Here’s our reading list for the coming year:
Sept. 15 Middlemarch, by George Eliot
Oct. 20 My Brilliant Friend, by Elena Ferrante
Nov. 17 Margaret the First, by Danielle Dutton
Jan. 19 The Orchardist, by Amanda Coplin
Feb. 16 The Dove’s Necklace, by Raja Alem
Mar. 16 Crusoe’s Daughter, by Jane Gardam
April 20 The Door, by Magda Szabo
May 18 Suspended Sentences:Three Novellas, by Patrick Modiano

See the Branch Calendar to find out how to join us!

Here are the books we will read and discuss in the coming year:

Oct 4: Waiting for Snow in Havana, by Carlos Eire
Nov 1: Blood, Bones and Butter, by Gabrielle Hamilton
Dec 6: Still Life, by Louise Penny
Jan 3: Elizabeth is Missing, by Emma Healey
Feb 7: Winter Men, by Jesper Bugge Kold
Mar 7: Lab Girl, by Hope Jahren
April 4: The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen
May 2: Every Last One, by Anna Quindlen

See the Branch Calendar for meeting details.

The Afternoon Book Group:
Oct 6            A Spool of Blue Thread, By Ann Tyler
Nov 3           Station 11, by Emily St. John Mandel
Jan 5            Norah Webster, by Colm Toibin
Feb 2           Daughters, by Consuelo Saah Baehr
Mar 1           Boys in the Boat, by Daniel James Brown
Apr 5            Dead Wake, by Erik Larson
May 3          The Nightingale, by Kristen Hannah
This group meets the first Tuesday of the month. See the Branch Calendar for details.

The Paperback Book Group: 
SEPT 17        The Keeper of the Bees, by Gene Stratton-Porter
OCT. 15         A Mercy, by Toni Morrison
NOV.19         Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy
JAN. 21         Children of the Arbat, by Anatoli Rybakov
FEB. 18         A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, by Anthony Mara
MAR. 17       An Unnecessary Woman, by Rabin Alameddine
APRIL 21      Orhan’s Inheritance, by Aline Ohanesian
MAY 19        How To Be Both, by Ali Smith
This group meets the third Thursday of the month. See the Branch Calendar for details.

Here is some info about the latest books and blogs you may be interested in and enjoy.

www.thedianerehmshow.org/shows  has the dates of previous and upcoming shows about books. This is usually aired between 11-12:00. I enjoyed listening to Margaret Atwood speak about her new book of short stories, Stone Mattress-Nine Tales, and Anjelica Huston’s Watch Me: A Memoir. Upcoming shows are with Richard Flanagan, 2014 Booker Prize winner for The Narrow Road to the Deep North. His father was a WWII Japanese prisoner of war building the Burma Road.

A few of my favorite blogs are:

www.ciaodomenica.blogspot.com. The blogger (Sunday) lives in a beautifully decorated home, travels extensively and posts lovely pictures of books and authors she enjoys. Good collection of Bloomsbury books and photos.

www.peter-pho2.com (retired in Paris) and posts beautiful and very educational photos and essays about Paris and travels.

www.robertarood.wordpress.com posts from the Maryland area. She travels to Europe, part of reading groups, former librarian and AAUW member. She posts short videos of operas, book signings, and art exhibits she has attended. Love it.

My favorite magazine, Bookmarks, has a monthly entry of book groups around the country and their recommendations:

Ten Years, 100 Books, Flint, Michigan 15 members
Flight Behavior                        Barbara Kingsolver
The Color of Water                 James McBride
Into the Beautiful North         Luis Alberto Urea                                                                      Assassination Vacation           Sarah Vowell
Orange County Witlits Book Group, Carlsbad, CA  16 members
The Scarlet Letter                        Nathaniel Hawthorne
Snowflower and the Secret Fan            Lisa See
Pope Joan                        Donna Woolfolk Cross
Kappa Kappa Gamma, WVU graduates 14 members
Heartburn                                Norah Ephron
Loving Frank                             Nancy Horan
Unbroken                                 Laura Hillenbrand
The Book Thief                         Marcus Zusak
Skeletons at the Feast             Chris Bohjalian
Destiny of the Republic           Candace Millard
The Master Butcher’s Singing Club                        Louise Erdrich
The Book Group also Carlsbad, CA 11 members
The Children’s Blizzard              David Laskin
The Ghost Map: Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic               Steve Johnson
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle                           Barbara Kingsolver
The Elegance of the Hedgehog               Muriel Burbary
Candide                          Voltaire

Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life by Hermione Lee will be coming out in a few months.

The Republic of Imagination by Azar Nafisi (Reading Lolita in Teheran) is now available.

Hope you enjoy. Best,

The Bookhound
“The only way to have a friend, is to be one.”
“Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.”
And my favorite: “The age of a woman doesn’t mean a thing, the best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.”    Ralph Waldo Emerson

See the Branch Calendar for details.
9/18                  The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
10/16                Someone, Alice McDermott
11/20                American Rust, Philipp Meyer
1/15                  Carthage, Joyce Carol Oates
2/19                  The Postmistress, Sarah Blake
3/19                  All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doer
4/16                  Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
5/21                  Birds of America, Mary McCarthy

See the Branch Calendar for details.

10-7-ALL GOD’S DANGERS: THE LIFE OF NATE SHAW by Theodore Rosengarten.
11/4-MARGARET FULLER: A NEW AMERICAN LIFE by Megan Marshall.
12/2-THE GATE TO WOMEN’S COUNTRY by Sheri S. Tepper.
1/6-THE WINTER QUEEN by Boris Akunin and Devin Cary.
2/3-THE BLACK COUNT by Tom Reiss.
3/3-THE GOOD LORD BIRD by James McBride.
4/7-HOLDING ON UPSIDE DOWN: THE LIFE AND WORK OF MARIANNE MOORE by Linda Leavell.
5/5-FLIGHT BEHAVIOR by Barbara Kingsolver.

BOOKS SUGGESTED BUT NOT SELECTED:
THE AVIATOR’S WIFE by Melanie Benjamin
LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN by Colum McCann
THE FAULT IN OUR STARS by John Green
INVENTION OF WINGS by Sue Monk Kidd
UNDER THE WIDE AND STARRY SKY by Nancy Horan
ORPHAN TRAIN by Christina Kline
STILL LIFE WITH BREAD CRUMBS by Quinlan
THE LIFEBOAT by Charlotte Rogan
THE STOCKHOLM OCTAVO by Karen Engelmann
THE POSTMISTRESS by Sarah Blake
MY BELOVED WORLD by Sotomayor
THE MOUNTAINS ECHOED by Hosseini
FIVE DAYS AT MEMORIAL by Sheri Fink
RADIANCE OF TOMORROW by Ishmael Beah
KAATERSKILL FALLS by Allegra Goodman
MONSTERS OF TEMPLETON by Lauren Grofff
THE LIZARD CAGE by Karen Connelly
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

10.  You’ll re-read the classics from high school and college you suffered through and may now appreciate especially since there are no pop quizzes. Flaubert, Dostoyevsky, Faulkner.

9.   You’ll read Philip Roth and John Updike- men going through male menopause and writing about it.

8.   You’ll be updated on the major book awards- Pulitzer, Nobel Prize for Literature and the Man Booker.

7.   Frequent handouts.

6.   “Traveling books” to borrow, pass on or keep.

5.   Did I mention no pop quizzes, diagramming or outlining?

4.   Side trips to movies, bookstores, restaurants and foreign countries with fellow members.

3.   No matter where you are in the world in the novel, no matter how remote, there will be at least one member who has been there.

2.   Good friends, good food and good discussion.

And the number 1 reason for joining the AAUW book groups:  YOU’LL NEVER RUN OUT OF BOOKMARKS.

“Somewhere over the rainbow there’s a bookstore and lots of chocolate.”

Bookhound

AAUW Paperback Book Group 2013-14

This group meets on Thursday evenings, September through May (except December). Books are usually recent fiction. We plan each year at a picnic in June. Here’s the line up for the coming year:

September             Mudbound by Hilary Jordan

October            Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng

November            The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

January            Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolfe

February            Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime by Ben Fountain

March                        Off Keck Road            by Mona Simpson

April                        Anthills of the Savannah by Chinua Achebe

May                        The Storyteller of Marrakesh by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya

AAUW Harrisburg has two very active book groups. Meeting details and contact info are on our Activities and Calendar pages.

AAUW Afternoon Book Group 2013-2014

What a good year we have planned. We meet from October to June on the first Tuesday afternoon of each month at 1:00. Our planning meeting is in June during a pot luck at Jan’s home. Lots of ideas and books are suggested. We include fiction, non-fiction and biography. The I-Pads, smart phones, etc. are powered up for reviews of the books suggested. Since so many of our members travel extensively and are in or retired from interesting careers, we can really relate to some of the books. Here is our schedule for 2013-2014:

October            The Light Between Oceans               M.L. Stedmen

November       A Delicate Truth                                     John Le Carre

December        Christmas Lunch

January              The Swerve                                             Stephen Greenblatt

February            The Fish That Ate the Whale           Rich Cohen

March                 The Power of One                               Bryce Courtney

April                     The Judgment of Paris                       Ross King

May                     The Sandcastle Girls                            Chris Bohjalian

June                    Planning meeting

Our ladies are reading the following books this summer:

Jan- The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud, Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, And the Mountains Echoed by Khalid Hosseini and Mudbound by Hilary Jordan.

Pat- Thomas Jefferson by Jon Meacham, Casting Off by Nicole Dickson(sp).

Mary Linn- Last Friends (end of trilogy) by Jane Gardem, The Plantagenets by Dan Jones.

Lillian- The Secret Rescue by Catie Lineberry, Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel, A Conspiracy of Faith by Jussi Adler-Olsen.

Lorraine- The Fault of the Stars by John Green, Inferno by Dan Brown.

Some book blogs I recommend to the ladies;

www.bluepueblo.tumblr.com – beautiful pictures from around the world,www.desktopretreat.blogspot.com- good quotes and reviews,www.robertarood.wordpress.com-fellow AAUW and retired librarian or teacher in Maryland with good reviews and photos of trips and www.thedianerehmshow.org–from 10-12:00 weekdays on WITF, good book interviews from 11-12:00.

Many ladies have been in this group since the 1980’s! We continue on with good friends and new members. We are looking forward to a fun year.

BOOKHOUND

                                                              “To read or not to read…..

                                                                    now that’s a silly question.”