Christmas books

In November and December I like to read Christmas books. These books put in the Christmas spirit. I also shared them with our book club.

Frank, Dorothy Benton, The Christmas Pearl, With her truculent family gathered at her stately Charleston mansion for Christmas, 93-year-old matriarch Theodora is having a hard time tolerating the lot of them. Theodora hankers for her 1920s childhood and her family's Christmas. 256p.

Ahern, Cecelia, The Gift, 320p This Christmas story is a winning tale of magic and redemption. Lou Suffern is a busy man, and his family's growing weary of constantly taking the backseat to his career. 320p.

Jacobs, Kate, Knit the Season: A Friday Night Knitting, With the holidays just around the corner, the Friday Night Knitting group women have reason to celebrate: There's a special wedding planned for New Year's Day.  260p. litlovers.com

VanLiere, Donna,
The Christmas Secret, When a struggling young single mother saves the life of an elderly woman, she sets into motion a series of events that will test her strength, loyalty, and determination, all the while setting her on the path to finding true love. 291p.

Lamb, Wally, Wishin' and Hoping, It is 1964. LBJ and Lady Bird are in the White House, Meet the Beatles is on everyone's turntable, and ten-year-old Felix Funicello (distant cousin of the iconic Annette!) is doing his best to navigate fifth grade—easier said than done when scary movies still give you nightmares and you bear a striking resemblance to a certain adorable cartoon boy. But there are several things young Felix can depend on: the birds and bees are puzzling, television is magical, and this is one Christmas he's never going to forget. 274p.

Washburn, Livia, The Christmas Cookie Killer, The
Yuletide is here-and retired teacher cum amateur sleuth Phyllis Newsom looks forward to finishing up this unlucky year. But she won't be hanging up her apron just yet-because this year's Christmas bake-off is going to be cutthroat. 272p.

Thayer, Nancy, Nantucket Christmas, Holidays on Nantucket are nothing short of magical, and the season's wonderful traditions are much loved by Nicole Somerset, new to Nantucket and recently married to a handsome former attorney. Their home is already full of enticing scents of pine, baking spices, and homemade pie. But the warm, festive mood is soon tempered by Nicole's chilly stepdaughter, Kennedy, who arrives without a hint of holiday spirit. 209p.

Our book list for our book club

I have continued to be the keeper of the list. I have included our Christmas selection and our New Year's 2014 selection. I have also included books that we will select from later in 2014.

December-Chris at Chris's house-Washburn, Livia, The Christmas Cookie Killer
The
Yuletide is here-and retired teachercum amateur sleuth Phyllis Newsom looks forward to finishing up this unlucky year. But she won't be hanging up her apron just yet-because this year's Christmas bake-off is going to be cutthroat. 272p.

January-Ellen- Walter, Jess, Beautiful Ruins, The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying. 352p. litlovers.com

February-Linda-library- Sotomayer, Sonia, My Beloved World, Sonia Sotomayer, the first Hispanic and third woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court, she recounts her life with candor from a Bronx housing project to the federal bench. 416p

March-Fran- Hoffman, Alice, The Third Angel, Three women linked over time by love and redemption. Three weddings riddled with secrecy and betrayal. Three generations wounded by heartbreak and loss. Traveling backward through time, The Third Angel moves from modern-day London where Maddy Heller seduces her sister's fiancé to the wild days of the '60s where Frieda Lewis falls for a musician with in search of a muse, and finally to the buttoned-down '50s where Bryn Evans can't give up her complicated ex-husband. 304p. Litlovers.com

More books to select from

Franek, Valarie Four of a Kind, Brought together as committee members at their children's school, and four women assume they have nothing in common. Until they meet for each other.

 
 

Frank, Dorothy Benton, Sullivan's Island, Set on the coast of South Carolina, this book explores one woman's journey from a contentedly married middle-aged wife and mother to a newly divorced woman looking back on her past for reassurance and to the future for some means of regaining her self-esteem. 416p. litlovers.com

 
 

Vogt, Virginia,
Death By Moonlight is a double mystery. Two terrible crimes mirror each other across nearly two centuries, and both must be solved to rescue a young girl threatened by an age-old evil.
376p.
This book is written by a Morristown author. We could see if she would like to speak to our group. Norma's friend also belongs to a book club and this author spoke to her book group. If we chose this book maybe we could have her speak

in April or after.

Erdrich. Louise, Round House, National Book Award Winner One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface as Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal what happened, either to the police or to her husband, Bazil, and thirteen-year-old son, Joe. 336pp

 
 

Sotomayer, Sonia, My Beloved World, Sonia Sotomayer, the first Hispanic and third woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court, she recounts her life with candor from a Bronx housing project to the federal bench. 416p

 
 

Walter, Jess, Beautiful Ruins, The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying. 352p. litlovers.com

 
 

Hoffman, Alice, The Third Angel, Three women linked over time by love and redemption. Three weddings riddled with secrecy and betrayal. Three generations wounded by heartbreak and loss. Traveling backward through time, The Third Angel moves from modern-day London where Maddy Heller seduces her sister's fiancé to the wild days of the '60s where Frieda Lewis falls for a musician with in search of a muse, and finally to the buttoned-down '50s where Bryn Evans can't give up her complicated ex-husband. 304p. Litlovers.com

 
 

McLain, Paula, The Paris Wife, This deeply evocative story of ambition and betrayal, captures a remarkable period of time and a love affair between two unforgettable people: Ernest Hemingway and his first wife Hadley.352p readinggroupguides.com

 
 

O'Reilly, Bill, Killing Kennedy- Hardback will wait until it comes into paperback.

 
 

Patton, Lisa, Whistlin' Dixie in a Nor'easter, LeeLee moved from Memphis to Vermont for her husband to follow his pipe dream of managing a quaint inn. In this funny and sad fish out water book LeeLee learns she is more resilient than she thinks she is. 312p

www.lisapatton.com/DiscussionQuestions.pdf

Wells, Jeanette, Silver Star, The Silver Star, This is story about an intrepid girl who challenges the injustice of the adult world—a triumph of imagination and storytelling. 269p. Wait until it comes out in paperback

Van Allen, Lisa, The Wishing Thread, The Wishing Thread is an enchanting novel about the bonds between sisters, the indelible pull of the past, and the transformational power of love. 400p.

 

 

I have continued to be the keeper for our book club list. The following are books that we discussed or we will discuss from  December 2012 to September 2013. One of our favorite was The Shoemaker's Wife.

December 2012-Trigiani, Adriana,The Shoemaker’s Wife, The majestic and haunting beauty of the Italian Alps is the setting of the first meeting of Enza, a practical beauty, and Ciro, a strapping mountain boy, who meet as teenagers, despite growing up in villages just a few miles apart. At the turn of the last century, when Ciro catches the local priest in a scandal, he is banished from his village and sent to hide in America as an apprentice to a shoemaker in Little Italy. Without explanation, he leaves a bereft Enza behind.496p. litlovers.com

2013
Sylvia-January-Findlay, William, Defending Jacob,

Linda-February- Simon, Rachel, The Story of Beautiful Girl, Lynnie, a young white woman is put into the School for the Incurable and Feebleminded. She meets Homan, an African American man. Deeply in love, they escape. They start a long journey. 340p. litlover.com

Kris-March- Sebold, Alice, Lovely Bones, Shockingly original and completely unforgettable, The Lovely Bones is the story of a family devastated by a gruesome murder -- a murder recounted by the teenage victim. 352p. www.litlovers.com

Karen-April- McFadden, Maryann, The Richest Season, When lonely corporate wife Joanna Harrison runs away to Pawleys Island, she has no idea what happens next. But as a new life takes root, thanks to a passionate fisherman and a commitment to save endangered turtles, demands from her old life may force her to return. The Richest Season is a stunning debut that will resonate with any woman who's ever fantasized about leaving home to find herself. 352p.

Ellen-May- Frank, Dorothy Benton, Porch Lights, May and after In the South Carolina Low country, three generations of a family--a grandmother, a mother, and a son--discover the indelible power of love as they share a memorable summer on Sullivan's Island.  324pp   litlovers.com 

Norma-June-Lannert, Stacey and Kristen Kemp, Redemption: A Story of Sisterhood, Survival, and Finding Freedom Behind Bars, On July 4, 1990, eighteen-year-old Stacey Lannert shot and killed her father, who had been sexually abusing her since she was eight.

336pp This is the book that Pat Andersen talked about at one our meetings. It is not in library. It is sold through Barnes and Noble. Please use the complete title.

Linda- July Flagg, Fannie, Fried Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café This book is the story of two women in the 1980s: of gray-headed Mrs Threadgoode telling her life story to Evelyn, who is in the sad slump of middle age. The tale she tells is also of two women--of the irrepressibly dare devilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Ruth--who back in the thirties ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, offering good barbecue and good coffee and all kinds of love and laughter, even an occasional murder. 416p. litlovers.com

Sylvia August-Landay, William, Mission Flats Nothing ever happens in the sleepy backwater town of Versailles, Maine. At least, that’s what everybody thought. When Police Chief Ben Truman finds a body in the tourist cabins by Lake Mattaquisett, he is plunged headlong into a murder investigation that leads all the way into Boston Proper. 400p.

September-Trigiani, Adriana, Very Valentine, Meet the Roncalli and Angelini families, a vibrant cast of colorful characters who navigate tricky family dynamics with hilarity and brio, from magical Manhattan to the picturesque hills of bella Italia.  401p. www.harpercollins.com/author/authorExtra.aspx?isbn13

Public library Use

Public Library Use

Use your library card!!! A library card is free. We know that there are very few things in our lives that are free.

Find out what your libraries web site is. From your home you can reserve books.

Libraries have free internet. This is great for job hunting and for students who are researching for

school reports and papers.

Many libraries will show you how to use a computer or have free computer classes. There are free e- books and books on mp3 players.

Many libraries have special movie afternoon and evening viewing. Tomorrow night I am going to see

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. When I read it as a teenager I loved the book and I also saw the movie many many years ago.

Also libraries may have exercise groups, writer's groups, knitting, and needlework groups. I also found a gaming group with Wii gaming systems and board games. Then, I also found

an Omigiri club that pertains to manga and anime.

If you would like to join a book discussion group, check and see if there is one.

Also check for pre-school story times.

During the summer, libraries have special summer programs for children and teens.

One thing I love to do in the library when I have the time. I love to sit down and read the newspapers and magazines. We do subscribe to magazines but we cannot afford to subscribe to every magazine that we like to read.

You can find movies, video games and TV DVDs.

Public libraries offer its community many services and are a special resource, use it.

 

Library decorations and Library Displays

 

Decorations and displays are important part of a library. They make a library

welcoming to everyone who comes in the library. Over the thirty five years that

I worked as a librarian I have worked in interesting libraries. Some were revamped

classrooms. One was the size of a small office, another one looked so great. Until

I started to work in it. It was an open space building and the library was in the

middle and in the traffic pattern of many classes was through the library. I felt like

I was teaching in Grand Central Station. Then, there was the dungeon.

We did have plenty of books and book shelves but not much room for the

students. My office was the top of my desk. Then, my last library that I worked in

was a dream with a beautiful story time area that was a semi-circle with two

stairs. I had an office with two rooms. Where ever I was a librarian I tried to make

the best of it. In the "dungeon" to decorate I made a "clothesline" line with yarn. I

taped it to the shelves and I made the line taunt so that the volunteers and I

could hang the students' work. I collected small clothespins that I bought at

Michael's and Joann's with coupons. Or I also used the large clothespins.

What to put on the clothesline? In early December I read The Mitten by

Alvin Tresselt and then the second graders made and decorated mittens and the

volunteers and I hung the decorated mittens. In spring the first graders listened to

a kite story and we hung up kites on the clothesline. I already have written in the

quilt post about hanging up collage quilts.

At times I did not have a lot of money to buy decorations. I went to dollar

stores, garage and yard sales. Also I signed up for Joann's for coupons

and used coupons from Michael's and A.C. Moore. I also made some of the

decorations because I like to make crafts. I can't piece and make quilts like my

grandmother but I can hand quilt and my small stitches are like my grandmothers.

I made several hand quilted hoops and wall hangings. I also ordered library

decorations from demco.com and highsmith/upstart.

In the "dungeon" I used a basket to display books. In the "dream" library I had so

many places to display and I loved it

Also, be careful when you hang up decorations. Please ask for a ladder or the

janitor's help.

Quilts

I love quilts. My grandmother was a quilt maker. She made quilts for family and friends. When I was a baby my grandmother made a quilt for me. It is a beautiful flower garden. This pattern has six sided patches and edged with pale pink cloth. It is a beautiful reminder of my grandmother who died many years ago.
I also included in my storytimes my love of quilts. For second grade I read
The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco. For an activity the second graders made a quilt collage cutting out pictures from catalogs. The quilt is a nine square with each square being 2". I made 2" templates from oaktag. Awhile ago I have limited space in the library to show the students work so I would make a "clothesline" with yarn and taped it to the shelves. Then, I would hang the quilts with small clothespins. It was a great activity. I would collect catalogs from Oriental Trading, Colorful Images, Upstart, and Demco. When we moved to a big beautiful library I also did the same story time but made the "clotheslines" and quilts on our large bulletin board.

Here is our Book Club selections for November through February Book Selections.
I also added our other books for consideration in the future.

November through February Book Selections Plus More

Haddon, Mark, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time,
Christopher Boone is a fifteen and has Asperger's, a form of autism. He knows a great deal about math and very little about human beings. When he finds his neighbor’s dog murdered he sets out on a terrifying journey which will turn his world upside down. 240p.
www.readinggroupguides.com/.../curious_incident_dog1.asp
December Selection- Norma
Pearlman, Ann, The Christmas Cookie Club, Twelve closest girlfriends gather in the evening with batches of beautifully wrapped homemade cookies. Everyone has to bring a dessert. http://books.simonandschuster.com/Christmas-Cookie-Club/Ann-Pearlman/9781439158845/reading_group_guide - 55k - 274p.

January-Ellen
Hiassen, Carl, Skinny Dip, Chaz Perrone might be the only marine scientist in the world who does t know which way the Gulf Stream runs. He might also be the only one who went into biology just to make a killing, and now he’s found a way doctoring water samples so that a ruthless agribusiness tycoon can continue illegally dumping fertilizer into the endangered Everglades. When Chaz suspects that his wife, Joey, has figured out his scam, he pushes her overboard from a cruise liner into the night-dark Atlantic. Unfortunately for Chaz, his wife doesn’t die in the fall. 512p.ary

February -Kris
Lupton, Rosamund, Sister, When her mom calls to tell her that Tess, her younger sister, is missing, Bee returns home to London on the first flight. She expects to find Tess and give her the usual lecture, the bossy big sister scolding her flighty baby sister for taking off without letting anyone know her plans. 366p. www.rosamundlupton.com Check under Sister and go Reading Group Questions.

Pilcher, Rosamund, Winter Solstice, Elfrida Phipps's untroubled life in a Hampshire village is cut to shreds when members of her neighbor's family die in a car crash, but, in a way this tragedy redeems her life. The warmth of this English domestic novel is reinforced by its closely delineated characters. Even Horace, the faithful dog, comes alive for us. 512p.

Simonson, Helen, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, Retired British Army Officer Major Ernest Pettigrew has learned that his only brother has died. The doorbell rings Mrs. Ali, Pakistani shopkeeper has come to the door to collect the newspaper bill. She touched by his grief, she leads him into the living room and makes a cup of tea and offers him words of Comfort. A friendship blossoms. 384p.www.litlovers.com/.../13.../610-major-pettigrews-last-stand-simonson

Skloot, Rebecca, The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks Henrietta Lacks, a poor Southern tobacco farmer, was buried in an unmarked grave sixty years ago. Yet her cells - taken without her knowledge - became one of the most important tools in medical research. Known to science as HeLa, the first "immortal" human cells grown in culture are still alive today, and have been bought and sold by the millions. Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey from the "colored" ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to East Baltimore today, where Henrietta's family struggles with her legacy. 381p.www.gobigread.wisc.edu/Discussion-Toolkit/Questions2011.pdf

Patchett, Ann, State of Wonder, When her co-worker dies in the Amazon Marina Singh, a pharmaceutical researcher, retraces his step to find out what exactly happened.www.litlovers.com/reading guides

Verghese, Abraham, Cutting for Stone, This first novel involves the trials of a medical family caught up in the turmoil of Ethiopia. 560p. www.litlovers.com/reading guides

Goodwin, Daisy, The American Heiress, Cora Cash is a spirited heiress who travel to England at the turn of the 19th century to find a titled husband. 480p

Stone, Robert, A Flag for Sunrise, is an emotional, dramatic and philosophical novel about Americans drawn into a small Central American country on the brink of revolution. and philosophical novel about Americans drawn into a small Central American country on the brink of revolution. 448p.

Walls, Jeannette, The Glass Castle. This is Jeannette Walls’s award-winning memoir of resilience amid a deeply dysfunctional childhood. When sober, Jeannette’s brilliant and charismatic father captured his children’s imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn’t want to responsibility of raising a family. 304p. www.litlovers.com/readingguides

Walls, Jeannette, Half Broke Horses, a True-Life Novel, Lily Casey Smith, this novel's feisty Texas protagonist, is a frontier teacher, a rancher, a rodeo rider, a poker player, and bootlegger.288p. www.litlovers.com/readingguides
Blum, Jenna, Those who Save Us A professor’s mother refuses to talk to her daughter about her life in Germany during WWII, even though the daughter is interviewing survivors and writing a book. 496p. ReadingGroupGuides.com

Mullen, Thomas, The Last Town on Earth Set against the backdrop of one of the most virulent epidemics that America ever experienced–the 1918 flu epidemic. 432p.
ReadingGroupGuides.com
Monroe, Mary Alice Time is a River Breast cancer survivor Mia Landan returns home to find her husband in bed with another woman. Still weak from the cancer treatments, and not ready to make decisions about her failed marriage, Mia asks Belle Carson, a fly-fishing guide and the head of Casting for Recovery, if she can stay in Belle’s isolated mountain cabin. 384p.books.simonschuster.com
Roberts, Shelia, Love in Bloom, A funny, inspiring women's fiction novel about three women who share neighboring plots in a community garden and change each other's lives forever. 366p. readinggroupguides.com
Roberts, Shelia, Small Change, "At their weekly craft group meeting, Rachel, Jessica and Tiffany admit they share a difficult secret: they're all struggling with major financial problems. 352p.ReadingGroupGuides
Strout, Elizabeth, Olive Kitteridge, Olive Kitteridge is the kind of woman you would duck across the street to avoid meeting. She's abrasive as sandpaper rubbed across a scab and unapologetically rude. Now retired, she taught seventh-grade math in the small Maine town of Crosby for years, earning a reputation as the mean teacher who leaves her students flustered and trembling. 304p. http://www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/13-fiction

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