SOTAREADING 2021-2024

January: Lovecraft Country – Matt Ruff  ( January 30--postponed from December, Brad) The Great American Whatever –  Tim Federle (January 30, Jim) February: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – JK Rowling (Feb. 27, Marybeth ) March: Girl on the Train – (March 27, Nija) April: Zach – April TBA May: Shelly - May TBA Final meeting

Monday, November 28, 2016  A238 Susan Woodhams, moderator by Fredrik Backman A charming, warmhearted novel from the author of the New York Times bestseller A Man Called Ove. Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy—as in standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-strangers crazy. She is also Elsa’s best, and only, friend. At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother’s stories, in the Land-of-Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas, where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal. When Elsa’s grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has wronged, Elsa’s greatest adventure begins. Her grandmother’s instructions lead her to an apartment building full of drunks, monsters, attack dogs, and old crones but also to the truth about fairy tales and kingdoms and a grandmother like no other. My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry is told with the same com

Boy, Snow, Bird  by Helen Oyeyemi As seen on the cover of the  New York Times Book Review , where it was described as “gloriously unsettling… evoking Toni Morrison, Haruki Murakami, Angela Carter, Edgar Allan Poe, Gabriel García Márquez, Chris Abani and even Emily Dickinson,” and already one of the year’s most widely acclaimed novels: “Helen Oyeyemi has fully transformed from a literary prodigy into a powerful, distinctive storyteller…Transfixing and surprising.”— Entertainment Weekly  (Grade: A) “I don’t care what the magic mirror says; Oyeyemi is the cleverest in the land…daring and unnerving… Under Oyeyemi’s spell, the fairy-tale conceit makes a brilliant setting in which to explore the alchemy of racism, the weird ways in which identity can be transmuted in an instant — from beauty to beast or vice versa.” – Ron Charles,  The Washington Post From the prizewinning author of  What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours , coming March 2016, the Snow White fairy tale brilliantly recast as a story

Ruby by Cynthia Bond  A  New York Times  bestseller and Oprah Book Club 2.0 selection, this harrowing, redemptive debut will appeal to readers of Toni Morrison, Yaa Gyasi, Anne Tyler, and Colson Whitehead   The epic, unforgettable story of a man determined to protect the woman he loves from the town desperate to destroy her, this beautiful and devastating debut heralds the arrival of a major new voice in fiction.   Ephram Jennings has never forgotten the beautiful girl with the long braids running through the piney woods of Liberty, their small East Texas town. Young Ruby Bell, “the kind of pretty it hurt to look at,” has suffered beyond imagining, so as soon as she can, she flees suffocating Liberty for the bright pull of 1950s New York. Ruby quickly winds her way into the ripe center of the city—the darkened piano bars and hidden alleyways of the Village—all the while hoping for a glimpse of the red hair and green eyes of her mother. When a telegram from her cousin forces her to re

Want to Read Rate this book 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars Open Preview Flight by   Sherman Alexie   3.88    ·      Rating Details    ·    10,370 Ratings    ·    1,604  Reviews Sherman Alexie is one of our most gifted and accomplished storytellers and a treasured writer of huge national stature. His first novel in ten years is the hilarious and tragic portrait of an orphaned Indian boy who travels back and forth through time in a charged search for his true identity. With powerful and swift, prose,  Flight  follows this troubled foster teenager--a   ...more

Want to Read Rate this book 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars The Art of Being Normal by   Lisa Williamson   (Goodreads Author)   4.27    ·      Rating Details    ·    3,111 Ratings    ·    603  Reviews Two boys. Two secrets. David Piper has always been an outsider. His parents think he’s gay. The school bully thinks he’s a freak. Only his two best friends know the real truth – David wants to be a girl. On the first day at his new school Leo Denton has one goal – to be invisible. Attracting the attention of the most beautiful girl in year eleven is definitely not part of t   ...more

Want to Read Rate this book 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars Open Preview Trouble by   Gary D. Schmidt ,  Jason Culp   (Read by)   3.88    ·      Rating Details    ·    2,357 Ratings    ·    488  Reviews A dog, a mountain, and an ancient slave ship are featured in this latest page-turner from a versatile, award-winning author. Climbing Katahdin, the highest mountain in Maine, is the goal that Henry sets himself when his brother dies following a car accident. Along with his dog, his best friend, and-surprisingly-the Cambodian boy whose car was involved in the fatal accident, ...more