 AM. Stories, music, movement & crafts for ages 0-5 and their parents/caregivers.
Author Presentation & Meet and Greet. This Troubled Ground by US Air Force
Veteran and author Leslie Carroll, Lt. Col. (Ret.), USAFIANG, Wednesday, April
24th, from 5:30PM-6:30PM. Ret. Lt. Col. Leslie Carroll will be here to present his novel which was inspired by true events in Afghanistan. He will answer questions and signed copies of his book will be available for purchase.
Game Night AND Movies & Popcorn, April 24th, the last Wednesday of each month at 6:00 PM. We’ll have fresh popcorn and a movie during game night! All ages are welcome!
Sourdough for Beginners. Learn the art of sourdough from expert Lindsey
Morehouse of The Dough and More! Wednesday, May 29th at 6PM. Paid registration of $10 is required, and space is limited. This workshop will cover the essentials and you’ll leave with a starter of your own.
Thursdays:
First Thursday Book Club 2023, May 2nd, 2024, 12 NOON-1 PM. Join others to chat about what you have been reading & to receive recommendations!
Fridays:
Lego at the Library, Fridays 3:00-4:30 PM. Build & create with our Lego & Duplo collections! All ages are invited!
Local Author Fair, May 3rd, 5-7:00 P.M. Are you a local author? Contact the library to reserve a spot at your local author fair. Bring copies of your book(s) to sign and sell. Meet and greet your fans and new readers.
Saturdays:
Tech Time @ the Library, April 20th and 27th as well as May 4th, 11th, and 18th from 10 AM to 1 PM. Drop in the library to ask Justin your IT related questions and learn to navigate your device or our computers!
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The next meeting of the Marcellus Township Wood Memorial Library’s First Thursday Book Club will be held on Thursday, May 2, 2024, at 12 NOON in the library. We look forward to seeing you here!
Tammy Terpstra
Interlibrary Loan Specialist/Library Assistant
Marcellus Township Wood Memorial Library
APRIL 2024 QUIZ!
Instructions: Each of the literary words on the right below need to be matched with its definition on the left. Place the number of the definition on the left in the blank of the word it defines on the left. Send your responses (i.e., write down the numbers to the right in order) to
marcellusmichiganlibrary@gmail.com. The first respondent with the correct answers will win this month’s prize—a lovely spring time tea cup.
Definitions: Literary Word:
- Writer’s story of his or her own life. ________Drama 2. Writer’s account of some other person’s life. ________Novel 3. Writing that deals with life in a humorous way, often ________Prose poking fun at people’s mistakes.
- Uses dialogue to share message—is meant to be ________Essay to be performed in front of an audience.
- Short piece of nonfiction that expresses the writer’s ________Fable
opinion or shares information about a subject.
- Short story that often uses talking animals as main ________Historical fiction characters and teaches a moral or lesson.
- Story set in an imaginary world in which characters ________Fantasy usually have supernatural powers or abilities.
- Book-length, fictional prose story. ________Autobiography 9. Made-up story based on a real time and place in history; ________Comedy fact may be mixed with fiction.
- Literary work that uses familiar spoken form of language. ________Biography
