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2010 Schedule
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January 20
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 The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
It is 1946, in the thick of World War II, when American writer Juliet Ashton becomes the sudden recipient of letters from the inhabitants of Guernsey, the small island in the English Channel that has fallen under Nazi control. The letter writers have formed the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society as a way to gather without attracting the attention of their occupiers. Out of these letters, Juliet comes to know the lives, loves, and hardships of a wonderfully eccentric and vivid cast of characters, and their charming philosophies and anecdotes help her resolve her own romantic conundrum. This warm, inspiring novel originated in the true life stories of Mary Ann Flery Shaffer, who, upon learning of her terminal illness, contacted her niece Annie Barrows to help her finish the novel.
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February 17
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 My Ántonia
by Willa Cather
My Ántonia, by Willa Sibert Cather, tells the stories of several immigrant families who move out to rural Nebraska to start new lives in America, with a particular focus on a Bohemian family, the Shimerdas, whose eldest daughter is named Ántonia. The book's narrator, Jim Burden, arrives in the fictional town of Black Hawk, Nebraska, on the same train as the Shimerdas, as he goes to live with his grandparents after his parents have died. Jim develops strong feelings for Ántonia, something between a crush and a filial bond, and the reader views Ántonia's life, including its attendant struggles and triumphs, through that lens.
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March 17
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 The Tender Bar: A Memoir
by J.R. Moehringer
In the tradition of This Boy's Life and The Liar's Club, J.R. Moehringer's The Tender Bar is a raucous, poignant, luminously written memoir about a boy striving to become a man, and his romance with a bar. A national bestseller that was named one of the 100 Most Notable Books of 2005 by the New York Times
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April 21
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 The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir
by Bill Bryson
Bill Bryson was born in the middle of the American century, 1951, in the middle of the United States, Des Moines, Iowa, in the middle of the largest generation in American history, the baby boomers. As one of the best and funniest writers alive, he is perfectly positioned to mine his memories of a totally all-American childhood for 24-carat memoir gold. Like millions of his generational peers, Bill Bryson grew up with a rich fantasy life as a superhero. In his case, he ran around his house and neighborhood with an old football jersey with a thunderbolt on it and a towel about his neck that served as his cape, leaping tall buildings in a single bound and vanquishing awful evildoers (and morons) - in his head - as "The Thunderbolt Kid." Using this persona as a springboard, Bill Bryson re-creates the life of his family and his native city in the 1950s in all its transcendent normality, a life at once completely familiar to us all and as far away and unreachable as another galaxy.
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May 19
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 Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen
Few have failed to be charmed by the witty and independent spirit of Elizabeth Bennet. Her early determination to dislike Mr. Darcy is a prejudice only matched by the folly of his arrogant pride. Their first impressions give way to true feelings in a comedy profoundly concerned with happiness and how it might be achieved.
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June 16
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 Outliers: The Story of Success
by Malcolm Gladwell
The best-selling author of Blink identifies the qualities of successful people, posing theories about the cultural, family, and idiosyncratic factors that shape high achievers, in a resource that covers such topics as the secrets of software billionaires, why certain cultures are associated with better academic performance, and why the Beatles earned their fame.
Note: Due to a scheduling conflict, this meeting will be held in the Indiana Room.
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July 21
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 Shanghai Girls
by Lisa See
Forced to leave Shanghai when their father sells them to California suitors, sisters May and Pearl struggle to adapt to life in 1930s Los Angeles while still bound to old customs, as they face discrimination and confront a life-altering secret.
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August 18
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 A Private View
by Anita Brookner
Brookner explores the complications that arise when one solitary man comes up against a woman who seems determined to invade his solitude. George Bland is an aging bachelor whose existence has been virtually a mirror image of his name—up until now. For into George's life walks Katy Gibb, young, abrasively self-assured, who incites in George the most alarming feelings.
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September 15
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 Enrique's Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother
by Sonia Nazario
This book describes one Honduran boy's difficult and dangerous journey to find his mother, who had made the trek northward to the United States in search of a better life when Enrique was five years old, but who had never made enough money to return home for her children, in a poignant account that addresses the issues of family and the implications of illegal immigration.
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October 20
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 Things Fall Apart
by Chinua Achebe
Things Fall Apart tells two intertwining stories, both centering on Okonkwo, a "strong man" of an Ibo village in Nigeria. The first, a powerful fable of the immemorial conflict between the individual and society, traces Okonkwo's fall from grace with the tribal world. The second, as modern as the first is ancient, concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo's world with the arrival of aggressive European missionaries.
These perfectly harmonized twin dramas are informed by an awareness capable of encompassing at once the life of nature, human history, and the mysterious compulsions of the soul.
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November 17
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 Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
by Barbara Ehrenreich and Frances Fox Piven
Millions of Americans work for poverty-level wages, and one day Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that any job equals a better life. But how can anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 to $7 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, taking the cheapest lodgings available and accepting work as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home aide, and Wal-Mart salesperson. She soon discovered that even the "lowliest" occupations require exhausting mental and physical efforts. And one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors.
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December 15
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 Hurry Down Sunshine: A Father's Story of Love and Madness
by Michael Greenberg
In an intimate, unsentimental, and provocative account populated by an unforgettable cast of characters, the author details his young daughter's sudden onset of mental illness and her long and difficult journey back to life.
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