Thursday May 10th Book Club - Dana

The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan

Publication Date: April 3, 2012

Book Description

Grace Winter, 22, is both a newlywed and a widow. She is also on trial for her life.

In the summer of 1914, the elegant ocean liner carrying her and her husband Henry across the Atlantic suffers a mysterious explosion. Setting aside his own safety, Henry secures Grace a place in a lifeboat, which the survivors quickly realize is over capacity. For any to live, some must die.

As the castaways battle the elements, and each other, Grace recollects the unorthodox way she and Henry met, and the new life of privilege she thought she'd found. Will she pay any price to keep it?

The Lifeboat is a page-turning novel of hard choices and survival, narrated by a woman as unforgettable and complex as the events she describes.

Review

"Charlotte Rogan uses a deceptively simply narrative of shipwreck and survival to explore our all-too-human capacity for self-deception." (J. M. Coetzee )

"The Lifeboat traps the reader in a story that is exciting at the literal level and brutally moving at the existential: I read it in one go." (Emma Donoghue, author of Room )

"What a splendid book. . . . I can't imagine any reader who looks at the opening pages wanting to put the book down. . . . It's so refreshing to read a book that is ambitious and yet not tricksy, where the author seems to be in command of her material and really on top of her game. It's beautifully controlled and totally believable." (Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall )

"The Lifeboat is a spellbinding and beautifully written novel, one that will keep readers turning pages late into the night. This is storytelling at its best, and I was completely absorbed from beginning to end." (Tim O'Brien, author of The Things They Carried, In the Lake of the Woods, July, July )

"The Lifeboat is a richly rewarding novel, psychologically acute and morally complex. It can and should be read on many levels, but it is first and foremost a harrowing tale of survival. And what an irresistible tale it is; terrifying, intense, and, like the ocean in which the shipwrecked characters are cast adrift, profound." (Valerie Martin, author of Property and The Confessions of Edward Day )

About the Author

Charlotte Rogan studied architecture at Princeton University, graduating in 1975. She lives in Westport, Connecticut. This is her first novel.

Upcoming Book Club Dates

April 12 -Kimbril
May 10 -Dana
June 7 -Cherie
July 12 -J.C.
August 9 -Denise
September 13 -Paula
October 11 - Amy Jones
November 8 - Amy Gall
December 13 -Malin

April 2012

April Kimbril May
April 12th at 7pm location TBA

50 Shades of Grey by E L James

Review -

My latest obsession is the Trilogy series – 50 Shades. The first book is called 50 Shades of Grey. Think of it as a cross between Beauty & the Beast and Twilight. It is a love story of Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey. The complex character of Christian is that you love him and hate him at the same time. He is an uber successful, alpha male with a dark and dominate side in his intimate relations. He meets and falls for innocent and virginal college student Anastasia. Read more: Book Club: 50 Shades of Grey Reviewhttp://947freshfm.radio.com/2012/03/05/bookclub-50-shades-of-grey-review/#ixzz1qzOCERRL

March 2012

March – Jennifer Malin

Friday, March 9th at 7pm Leroy Selmons

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.

The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini. In boyhood, he’d been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to ride the rails. As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile. But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.

Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will.

In her long-awaited new book, seven years in the making, Laura Hillenbrand writes with the same rich and vivid narrative voice she displayed in her blockbuster bestseller, Seabiscuit. Telling an unforgettable story of a man’s journey into extremity, Unbroken is a testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit.

February 2012

February – Amy Rossi Gall

Valley of the Dolls Book Club

Thursday Feb 9th 7PM Yummy House

Amazon.com Review

Sex and drugs and shlock and more--Jacqueline Susann's addictively entertaining trash classic about three showbiz girls clawing their way to the top and hitting bottom in New York City has it all. Though it's inspired by Susann's experience as a mid-century Broadway starlet who came heartbreakingly close to making it, but did not, and despite its reputation as THE roman á clef of the go-go 1960s, the novel turned out to be weirdly predictive of 1990s post-punk, post-feminist, post "riot grrrl" culture. Jackie Susann may not be a writer for the ages, but--alas!--she's still a writer for our times.