Books for 2011                                                                                          

 

January 19^th at Cheri’s  - Water Witches by Chris Bohjalian

 

In a moving, life-affirming novel suffused with ecological wisdom, a Vermont ski resort's plans for expansion collide with environmentalists seeking to preserve a mountainous wildlife habitat and riverine ecosystem.  A story of ordinary people trying to do the right thing when there is no answer that will please everyone.

 

Feb 16^th at Sheila’s -  Moloka'i by Alan Brennert

 

Compellingly original in its conceit, Brennert's sweeping debut novel tracks the grim struggle of a Hawaiian woman who contracts leprosy as a child in Honolulu during the 1890s and is deported to the island of Moloka'i, where she grows to adulthood at the quarantined settlement of Kalaupapa.

 

March 16^th at Fran's - Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende

 

Her latest set in Haiti and New Orleans explores slavery, voodoo and the history of the period 200 years ago that still influences life there today.

 

April 20^th at Donna's - Long Way Home by Bill Barich 

 

In this perceptive, optimistic reprise of John Steinbeck's 1962 Travels with Charley, Barich reveals the heartland along a Delaware–Kansas–San Francisco axis of narrow highways through small towns during the 2008 election campaign and economic collapse.  Gloria’s husband, Eric who recommended the  book thinks that many of us will want to read or review Travels with Charley as well as that book is referenced.  He promises some suggested topics for our discussion. 

 

May 18^th  at Laura's - Any one of 3 books with the common theme of art theft during WW II. 

 

·        The Monuments Men by Robert Edsel, Bret Witter  (Non fiction)

Focusing on the eleven-month period between D-Day and V-E Day, this fascinating account follows six Monuments Men and their impossible mission to save the world's great art from the Nazis.

 

·        The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War by Lynn H. Nicholas  (Non fiction)

Essentially it is written in two parts. The first covers the Nazi expropriation or destruction of works of art all over Europe from 1939 through 1942. The second part covers the Allied attempts to recover and safeguard the stolen/confiscated/extorted works of art. The strength of this work is that the author makes clear that this simple narrative is complicated by the fact that not all motives were entirely pure or entirely corrupt depending on the nature of the individuals involved.

 

·        Pictures at an Exhibition by Sara Houghteling  (fiction)

A young French-Jewish man obsesses about taking over his father’s fine art dealership before WWII, and tries to locate its lost canvases in the wars aftermath in Houghteling’s ambitious and satisfying debut novel.

 

June 15th at Cheri's - Ape House by Sara Gruen

 

Isabel Duncan, a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab, doesn't understand people, but animals she gets—especially the bonobos.   Sam, Bonzi, Lola, Mbongo, Jelani, and Makena are no ordinary apes. These bonobos, like others of their species, are capable of reason and carrying on deep relationships—but unlike most bonobos, they also know American Sign Language.