June 6, 2024
The Marcellus Township Wood Memorial Library’s First Thursday Book Club met on Thursday, June 6, 2024 from 12 NOON to 1:00 PM in the library with 8 readers in attendance. Members were treated to delicious home baked blueberry oatmeal bar cookies and fresh cherries! The recipe for the bar cookies is included below!
Blueberry Oatmeal Bar Cookies
Ingredients:
2 ½ cups flour
2 ½ cups quick cooking oats
1 ½ cups packed brown sugar
½ cup macadamia nuts chopped (optional)
½ cup shredded coconut
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 ½ cups melted butter
21 ounces blueberry pie filling
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Instructions:
Step 1: Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Step 2: In large bowl, mix flour, oats, brown sugar, macadamia nuts, coconut, salt, and baking soda using pastry blender. Stir in melted butter until well mixed.
Step 3: Reserve 2 cups oat mixture for topping.
Step 4: On bottom of ungreased 15x10x1 inch pan, firmly press remaining oat mixture. Step 5: Bake 15-20 minutes or until crust just begins to brown.
Step 6: Using a rubber spatula, carefully spread pie filling over warm crust in your baking dish.
Step 7: Stir cinnamon into reserved oat mixture. Sprinkle oat mixture over filling, pressing lightly into filling.
Step 8: Bake 20-25 minutes or until top is golden brown. Cool completely in pan (30 minutes or so). Cut and serve.
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!
The Monthly First Thursday Book Club Quiz and Prize!
This month, note that a literary quiz can be found at the end of these meeting minutes. Share your responses with us at marcellusmichiganlibrary@gmail.com. Send an e-mail listing the correct responses (e.g., 1. A, 2. C, 3. D), or you may also call the library or stop in at the library with your responses and we’ll let you know if you’re a winner! The first person to give us the correct answers will win this month’s prize—a “The Gap” denim tote bag perfect for summer!
New at the Library!
Book Club Group Reading Experience
The First Thursday Book Club members had previously discussed the possibility of reading the same book together and then discussing that book as a group. At this month’s meeting, members were provided with a list of books to consider for a group reading experience (available to others upon request). The list had a mix of female and male authors and genres. Each of the books is available either at our library or through MeLCat, has published discussion questions available to book clubs, and has an author interview available on the internet (i.e., YouTube, Facebook, podcast). If members read the book together, they can then meet, listen to the author talk about his or her work and then discuss the book themselves using published questions to guide the discussion. The group preferred having this meeting at a different date/time then the First Thursday Book Club which would continue as usual. Since the July meeting of the First Thursday Book Club has been canceled because it falls on July 4th, members opted to start the group reading experience with the book The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett by Annie Lyons (see photo of the book cover and book summary below). Interviews with the author and discussion questions are available. The library staff will obtain copies of the book for those interested (i.e., book, large print book or audiobook if available) through MeLCat and notify book club members when these books arrive at the library. Additional copies will be available if others would like to participate. The meeting to “meet the author virtually” and discuss the book will then be scheduled likely in late July. Watch for the date and time!
Title and Author: The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett by Annie Lyons
Description: Eudora Honeysett is done with this noisy, moronic world—all of it. She has witnessed the indignities and suffering of old age and has lived a full life. At eighty-five, she isn’t going to leave things to chance. Her end will be on her terms. With one call to a clinic in Switzerland, a plan is set in motion. Then she meets ten-year-old Rose Trewidney, a whirling, pint-sized rainbow of color and sparkling cheer. All Eudora wants is to be left alone to set her affairs in order. Instead, she finds herself embarking on a series of adventures with the irrepressible Rose and their affable neighbor, the recently widowed
Stanley—afternoon tea, shopping sprees, trips to the beach, birthday celebrations, pizza parties. While the trio of unlikely BFFs grow closer and anxiously await the arrival of Rose’s new baby sister, Eudora is reminded of her own childhood—of losing her father during World War II and the devastating impact it had on her entire family. In reflecting on her past, Eudora realizes she must come to terms with what lies ahead.
Genre: Adult fiction—general.
Availability:
In Library: Libby audiobook
MeLCat: Book; large print book; audiobook
Fidgets are available to patrons!
Check out the “fidgets” when you next visit the library! Fidgets are handheld devices that help with self regulation and focus and allow people to better cope with feelings of boredom, anxiety, and agitation.
Books discussed at the June 2024 First Thursday Book Club meeting:
Title and Author: Goodnight, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea
Description: In 1943, Irene Woodward abandons an abusive fiancé in New York to enlist with the Red Cross and head to Europe. She makes fast friends in training with Dorothy Dunford, a towering Midwesterner with a ferocious wit. Together they are part of an elite group of women, nicknamed Donut Dollies, who command military vehicles called Clubmobiles at the front line, providing camaraderie and a taste of home that may be the only solace before troops head into battle. After D-Day, these two intrepid friends join the Allied soldiers streaming into France. Their time in Europe will see them embroiled in danger, from the Battle of the Bulge to the liberation of Buchenwald. Through her friendship with Dorothy, and a love affair with a courageous American fighter pilot named Hans, Irene learns to trust again. Her most fervent hope, which becomes more precarious by the day, is for all three of them to survive the war intact. Taking as inspiration his mother’s own Red Cross service, Luis Alberto Urrea has delivered an overlooked story of women’s heroism in World War II. With its affecting and uplifting portrait of friendship and valor in harrowing circumstances, Good Night, Irene powerfully demonstrates yet again that Urrea’s “gifts as a storyteller are prodigious” (NPR)
Genre: Adult fiction--historical
Availability:
In Library: Libby eBook
MeLCat: Book; audiobook
Club member comment(s): This work of historical fiction sheds light on the experiences of two women who joined the Red Cross during WW2 to serve as Donut Dollies on Clubmobiles on the European front lines. In the book’s author notes, Urrea reveals that his mother served in this role, and he uses her experiences as well as his own research about these women in this interesting book. Well written and rich in historical detail, the reader enjoyed this book and recommended it to the others.
Title and Author: The Hidden by Mary Chamberlain
Description: WWII. Channel Islands. A murky past that won’t stay hidden forever… Dora, Joe and Geoffrey are living out their retirement comfortably when their worlds are shattered by the arrival of Barbara Hummel, a young German anxious to track down the identity of a mysterious woman whose photograph she finds amongst her mother’s possessions. As the truth of what happened under the occupation begins to be revealed, the lives of Dora, a Jewish refugee, and Joe, a Catholic priest, start to unravel in shocking and surprising ways. The consequences of the lives they lived under the Germans and the lies that followed are as unexpected as they are devastating. The Hidden is a heart-rending and provocative story of love and abandonment, shame and survival that casts a light onto the forgotten shadows of the war in occupied Jersey.
Genre: Adult fiction--historical
Availability:
In Library: Not available.
MeLCat: Book
Club member comment(s): This is not an easy read. The book details the experiences of three people on the island of Jersey, one of the Channel Islands. Dora, a Jewess by blood but who looks like an Arayan, and Geoffrey, her lover, assist and hide a prison camp escapee on Geoffrey’s farm but are betrayed and arrested by the Germans. Joe, a Catholic priest, with secrets of his own is also betrayed and arrested. Their lives are forever changed. Through Dora’s experience, the book examines the plight of women arrested by the Germans and then exploited during the war. Years later, a young female reporter finds the photo of a woman in her mother’s possessions and is determined to identify this woman. Doing so, however, will uncover what happened to the three main characters–much of which they would rather not remember. Again, the author’s notes reveal her extensive research into what happened to Jews and civilians on the Channel Islands when these islands were occupied by the Germans.
Title and Author: A Week in Winter by Marcia Willett
Description: Any reader who has ever fallen in love with a house will understand the attraction of Moorgate, a light-and-fresh-air-filled old farmhouse on the edge of the moor in Cornwall. The enchanting house now belongs to seventy-something Maudie Todhunter, the late Lord Todhunter's free-spirited second wife. (The first wife, Hilda, was supposedly a paragon of virtue, and Maudie has always felt second
best.) The light of Maudie's life is her vivacious stepgranddaughter, Posy, who begs Maudie to board a giant English mastiff whom Posy's mean-spirited mother has banned from the house. (The large and ungainly Polonius is an impossibly lovable canine who outshines Lassie by a mile and is destined to become a favorite of readers worldwide.) When Maudie decides to sell Moorgate, all kinds of old family secrets come to light, and so the saga begins. Along the way, Rob, the contractor of Moorhouse, falls in love with a woman who has a sad secret. Posy's father falls in love with someone kinder than his shrewish wife. Maudie must reevaluate someone she'd fallen in love with years ago. And as the connections intertwine between the past and the present, many unexpected alliances form.
Genre: Adult literary fiction
Availability:
In Library: Not available
MeLCat: Book; audiobook
Club member comment(s): The author has a propensity to introduce numerous characters in the first few chapters of the book. Our reader used an index card to record the characters before reading further and this was helpful. In this novel, the sale of a summer home creates many issues for the characters. The story unfolds slowly but the character development is exemplary.
Title and Author: The Summer House by Marcia Willett
Description: In The Summer House, the author explores the secrets that families keep, and the decisions, made in an instant, that can change our lives. Matt has always felt that there was something missing in his life. His mother kept all his childhood memories in a small inlaid wooden box, along with many photos of Matt as a child. But something about these photos has always puzzled Matt. Why doesn't he remember those clothes? The toys? And where, in the photos, is his sister Imogen? Meanwhile, Imogen is living with her husband and their baby in a rented cottage. Ever since she was a child, she has loved the Summer House, a charming cottage on the grounds of a beautiful and ancient house in Exmoor. When she has a chance to buy but her husband refuses to move, Imogen begins to question the seemingly picturesque life she has built for herself. Eventually, the Summer House provides the key to the strange and tragic secret which has affected everyone involved.
Genre: Adult fiction--saga
Availability:
In Library: Not available.
MeLCat: Book; audiobook
Club member comment(s): Written by the same author as A Week in Winter, this book too has a plethora of characters. The author ties the characters, their relationships to the summer house, and their secrets together in a wonderful way.
Title and Author: Mary, Mary by Leslie Crewe
Description: In a Cape Breton family of black sheep, Mary is pure as the driven snow. She is patient and kind with her alcoholic grandmother and volatile mother, loyal and attentive to her spoiled cousin, and pleasant and polite all day as a grocery cashier. Her well-off aunt, the only other normal person in the family, wants to help her more, but Mary’s mother is too prickly and proud. So Mary goes to work, comes home, takes care of her family, and wonders if there’ll ever be more to life. When a young couple moves into the apartment upstairs, it sparks a series of changes that leads to major family revelations, and Mary discovers that sometimes doing the wrong thing is the exact right thing to do. Tender, authentic, and crackling with Lesley Crewe’s irrepressible humour, Mary, Mary is a book for anyone who’s ever had a family…good, bad, or a messy mix of both.
Genre: Adult fiction--general
Availability:
In Library: Not available.
MeLCat: Book
Club member comment(s): A funny, engaging, laugh out loud sort of book. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
Title and Author: Clara: A Novel by Kurt Palka
Description: Clara Herzog is a privileged, intelligent, and thoughtful young woman whose world is changed forever when 1930s Vienna is swept up by the dark prelude of the Second World War. The cavalry officer she married in spite of her family's objections is soon called away to the thick of the conflict, and it falls to Clara, as to so many mothers, wives, sisters, and sweethearts through the centuries, to stay at home to provide and protect. Through the war, its aftermath, and into the present, Clara must make choices and take risks that are as heroic and life-altering as any that men make in battle. She is an unforgettable character, and this is an unforgettable novel about family bonds and women's deep friendships, about courage and the love that can endure even in unimaginable times.
Genre: Literary fiction.
Availability:
In library: Not available.
In MeLCat: Book
Club member comments: A great, ultimately uplifting WW2 novel.
Title and Author: People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present by Dara Horn
Description: A startling and profound exploration of how Jewish history is exploited to comfort the living. Renowned and beloved as a prizewinning novelist, Dara Horn has also been publishing penetrating essays since she was a teenager. Often asked by major publications to write on subjects related to Jewish culture - and increasingly in response to a recent wave of deadly anti-Semitic attacks - Horn was troubled to realize what all of these assignments had in common: She was being asked to write about dead Jews, never about living ones. In these essays, Horn reflects on subjects as far-flung as the international veneration of Anne Frank, the mythology that Jewish family names were changed at Ellis Island, the blockbuster traveling exhibition Auschwitz, the marketing of the Jewish history of Harbin, China, and the little-known life of the "righteous Gentile" Varian Fry. Throughout, she challenges us to confront the reasons why there might be so much fascination with Jewish deaths, and so little respect for Jewish lives unfolding in the present. Horn draws upon her travels, her research, and also her own family life - trying to explain Shakespeare’s Shylock to a curious 10- year-old, her anger when swastikas are drawn on desks in her children’s school, the profound perspective offered by traditional religious practice and study - to assert the vitality, complexity, and depth of Jewish life against an anti-Semitism that, far from being disarmed by the mantra of "Never forget", is on the rise. As Horn explores the (not so) shocking attacks on the American Jewish community in recent years, she reveals the subtler dehumanization built into the public piety that surrounds the Jewish past - making the radical argument that the benign reverence we give to past horrors is itself a profound affront to human dignity.
Genre: Adult non-fiction
Availability:
In Library: Book
MeLCat: Book
Club member comment(s): Dara Horn has written a series of essays about various aspects of and events in Jewish history and then, through meticulous research, documents how Jewish history has been exploited to comfort the living. Her sadness and anger about this history is evident in the book, but so is her sense of humor. A fascinating read, this award winning book is–to say the least–eye opening. Horn’s perspective is unique and so very well documented in her book. A timely and thought provoking book in light of today’s world events.
Title and Author: Hero: A Novel by Thomas Perry
Description: A private security agent finds that being branded as the City of Angels’ latest hero could also make her its next victim.… Justine Poole provides security for wealthy and high-profile Hollywood stars, but that all changes when a job puts her in the limelight. When she prevents a brazen robbery at the Beverly Hills home of two of her clients—killing two of the five armed robbers in the process—she is initially lauded in the media as a local hero. But the spotlight soon puts her in the crosshairs of the crime kingpin behind the burglaries.
Genre: Mystery
Availability:
In Library: Book
MeLCat: Book
Club member comment(s): “A fun read!”
Title and Author: The Whistler: A Novel (Lacy Stoltz, Book #1) by John Grisham
Description: We expect our judges to be honest and wise. Their integrity and impartiality are the bedrock of the entire judicial system. We trust them to ensure fair trials, to protect the rights of all litigants, to punish those who do wrong, and to oversee the orderly and efficient flow of justice. But what happens when a judge bends the law or takes a bribe? It’s rare, but it happens. Lacy Stoltz is an investigator for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct. She is a lawyer, not a cop, and it is her job to respond to complaints dealing with judicial misconduct. After nine years with the Board, she knows that most problems are caused by incompetence, not corruption. But a corruption case eventually crosses her desk. A previously disbarred lawyer is back in business with a new identity. He now goes by the name Greg Myers, and he claims to know of a Florida judge who has stolen more money than all other crooked judges combined. And not just crooked judges in Florida. All judges, from all states, and throughout U.S. history. What’s the source of the ill-gotten gains? It seems the judge was secretly involved with the construction of a large casino on Native American land. The Coast Mafia financed the casino and is now helping itself to a sizable skim of each month’s cash. The judge is getting a cut and looking the other way. It’s a sweet deal: Everyone is making money. But now Greg wants to put a stop to it. His only client is a person who knows the truth and wants to blow the whistle and collect millions under Florida law. Greg files a complaint with the Board on Judicial Conduct, and the case is assigned to Lacy Stoltz, who immediately suspects that this one could be dangerous. Dangerous is one thing. Deadly is something else.
Genre: Mystery
Availability:
In Library: Book; Libby audiobook & eBook
MeLCat: Book; audiobook
Club member comment(s): “A page turner and exciting.”
Title and Author: Little Fires Everywhere: A Novel by Celeste Ng
Description: In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned – from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules. Enter Mia Warren – an enigmatic artist and single mother – who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community. When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town--and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia's past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs. Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhood – and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster.
Genre: Adult Literary Fiction
Availability:
In Library: Book; Libby audiobook & eBook
MeLCat: Book; audiobook
Club member comment(s): Interesting book although much of it focuses on adolescent behavioral struggles, and it seems that little of interest is available to keep the teens in the book occupied. This book was made into a miniseries on Hulu in 2020.
Title and Author: Demon Copperfield by Barbara Kingsolver
Description: Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities. Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens’ anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can’t imagine leaving behind.
Genre: Adult literary fiction
Availability:
In Library: Book; Libby audiobook & eBook
MeLCat: Book; audiobook
Club member comment(s): This book covers generational sadnesses of a dysfunctional family but with a main character that demonstrates significant resiliency. Kingsolver’s writing is terrific, and our reader could see parallels between this book and Dickens’ David Copperfield.
Title and Author: A Short Walk Through a Wide World: A Novel by Douglas Westerbeke
Description: this dazzlingly epic debut that charts the incredible, adventurous life of one woman as she journeys the globe trying to outrun a mysterious curse that will destroy her if she stops moving. Paris, 1885: Aubry Tourvel, a spoiled and stubborn nine-year-old girl, comes across a wooden puzzle ball on her walk home from school. She tosses it over the fence, only to find it in her backpack that evening. Days later, at the family dinner table, she starts to bleed to death. When medical treatment only makes her worse, she flees to the outskirts of the city, where she realizes that it is this very act of movement that keeps her alive. So begins her lifelong journey on the run from her condition, which won’t allow her to stay anywhere for longer than a few days nor return to a place where she’s already been. From the scorched dunes of the Calashino Sand Sea to the snow-packed peaks of the Himalayas; from a bottomless well in a Parisian courtyard, to the shelves of an infinite underground library, we follow Aubry as she learns what it takes to survive and ultimately, to truly live. But the longer Aubry wanders and the more desperate she is to share her life with others, the clearer it becomes that the world she travels through may not be quite the same as everyone else’s... Fiercely independent and hopeful, yet full of longing, Aubry Tourvel is an unforgettable character fighting her way through a world of wonders to find a place she can call home. A spellbinding and inspiring story about discovering meaning in a life that seems otherwise impossible, A Short Walk Through a Wide World reminds us that it’s not the destination, but rather the journey—no matter how long it lasts—that makes us who we are.
Genre: Adult fiction-fantasy
Availability:
In Library: Book
MeLCat: Book; audiobook
Club member comment(s): Unfortunately, for our reader this was a DNF (did not finish) book. The book has a significant element of fantasy which is not a genre that our reader enjoys. The members agreed that everyone should read what they enjoy and that we’ve all had DNF reading experiences.
Title and Author: The Cemetery of Untold Stories: A Novel by Julie Alvarez
Description: Alma Cruz, the celebrated writer at the heart of The Cemetery of Untold Stories, doesn’t want to end up like her friend, a novelist who fought so long and hard to finish a book that it threatened her sanity. So when Alma inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she has the beautiful idea of turning it into a place to bury her untold stories—literally. She creates a graveyard for the manuscript drafts and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her. Alma wants her characters to rest in peace. But they have other ideas and soon begin to defy their author: they talk back to her and talk to one another behind her back, rewriting and revising themselves. Filomena, a local woman hired as the groundskeeper, becomes a sympathetic listener to the secret tales unspooled by Alma's characters. Among them, Bienvenida, dictator Rafael Trujillo's abandoned wife who was erased from the official history, and Manuel Cruz, a doctor who fought in the Dominican underground and escaped to the United States. The Cemetery of Untold Stories asks: Whose stories get to be told, and whose buried? Finally, Alma finds the meaning she and her characters yearn for in the everlasting vitality of stories. Julia Alvarez reminds us that the stories of our lives are never truly finished, even at the end.
Genre: Adult literary fiction
Availability:
In Library: Book
MeLCat: Book; audiobook
Club member comment(s): “A fabulous story. This author knows how to write a story.” Our reader wished she knew more Spanish. There is an element of fantasy in this book.
Title and Author: The Book of Lost Names: A Novel Kristen Harmel
Description: Eva Traube Abrams, a semi-retired librarian in Florida, is shelving books one morning when her eyes lock on a photograph in a magazine lying open nearby. She freezes; it’s an image of a book she hasn’t seen in sixty-five years — a book she recognizes as The Book of Lost Names. The accompanying article discusses the looting of libraries by the Nazis across Europe during World War II — an experience Eva remembers well — and the search to reunite people with the texts taken from them so long ago. The book in the photograph, an eighteenth-century religious text thought to have been taken from France in the waning days of the war, is one of the most fascinating cases. Now housed in Berlin’s Zentral- und Landesbibliothek library, it appears to contain some sort of code, but researchers don’t know where it came from — or what the code means. Only Eva holds the answer — but will she have the strength to revisit old memories and help reunite those lost during the war? As a graduate student in 1942, Eva was forced to flee Paris after the arrest of her father, a Polish Jew. Finding refuge in a small mountain town in the Free Zone, she begins forging identity documents for Jewish children fleeing to neutral Switzerland. But erasing people comes with a price, and along with a mysterious, handsome forger named Rémy, Eva decides she must find a way to preserve the real names of the children who are too young to remember who they really are. The records they keep in The Book of Lost Names will become even more vital when the resistance cell they work for is betrayed and Rémy disappears.
Genre: Adult historical fiction
Availability:
In Library: Libby audiobook
MeLCat: Book; audiobook
Club member comment(s): A great story.
Title and Author: Famous in a Small Town by Viola Shipman
Description: For most of her eighty years, Mary Jackson has endured the steady invasion of tourists, influencers and real estate developers who have discovered the lakeside charm of Good Hart, Michigan, waiting patiently for the arrival of a stranger she’s believed since childhood would one day carry on her legacy—the Very Cherry General Store. Like generations of Jackson women before her, Cherry Mary, as she’s known locally, runs the community hub—part post office, bakery and sandwich shop—and had almost given up hope that the mysterious prediction she’d been told as a girl would come true and the store would have to pass to…a man. Becky Thatcher came to Good Hart with her ride-or-die BFF to forget that she’s just turned forty with nothing to show for it. Ending up at the general store with Mary is admittedly not the beach vacation she expected, but the more the feisty octogenarian talks about destiny, the stronger Becky’s memories of her own childhood holidays become, and the strange visions over the lake she was never sure were real. As she works under Mary’s wing for the summer and finds she fits into this quirky community of locals, she starts to believe that destiny could be real, and that it might have something very special in mind for Becky…
Genre: Adult general fiction
Availability:
In Library: Not available.
MeLCat: Book; audiobook
Club member comment(s): Set in Michigan, this is a heart warming, redemptive story with an elderly main character.
Title and Author: We Were the Lucky Ones: A Novel by Georgia Hunter
Description: It is the spring of 1939 and three generations of the Kurc family are doing their best to live normal lives, even as the shadow of war grows closer. The talk around the family Seder table is of new babies and budding romance, not of the increasing hardships threatening Jews in their hometown of Radom, Poland. But soon the horrors overtaking Europe will become inescapable and the Kurcs will be flung to the far corners of the world, each desperately trying to navigate his or her own path to safety. As one sibling is forced into exile, another attempts to flee the continent, while others struggle to escape certain death, either by working grueling hours on empty stomachs in the factories of the ghetto or by hiding as gentiles in plain sight. Driven by an unwavering will to survive and by the fear that they may never see one another again, the Kurcs must rely on hope, ingenuity, and inner strength to persevere.
Genre: Adult-historical fiction
Availability:
In Library: Libby eBook
MeLCat: Book
Club member comment(s): Our reader enjoyed reading this WW2 novel. The adversity that the main characters experience, their resiliency, and finally the luck that brought them back together is astonishing. Terrific story.
Title and Author: The Codebreaker’s Secret: A Novel
Description: A brilliant female codebreaker. An “unbreakable” Japanese naval code. A pilot on a top secret mission that could change the course of WWII. The Codebreaker's Secret is a dazzling story of love and intrigue set during America’s darkest hour. 1943. As war in the Pacific rages on, Isabel Cooper and her codebreaker colleagues huddle in “the dungeon” at Station HYPO in Pearl Harbor, deciphering secrets plucked from the airwaves in a race to bring down the enemy. Isabel has only one wish: to avenge her brother’s death. But she soon finds life has other plans when she meets his best friend, a hotshot pilot with secrets of his own. 1965. Fledgling journalist Lu Freitas comes home to Hawai'i to cover the grand opening of the glamorous Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, Rockefeller's newest and grandest project. When a high-profile guest goes missing, Lu forms an unlikely alliance with an intimidating veteran photographer to unravel the mystery. The two make a shocking discovery that stirs up memories and uncovers an explosive secret from the war days. A secret that only a codebreaker can crack.
Genre: Adult-historical fiction
Availability:
In Library: Not available.
MeLCat: Book; audiobook (CDs); audiobook (MP3 player)
Club member comment(s): Good read.
Title and Author: The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell: A Novel by Robert Dugoni
Description: Sam Hill always saw the world through different eyes. Born with red pupils, he was called “Devil Boy” or Sam “Hell” by his classmates; “God’s will” is what his mother called his ocular albinism. Her words were of little comfort, but Sam persevered, buoyed by his mother’s devout faith, his father’s practical wisdom, and his two other misfit friends. Sam believed it was God who sent Ernie Cantwell, the only African American kid in his class, to be the friend he so desperately needed. And that it was God’s idea for Mickie Kennedy to storm into Our Lady of Mercy like a tornado, uprooting every rule Sam had been taught about boys and girls. Forty years later, Sam, a small-town eye doctor, is no longer certain anything was by design—especially not the tragedy that caused him to turn his back on his friends, his hometown, and the life he’d always known. Running from the pain, eyes closed, served little purpose. Now, as he looks back on his life, Sam embarks on a journey that will take him halfway around the world. This time, his eyes are wide open—bringing into clear view what changed him, defined him, and made him so afraid, until he can finally see what truly matters.
Genre: Adult literary fiction
Availability:
In Library: Not available.
MeLCat: Book; audiobook
Club member comment(s): Our reader enjoyed this heartwarming book. The main character has ocular albinism, and the reader learns about this rare condition and its impact on his life.
Title and Author: Remarkably Bright Creatures: A Novel by Shelby Van Pelt
Description: After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago. Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors—until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova. Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova’s son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it’s too late. Shelby Van Pelt’s debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.
Genre: Adult general fiction
Availability:
In Library: Book
MeLCat: Book; audiobook
Club member comment(s): Fun read! Very enjoyable.
Title and Author: The Ghost Orchid: An Alex Delaware Novel by Jonathan Kellerman
Description: Psychologist Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis confront a baffling, vicious double homicide that leads them to long-buried secrets worth killing for in the riveting thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling “master of suspense” (Los Angeles Times). LAPD homicide lieutenant Milo Sturgis sees it all the time: Reinvention’s a way of life in a city fueled by fantasy. But try as you might to erase the person you once were, there are those who will never forget the past . . . and who can still find you. A pool boy enters a secluded Bel Air property and discovers two bodies floating in the bright blue water: Gio Aggiunta, the playboy heir to an Italian shoe empire, and a gorgeous, even wealthier neighbor named Meagin March. A married neighbor. An illicit affair stoking rage is a perfect motive. But a “double” in this neighborhood of gated estates isn’t something you see every day. The house is untouched. No forced entry, no forensic evidence. The case has “that feeling,” and when that happens, Milo turns to his friend, the brilliant psychologist Alex Delaware. As Milo and Alex investigate both victims, they discover two troubled pasts. And as they dig deeper, Meagin March’s very identity begins to blur. Who was this glamorous but conflicted woman? Did her past catch up to her? Or did Gio’s family connections create a threat spanning two continents? Chasing down the answers leads Alex and Milo on an exploration of L.A.’s darkest side as they contend with one of the most shocking cases of their careers and learn that that some secrets are best left buried in the past.
Genre: Mystery
Availability:
In Library: Large print book; Libby eBook
MeLCat: Book; large print book; audiobook
Club member comment(s): A good mystery story that unfolds well.
Title and Author: The Underground Library: A Novel by Jennifer Ryan
Description: When the new deputy librarian, Juliet Lansdown, finds that Bethnal Green Library isn’t the bustling hub she is expecting, she becomes determined to breathe life back into it. But can she show the men in charge that a woman is up to the task of running the library, especially when a confrontation with her past threatens to derail her? Katie Upwood is thrilled to be working at the library, although she is only there until she heads off to university in the fall. But after the death of her beau on the front line and amid tumultuous family strife, she finds herself harboring a life-changing secret with no one to turn to for help. Sofie Baumann, a young Jewish refugee, came to London on a domestic service visa only to find herself working as a maid for a man who treats her abominably. She escapes to the library every chance she can, finding friendship in the literary community and aid in finding her sister, who is still trying to flee occupied Europe. When a slew of bombs destroys the library, Juliet relocates the stacks to the local Underground station where the city’s residents shelter nightly, determined to lend out stories that will keep spirits up. But tragedy after tragedy threatens to unmoor the women and sever the ties of their community. Will Juliet, Kate, and Sofie be able to overcome their own troubles to save the library? Or will the beating heart of their neighborhood be lost forever?
Genre: Adult historical fiction
Availability:
In Library: Large print book
MeLCat: Book; large print book
Club member comment(s): Another good historical fiction novel about the experiences of a librarian running a library in the Bethnal Green underground tube station during WW2.
Title and Author: June Bug by Chris Fabry
Description: “I believed everything my daddy told me until I walked into Walmart and saw my picture on a little poster…” For as long as she can remember, June Bug and her father have traveled the back roads of the country in their beat-up RV, spending many nights parked at Wal-Mart. One morning, as she walks past the greeter at the front of the store, her eyes are drawn to pictures of missing children, where she is shocked to see herself. This discovery begins a quest for the truth about her father, the mother he rarely speaks about, and ultimately herself. But when her father’s past catches up with them, forces beyond his control draw them back to Dogwood, West Virginia, down a winding path that will change their lives forever.
Genre: Adult inspirational fiction
Availability:
In Library: Book
MeLCat: Book
Club member comment(s): Great read. Our reader said that she had no inkling how this book would end which made the reading experience enjoyable.
Upcoming Events at the Marcellus Township Wood Memorial Library Wednesdays:
Support Group for Parents of Challenging Kids, the 2nd Wednesday of every month— July 10th, August 14th and September 11th at 9:00 A.M as well as the 3rd Friday of every month—June 21st, July 19th, August 16th, and September 20th at 3:00 P.M. Parenting isn’t easy. If you are feeling overwhelmed, join others to gain valuable support coping strategies and information about community resources.
Last Wednesday Family Game & Movie Night with Popcorn. The last Wednesday of each month, June 26th, July 31st, and August 28th starting at 6:00 PM. We’ll have fresh popcorn and a movie during game night! All ages are welcome.
Wednesday Summer Crafts in June. (Crafts were inspired by the books that are written in parentheses). June 12th: Decorating Picture Frames (The Family Book); June 19th: Elastic Beaded Bracelets (The Invisible String); June 26th: Feelings Layered Hearts (In My Heart).
Wednesday Summer Crafts in July. (Crafts were chosen from the books that are written in parentheses). Starts at 12 Noon. July 3rd: Circle Lollipops (Circles Around Us); July 10th: Rice Sock Rabbits (The Rabbit Listened); July 17th: Cup of Kindness (I Promise); July 24th: You Are Welcome (All Are Welcome Here); July 31st Duplo Stamped Dinosaurs (Dinosaur Dance). All ages are welcome!
Africa: An Excellent Adventure. Wednesday, July 24th, at 6:00 P.M. Travel to Africa through this extraordinary presentation brought to you by the four ladies who experienced the journey first-hand– Tina Haggin, Sharon Melko, Becky Moore, and Pam Zandt.
Morris Murders: Occurred on September 28th, 1879. Wednesday, August 7, 2024 from 5:00 P.M. to 7:00 P.M. We welcome you to attend a presentation about the unsolved case of the Morris murders. Charles Morris, Esther Morris, and their unborn child were all victims. Listen as Jan Roeder & Ron Morris, the last direct descendent of this Morris family line discuss this unsolved true crime.
Thursdays:
First Thursday Book Club 2024, August 6, September 5, October 3, 2024, 12 NOON-1 PM. Join others to chat about what you have been reading or to get suggestions from others.
Animal Magic Presentation. Thursday, August 1st at 9:00 A.M. Animal Magic is a licensed, nonprofit, no-kill exotic animal rescue/educational facility whose staff members travel around to present their exotic animals.
Fridays:
Lego at the Library, Fridays 3:00-4:30 PM. Build & create with our Lego & Duplo collections! All ages are welcome!
Saturdays:
Tech Time @ the Library, Saturday from 10 AM-1PM, June 8th and the 15th. Are you struggling with your phone? Do you have trouble navigating the internet? Do you need help with mel.org, the Libby App or the Marcellus Library Catalog? Drop in the library to ask Justin your IT related questions and learn to navigate your device or our computers!
Throughout the Year:
Smokey the Bear Reading Challenge. January 1st-November 28th, 2024. Help Smokey by learning how to prevent wildfires and help the environment. Read 3 books and earn 4 badges to complete the challenge and earn your prize. Badges are earned by completing at least one activity per section. Bring your completed sheet into the Library for your prize. One prize per person.
2024 Reading Challenge. Let’s read 2024 books as a community this year! When you finish a book, come and fill out a leaf. The leaf will be put on the tree in the children’s area. When we reach our goal, we will have a surprise celebration for all of our readers!
Additional noteworthy literary events in the area:
The next meeting of the Marcellus Township Wood Memorial Library’s First Thursday Book Club will be held on Thursday, August 1, 2024, at 12 NOON in the library. We look forward to seeing you here!
/es/Tammy Terpstra
Interlibrary Loan Specialist/Library Assistant
Marcellus Township Wood Memorial Library
