Book Club in a Box 2016

And the winners are...

• THE 100-YEAR-OLD MAN WHO CLIMBED OUT THE WINDOW AND DISAPPEARED
• THE ROSIE PROJECT
• ON THE MOVE
• STEVE JOBS
• WINTER BROTHERS
• FOUNDING MOTHERS
• SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS
• THE WORST HARD TIME
• AMERICAN PLATE
• EAST OF EDEN

It's time to choose your top 10 titles for the 2016 Book Club in a Box Collection

NON FICTION TITLES

AMERICAN PLATE by Libby O'Connell // Takes readers on a journey through America's culinary evolution into the vibrant array of foods we savor today. In 100 tantalizing bites, ranging from blueberries and bagels to peanut butter, hard cider, and Cracker Jack, O'Connell reveals the astonishing ways that cultures and individuals have shaped our national diet and continue to influence how we cook and eat. 

AROUND THE WORLD IN 50 YEARS by Albert Podell // In 2003, Albert Podell realized that he'd been to 110 countries in the world. What if, he wondered, he could go to them all? He would set foot in not just the well-known tourist destinations in Europe or the vacation spots in Latin America, but the little-known, far-off lands that most people don't know exist. In Around the World in 50 Years, Podell recounts the misunderstandings, detours, accidents, breakdowns, robberies, and even wars that he needed to overcome to visit every corner of Earth. 

COLLAPSE by Jared Diamond // Bringing together new evidence from a startling range of sources and piecing together the myriad influences, from climate to culture, that make societies self-destruct, Jared Diamond's Collapse also shows how - unlike our ancestors - we can benefit from our knowledge of the past and learn to be survivors. 

DESTINY’S JOURNEY by Alfred Doblin, Edna McCown (Translation) // Destiny's Journey is a memoir reconstructed partly from notebooks that Doblin kept from the time he worked in the French Ministry of Information in the spring of 1940 and partly written without notes in Los Angeles where he took refuge during the Second World War. It tells the personal and generational story of the flight of Jewish and anti-Nazi intellectuals from Europe to America, their fear and frustration, isolation, and inability to work. Doblin's story differs from that of other Jewish intellectuals and artists in that his family converts to Catholicism in Los Angeles. Unlike most of them, he returns to Europe as an officer with the French forces and works on denazifying German literature. The conversion narrative bridges the departure from and return to Europe.  

FOUNDING MOTHERS by Cokie Roberts // An intimate and illuminating look at the fervently patriotic and passionate women whose tireless pursuits on behalf of their families–and their country proved just as crucial to the forging of a new nation as the rebellion that established it. 

A HOMEMADE LIFE by Molly Wizenberg // Realizing that her heart was not in her studies but in the kitchen, Wizenberg started writing about cooking, eating, reading, and thinking--and it seemed she had finally found her passion. Here, Wizenberg recounts a life with the kitchen at its center. 

THE (HONEST) TRUTH ABOUT DISHONESTY by Dan Ariely // Most of us think of ourselves as honest, but, in fact, we all cheat. From Washington to Wall Street, the classroom to the workplace, unethical behavior is everywhere. None of us is immune, whether it's the white lie to head off trouble or padding our expense reports. In The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, award-winning, bestselling author Dan Ariely turns his unique insight and innovative research to the question of dishonesty. 

IN A ROCKET MADE OF ICE by Gail Gutradt // A beautifully told, inspiring true story of one woman's volunteer experiences at an orphanage in rural Cambodia--a book that embodies the belief that love, compassion, and generosity of spirit can overcome even the most fearsome of obstacles.

MAKING TOAST by Roger Rosenblatt // Though still reeling from their daughter's untimely death, Rosenblatt and his wife Ginny carry on, reconstructing a family, sustaining one another, and guiding three lively, alert, and tenderhearted grandchildren through the pains and confusions of grief. 

ON THE MOVE by Oliver Sacks // When Oliver Sacks was twelve years old, a perceptive schoolmaster wrote in his report: "Sacks will go far, if he does not go too far." It is now abundantly clear that Sacks has never stopped going. From its opening pages on his youthful obsession with motorcycles and speed, On the Moveis infused with his restless energy. As he recounts his experiences as a young neurologist in the early 1960s, first in California, where he struggled with drug addiction and then in New York, where he discovered a long-forgotten illness in the back wards of a chronic hospital, we see how his engagement with patients comes to define his life. 

RIDING ON COMETS by Cat Pleska // The true story of an only child growing up in a working-class family during the 1950s and '60s. As the family storyteller, Cat Pleska whispers and shouts about her life growing up around savvy, strong women and hard-working, hard-drinking men. Unlike many family stories set within Appalachia, this story provides an uncommon glimpse into this region: not coal, but an aluminum plant; not hollers, but small-town America; not hillbillies, but a hard-working family with traditional values. 

STEVE JOBS by Walter Isaacson // Based on more than 40 interviews with Jobs conducted over two years--as well as interviews with more than 100 family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues--Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

STUMBLING ON HAPPINESS by Daniel Gilbert // Gilbert reveals what scientists have discovered about the uniquely human ability to imagine the future, and about our capacity to predict how much we will like it when we get there. With penetrating insight and sparkling prose, Gilbert explains why we seem to know so little about the hearts and minds of the people we are about to become. 

THREE WEEKS WITH MY BROTHER by Nicholas Sparks // In January 2003, Nicholas Sparks and his brother, Micah, set off on a three-week trip around the globe. It was to mark a milestone in their lives, for at thirty-seven and thirty-eight respectively, they were now the only surviving members of their family. Against the backdrop of the wonders of the world and often overtaken by their feelings, daredevil Micah and the more serious, introspective Nicholas recalled their rambunctious childhood adventures and the tragedies that tested their faith. And in the process, they discovered startling truths about loss, love, and hope. 

WINTER BROTHERS by Ivan Doig // The author of This House of Sky provides a magnificent evocation of the Pacific Northwest through the diaries of James Gilchrist Swan, a settler of the region. Doig fuses parts of the Swan diaries with his own journal. 

THE WORST HARD TIME by Timothy Egan // The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Timothy Egan’s critically acclaimed account rescues this iconic chapter of American history from the shadows in a tour de force of historical reportage. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones.

FICTION TITLES

THE 100-YEAR-OLD MAN WHO CLIMBED OUT THE WINDOW AND DISAPPEARED by Jonas Jonasson //After a long and eventful life, Allan Karlsson ends up in a nursing home, believing it to be his last stop. The only problem is that he's still in good health, and in one day, he turns 100. A big celebration is in the works, but Allan really isn't interested (and he'd like a bit more control over his vodka consumption). So he decides to escape. He climbs out the window in his slippers and embarks on a hilarious and entirely unexpected journey, involving, among other surprises, a suitcase stuffed with cash, some unpleasant criminals, a friendly hot-dog stand operator, and an elephant (not to mention a death by elephant). 

THE ADVENTURES OF TELEMACHUS by Louis Aragon, Judd D Hubert & Renee Piese Hubert (Introduction, translation) // Published in 1922 and modeled on Finelon's seventeenth-century epic of the same name, Aragon's work parodies its heroic models, didacticism, psychological stability, and descriptive and narrative balance.

THE BEES by Laline Paul // Flora 717 is a sanitation worker, a member of the lowest caste in her orchard hive, where work and sacrifice are the highest virtues and worship of the beloved Queen the only religion. But Flora is not like other bees. With circumstances threatening the hive's survival, her curiosity is regarded as a dangerous flaw, but her courage and strength are assets. She is allowed to feed the newborns in the royal nursery and then to become a forager, flying alone and free to collect nectar and pollen. A feat of bravery grants her access to the Queen's inner sanctum, where she discovers mysteries about the hive that are both profound and ominous.

BEL CANTO by Ann Pratchett // Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening -- until a band of gunwielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different continents become compatriots, intimate friends, and lovers.

THE BISHOP'S WIFE by Mette Ivie Harrison // In the Mormon community of Draper, Utah, seemingly perfect families have deadly secrets.  Linda Wallheim is a devout Mormon, the mother of five boys and the wife of a bishop. But Linda is increasingly troubled by her church s structure and secrecy, especially as a disturbing situation takes shape in her ward. One cold winter night, a young wife and mother named Carrie Helm disappears, leaving behind everything she owns. Carrie s husband, Jared, claims his wife has always been unstable and that she has abandoned the family, but Linda doesn t trust him. As Linda snoops in the Helm family’s circumstances, she becomes convinced that Jared has murdered his wife and painted himself as a wronged husband. 

THE BOOK OF STRANGE NEW THINGS by Michel Faber // It begins with Peter, a devoted man of faith, as he is called to the mission of a lifetime, one that takes him galaxies away from his wife, Bea. Peter becomes immersed in the mysteries of an astonishing new environment, overseen by an enigmatic corporation known only as USIC. His work introduces him to a seemingly friendly native population struggling with a dangerous illness and hungry for Peter s teachings his Bible is their book of strange new things. But Peter is rattled when Bea s letters from home become increasingly desperate: typhoons and earthquakes are devastating whole countries, and governments are crumbling. Bea s faith, once the guiding light of their lives, begins to falter. 

EAST OF EDEN by John Steinbeck // This sprawling and often brutal novel, set in the rich farmlands of California's Salinas Valley, follows the intertwined destinies of two families--the Trasks and the Hamiltons--whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. "A strange and original work of art.

EVERYTHING I NEVER TOLD YOU  by Celeste Ng // “Lydia is dead. But they don t know this yet" . . . So begins the story of this exquisite debut novel, about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee; their middle daughter, a girl who inherited her mother s bright blue eyes and her father s jet-black hair. Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue in Marilyn s case that her daughter become a doctor rather than a homemaker, in James s case that Lydia be popular at school, a girl with a busy social life and the center of every party. 

FLIGHT OF THE SPARROW by Amy Belding Brown // Even before Mary Rowlandson was captured by Indians on a winter day of violence and terror, she sometimes found herself in conflict with her rigid Puritan community. Now, her home destroyed, her children lost to her, she has been sold into the service of a powerful woman tribal leader, made a pawn in the ongoing bloody struggle between English settlers and native people. Battling cold, hunger, and exhaustion, Mary witnesses harrowing brutality but also unexpected kindness. To her confused surprise, she is drawn to her captors' open and straightforward way of life, a feeling further complicated by her attraction to a generous, protective English-speaking native known as James Printer.

FOURTH OF JULY CREEK by Smith Henderson // After trying to help Benjamin Pearl, an undernourished, nearly feral eleven-year-old boy living in the Montana wilderness, social worker Pete Snow comes face to face with the boy's profoundly disturbed father, Jeremiah. With courage and caution, Pete slowly earns a measure of trust from this paranoid survivalist itching for a final conflict that will signal the coming End Times.

THE GODDESS OF SMALL VICTORIES by Yannick Grannec // Princeton University 1980. Kurt Godel, the most fascinating, though hermetic, mathematician of the twentieth century, has just died of anorexia. His widow, Adele, a fierce woman shunned by her husband's colleagues because she had been a cabaret dancer, is now consigned to a nursing home. To the great annoyance of the Institute of Advanced Studies, she refuses to hand over Godel's precious records. Anna Roth, the timid daughter of two mathematicians who are part of the Princeton clique, is given the difficult task of befriending Adele and retrieving the documents from her. As Adele begins to notice Anna's own estrangement from her milieu and starts to trust her, she opens the gates of her memory and together they travel back to Vienna during the Nazi era, Princeton right after the war, the pressures of McCarthyism, the end of the positivist ideal, and the advent of nuclear weapons.

LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS by M.L. Stedman // After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day's journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby's cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby. 

MAGNETIC NORTH by Lee Maynard // An aging warrior and his best friend perhaps his only friend ride motorcycles to Alaska, with the ultimate goal of riding to the Arctic Circle. It is a ride that mirrors their lives, a ride that causes old stories, old trials, old darkness to come, once again, through the spinning wheels of the machines they are riding.

MAAN by Kim Thuy // Maan has three mothers: the one who gave birth to her in wartime, the nun who plucks her from a vegetable garden, and her beloved Maman, who becomes a spy to survive. Seeking security for her grown daughter, Maman finds Maan a husband: a lonely Vietnamese restaurateur who lives in Montreal.

THE MARTIAN by Andy Weir // Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. 

MY PULSE IS AN EARTHQUAKE by Kristin Fitzpatrick // The nine stories in [this book] take place in the clutches of grief. Characters struggle to make sense of sudden losses of life, love, and community. From 1970 to the present day, children and young adults from the Rockies to the Appalachian Mountains guide readers through the valleys of their lives as dog breeders, immigrants, Catholic school delinquents, rookie policewomen, drummers, ballerinas, teenage brides, and an accountant who keeps a careful inventory of losses.

QUEEN OF FLOWERS AND PEARLS by Gabriella Ghermandi // Mahlet, a young Ethiopian girl with a gift for storytelling, has a special bond with Yacob, the oldest in her household. When Yacob tells her stories of how he and the other warriors fought in the resistance against the Italian occupation of Ethiopia, Mahlet vows to become the keeper and teller of her family’s stories.

QUEEN SUGAR by Natalie Baszile // When Charley unexpectedly inherits eight hundred acres of sugarcane land, she and her eleven-year-old daughter say goodbye to smoggy Los Angeles and head to Louisiana. She soon learns, however, that cane farming is always going to be a white man s business. As the sweltering summer unfolds, Charley struggles to balance the overwhelming challenges of a farm in decline with the demands of family and the startling desires of her own heart.

READY PLAYER ONE by Ernest Cline // At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut that is part quest, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots and flying DeLoreans.

THE ROSIE PROJECT by Graeme Simsion // The art of love is never a science: Meet Don Tillman, a brilliant yet socially inept professor of genetics, who's decided it's time he found a wife. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which Don approaches all things, he designs the Wife Project to find his perfect partner: a sixteen-page, scientifically valid survey to filter out the drinkers, the smokers, the late arrivers.  Rosie Jarman possesses all these qualities. Don easily disqualifies her as a candidate for The Wife Project (even if she is "quite intelligent for a barmaid"). But Don is intrigued by Rosie's own quest to identify her biological father. When an unlikely relationship develops as they collaborate on The Father Project, Don is forced to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie―and the realization that, despite your best scientific efforts, you don't find love, it finds you. 

RUBY by Cynthia Bond // As soon as she becomes a young woman and has any power of her own, Ruby flees suffocating Liberty for the bright pull of 1950s New York City. Years later, when a funeral forces her to return home, 30-year-old Ruby will find herself reliving the devastating violence of her girlhood. With the terrifying realization that she might not be strong enough to fight her way back out, Ruby struggles to survive her memories of the town's dark past.

SOME LUCK by Jane Smiley // An epic novel that spans thirty years in the lives of a farm family in Iowa, telling a parallel story of the changes taking place in America from 1920 through the early 1950’s.

A SMALL INDISCRETION by Jan Ellison // At nineteen, Annie Black trades a bleak future in her washed-out hometown for a London winter of drinking to oblivion and yearning for deliverance. Some two decades later, she is married to a good man and settled in San Francisco, with a son and two daughters and a successful career designing artistic interior lights. One June morning, a photograph arrives in her mailbox.

SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS by David Guterson // Japanese American Kabuo Miyomoto is arrested in 1954 for the murder of a fellow fisherman, Carl Heine. Miyomoto's trial, which provides a focal point to the novel, stirs memories of past relationships and events in the minds and hearts of the San Piedro Islanders. Through these memories, Guterson illuminates the grief of loss, the sting of prejudice triggered by World War II, and the imperatives of conscience. With mesmerizing clarity he conveys the voices of Kabuo's wife, Hatsue, and Ishmael Chambers, Hatsue's first love who, having suffered the loss of her love and the ravages of war, ages into a cynical journalist now covering Kabuo's trial.

STATION ELEVEN by Emily St John Mandel // Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of "King Lear."That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end.

THE SNOW CHILD by Eowyn Ivey // Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead--and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart. In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone--but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees.

TINY LITTLE THING by Beatriz Williams // In the summer of 1966, Christina Hardcastle--'Tiny' to her illustrious family--stands on the brink of a breathtaking future. Of the three Schuyler sisters, she's the one raised to marry a man destined for leadership, and with her elegance and impeccable style, she presents a perfect camera-ready image in the dawning age of television politics. Together she and her husband Frank make the ultimate power couple: intelligent, rich, and impossibly attractive. It seems nothing can stop Frank from rising to national office, and he's got his sights set on a Senate seat in November. But as the season gets underway at the family estate on Cape Cod, three unwelcome visitors appear in Tiny's perfect life.

TOUCH OF STARDUST by Kate Alcott // When Julie Crawford leaves Fort Wayne, Indiana, for Hollywood, she never imagines she’ll cross paths with Carole Lombard, the dazzling actress from Julie’s provincial Midwestern hometown. The young woman has dreams of becoming a screenwriter, but the only job Julie is able to find is one in the studio publicity office of the notoriously demanding producer David O. Selznick, who is busy burning through directors, writers, and money as he films "Gone with the Wind."

TRISTANO by Nanni Balestrini, Umberto Eco (Introduction) // Inspired by the legend of Tristan and Isolde, Tristano was first published in 1966 in Italian. But only recently has digital technology made it possible to realise the author's original vision. The novel comprises ten chapters, and the fifteen pairs of paragraphs in each of these are shuffled anew for each published copy. No two versions are the same. The random variations between copies enact the variegations of the human heart, as exemplified by the lovers at the centre of the story.

THE VACATIONERS by Emma Straub // For the Posts, a two-week trip to the Balearic island of Mallorca with their extended family and friends is a celebration: Franny and Jim are observing their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary, and their daughter, Sylvia, has graduated from high school. The sunlit island, its mountains and beaches, its tapas and tennis courts, also promise an escape from the tensions simmering at home in Manhattan. But all does not go according to plan: Over the course of the vacation, secrets come to light, old and new humiliations are experienced, childhood rivalries resurface, and ancient wounds are exacerbated.

VANESSA AND HER SISTER by Priya Parmar // London, 1905: The city is alight with change, and the Stephen siblings are at the forefront. Vanessa, Virginia, Thoby, and Adrian are leaving behind their childhood home and taking a house in the leafy heart of avant-garde Bloomsbury. There they bring together a glittering circle of bright, outrageous artistic friends who will grow into legend and come to be known as the Bloomsbury Group. And at the center of this charmed circle are the devoted, gifted sisters: Vanessa, the painter, and Virginia, the writer. 

You can easily vote here on the blog by choosing your top 10 titles over there on the right, or you can come to the Library for a paper copy of the ballot form. We are very excited to see what you choose!!

Calling all book clubs...

Are you in a book club??

Do you love buying every single book that the group reads? 

Of course you don't want to buy *every* book that your book group reads... so why don't you (and your book group) suggest some titles to be added to the 2016 Book Club in a Box Collection?!?

The Book Club in a Box is a box that contains 10 copies of a book that can be checked out from the Library for the specific use of area book clubs.

September is NOMINATION MONTH, and we have extended the nomination period until September 30! Pick up a nomination form from the Library or download this one here:

We are excited to see all of your nominations and can't wait to see what you all select for the 2016 Book Club in a Box Collection... voting will start on October 9!

2016 Book Club in a Box Collection nominations

NOW is the time to nominate titles for the 2016 Book Club in a Box collection!

If you, or your book group, have book titles you’d like to see in the 2016 collection, please submit nomination forms* to the 3rd Floor Library staff by September 19, 2015.

*Nominated books will only be considered for the Book Club in a Box 2016 Collection if they are available in paperback format by December 5, 2015 and are nominated on the Book Club in a Box nomination form—email nominations will not be accepted. Nomination forms are available at the 3rd floor desk, as well as on Facebook and right here!!

NOMINATION FORM:

Please print this form, and return it to the Library by September 19, 2015.

Questions? contact the Library 208.612.8462 or jhentzen@ifpl.org

2015 Debut postponed...

Unfortunately, there has been a delay in the books for Book Club in a Box actually arriving. The Debut night has been moved to January 28 at 7pm... however, here is the list of the 2015 books in the Book Club in a Box Collection:

The Girl's of Atomic City: The secret history of the women who built WWII's most powerful weapon 
by Denice Kiernan (non-fiction / 2013) -- 60%

Zookeeper's Wife 
by Diane Ackerman (non-fiction / 2008) -- 58%

The Orphan Train  
by Christina Baker Kline (fiction / 2013) --50%

Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's lost Pacific Empire  
by Peter Stark (non-fiction / 2014) -- 50% {available in paperback February 2015}

A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World  
by Tony Horwitz (non-fiction / 2008) -- 47%

All the Light We Cannot See  
by Tony Doerr (fiction / 2014) -- 47% {available in paperback June 2015}

One Hundred Years of Solitude  
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (fiction / 1967) --47%

Plainsong  
by Kent Haruf (fiction / 1999) --47%

A Sand Country Almanac 
by Aldo Leopold (non-fiction / 1949) -- 38%

So Big  
by Edna Ferber (fiction / 1924) -- 38% 

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption  
by Laura Hillenbrand (non-fiction / 2010) -- 35% 

Me Before You  
by Jojo Moyes (fiction / 2013) -- Librarian's Choice

Eva's Story: A Survivor's Tale by the Step-Sister of Anne Frank  
by Eva Schloss (non-fiction / 1989)

 

update...

Every year... some of these escape me! Please note the new titles are noted in BLUE! Thanks for your help on choosing the 2015 Collection!

**if you have voted here already, please recast your votes**

NONFICTION TITLES:

ASTORIA: JOHN JACK ASTOR AND THOMAS JEFFERSON'S LOST PACIFIC EMPIRE: A STORY OF WEALTH, AMBITION, AND SURVIVAL by Peter Stark // Documents the 1810 to 1813 expedition, financed by millionaire John Jacob Astor and encouraged by Thomas Jefferson, to establish Fort Astoria, a trading post on the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest.

THE BOYS IN THE BOAT by Daniel James Brown // A group of American rowers pursued gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.

CARRY ME HOME by Diane McWhorter // A journalist chronicles the peak of the civil rights movement, focusing on the African American freedom fighters who stood firm on issues of civil rights and segregation during the movement's eventful climax in Birmingham.

THE GIRLS OF ATOMIC CITY: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE WOMEN WHO HELPED WIN WORLD WAR II by Denise Kiernan // The town of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, boomed on U.S military-owned acreage between 1942-1944. Its electricity usage matched that of New York City, and its population reached 75,000 - yet it didn't appear on a single map during World War II. Many new residents were women, recruited at top-dollar wages for positions from chemists to couriers. Sworn to strict secrecy protocols, they were told only that their work would ensure a swift, final World War II victory.

THE EMPEROR OF ALL MALADIES by Siddhartha Mukherjee // A historical assessment of cancer addresses both the courageous battles against the complex disease and the misperceptions and hubris that have compromised modern understandings, covering such topics as ancient-world surgeries and the developments of present-day treatments.

MIRACLES AND MASSACRES by Glenn Beck // Details some of the little-known stories from American history that explain the American identity and where the country is headed in the future.

MY STORY by Elizabeth Smart // The daughter of a close-knit Mormon family, who was abducted, held captive, and repeatedly raped, recounts the constant fear she endured, her determination to maintain hope, her escape, and her transformation from victim to advocate.

OUTLIERS by Malcolm Gladwell // Why some people succeed — it has to do with luck and opportunities as well as talent.

THE POWER OF HABIT by Charles Duhigg // An examination of the science behind habits, how we form them and break them.   

QUIET by Susan Cain // Introverts — approximately one-third of the population — are undervalued in American society.

A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC by Aldo Leopold // In honor of the 50^th anniversary of the Wilderness bill, Sand County Almanac is a classic of nature writing, widely cited as one of the most influential nature books ever published. Writing from the vantage of his summer shack along the banks of the Wisconsin River, Leopold mixes essay, polemic, and memoir in his book's page. Beautifully written, quiet, and elegant, Leopold's book deserves continued study and discussion today.

THE SHORT AND TRAGIC LIFE OF ROBERT PEACE by Jeff Hobbs // A heartfelt, and riveting biography of the short life of a talented young African-American man who escapes the slums of Newark for Yale University only to succumb to the dangers of the streets when he returns home. 

A STAR FOR MRS BLAKE by April Smith // Five American women-Gold Star Mothers-travel to France to visit the graves of their World War I soldier sons: a pilgrimage that will change their lives in unforeseeable and indelible ways

UNBROKEN by Laura Hillenbrand  // Relates the story of a U.S. airman who survived when his bomber crashed into the sea during World War II, spent forty-seven days adrift in the ocean before being rescued by the Japanese Navy, and was held as a prisoner until the end of the war.

A VOYAGE LONG AND STRANGE: REDISCOVERING THE NEW WORLD by Tony Horwitz // A chronicle of the period in American history between Columbus's discovery of the New World and Jamestown's founding evaluates the voyages and first-contact experiences of numerous European adventurers.

WILD by Cheryl Strayed //  A life-changing hike along the Pacific Crest Trail.

THE ZOOKEEPER'S WIFE by Diane Ackerman // Documents the true story of Warsaw Zoo keepers and resistance activists Jan and Antonina Zabinski, who in the aftermath of Germany's invasion of Poland saved the lives of hundreds of Jewish citizens by smuggling them into empty cages and their home villa.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

FICTION TITLES:

ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE by Anthony Doerr // Shifting among multiple viewpoints but focusing mostly on blind French teenager Marie-Laure and Werner, a brilliant German soldier just a few years older than she, this novel has the physical and emotional heft of a masterpiece. 

AMITY AND SORROW by Peggy Riley // A page-turning literary debut about a mother and her two teenage daughters who escape a polygamist cult and start over.

THE BOOK OF SECRETS by Elizabeth Joy Arnold // After years of marriage, Chloe and Nate Sinclair, bound by their love of literature, must finally come to terms with a tragic event from their past that they have turned their back on for so long and their failing bookstore that they once loved.

DIVERGENT by Veronica Roth // In a future Chicago, sixteen-year-old Beatrice Prior must choose among five predetermined factions to define her identity for the rest of her life, a decision made more difficult when she discovers that she is an anomaly who does not fit into any one group, and that the society she lives in is not perfect after all. (Young Adult title)

DRACULA by Bram Stoker // After discovering the double identity of the wealthy Transylvanian nobleman, Count Dracula, a small group of people vow to rid the world of the evil vampire. Illustrated notes throughout the text explain the historical background of the story.

THE GIVER by Lois Lowry // Given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas becomes the receiver of memories shared by only one other in his community and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he lives. (Young Adult title)

THE GODDESS OF SMALL VICTORIES by Yannick Grannec // Sent to retrieve the records of mathematician Kurt Gèodel from his embittered widow, Princeton University librarian Anna Roth gradually learns the widow's painful experiences during and after World War II in the shadow of her husband.

GONE GIRL by Gillian Flynn // A woman disappears from her Missouri home on her fifth anniversary; is her bitter, oddly evasive husband a killer?

THE HIDING PLACE by Corrie Ten Boom // An old Dutch watchmaker and his two daughters become the center of a major underground operation: to hide Jewish refugees from the occupying Germans. They break all the rules to save the lives of men, women, and children being hunted by the Nazis. The cost of their bravery is betrayal, and they end up in the dreaded Ravensbruck concentration camp. Nevertheless, they continue their efforts to save those around them.

THE INVENTION OF WINGS by Sue Monk Kidd // Traces more than three decades in the lives of a wealthy Charleston debutante who longs to break free from the strictures of her household and pursue a meaningful life; and the urban slave, Handful, who is placed in her charge as a child before finding courage and a sense of self.

JULIET'S NURSE by Lois Leveen // A retelling of Shakespeare's tragic romance from the perspective of Juliet's closest caregiver follows the experiences of a grieving mother who becomes a wet nurse to a powerful family's daughter and who learns her employer's darkest secrets as the girl comes of age.

LAND OF LOVE AND DROWNING by Tiphanie Yanique // Chronicles the families of three siblings who survived a shipwreck off the Virgin Islands in 1916 and raised three generations on the islands, adapting to the unique language, rhythm and magic of island life over 60 years.

LETTERS FOR EMILY by Camron Steve Wright // A victim of Alzheimer's who knows that he is dying, Harry Whitney compiles a collection of original poems as a legacy for his granddaughter Emily, hoping that it will lead to a cache of letters that might bring together his estranged family.

THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS by M.L. Stedman // Set on a remote Australian island, where a childless couple live quietly running a lighthouse, until a boat carrying a baby washes ashore.

THE LIONS OF LUCERNE by Brad Thor  // When a group of Secret Service agents is massacred in Utah and the president of the United States is abducted, surviving agent Scot Harvath vows to avenge his murdered colleagues and find the kidnappers.

LUCKY US by Amy Bloom // Forging a life together after being abandoned by their parents, half sisters Eva and Iris share decades in and out of the spotlight in golden-era Hollywood and mid-twentieth-century Long Island.

MARY COIN by Marisa Silver // Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother photograph inspires the story of two women one famous and one forgotten and their remarkable chance encounter.

ME BEFORE YOU by Jojo Moyes // Taking a job as an assistant to extreme sports enthusiast Will, who is wheelchair bound after a motorcycle accident, Louisa struggles with her employer's acerbic moods and learns of his shocking plans before demonstrating to him that life is still worth living.

NEVERHOME by Laird Hunt // A farmer's wife leaves her husband to don the uniform of a Union soldier in this harrowing Civil War tale.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE by Gabriel García Márquez. Tells the story of the Buendia family, set against the background of the evolution and eventual decadence of a small South American town.

ORPHAN TRAIN by Christina Baker Kline // A historical novel about orphans swept off the streets of New York and sent to the Midwest in the 1920s.

PLAINSONG by Kent Haruf // An unlikely extended family is formed when a high school teacher helps a pregnant student make a home with two elderly bachelor ranchers.

THE ROUND HOUSE by Louise Erdrich// When his mother, a tribal enrollment specialist living on a reservation in North Dakota, slips into an abyss of depression after being brutally attacked, fourteen-year-old Joe Coutz sets out with his three friends to find the person that destroyed his family.

SO BIG by Edna Ferber // Selina DeJong, a teacher in the Dutch settlement of High Prairie after her father's death, marries one of the farmers.

THE STORIED LIFE OF A.J. FIKRY by Gabrielle Zevin // When his most prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, is stolen, bookstore owner A. J. Fikry begins isolating himself from his friends, family and associates before receiving a mysterious package that compels him to remake his life.

THE STORY OF LAND AND SEA by Katy Simpson Smith // A sweeping generational story, set in a small coastal town in North Carolina during the waning years of the American Revolution, follows fathers and daughters, mother and son, and master and slave as they search for redemption during a time of war, servitude, and love.

THE THING ABOUT DECEMBER by Donal Ryan // In a work short-listed for The Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award, the innocent and painfully self-conscious Johnsey Cunliffe finds his cocooned rural Irish life suddenly disintegrating.

A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS by Khalid Hosseini  // A moving story about two women set in Afghanistan. The book's story illustrates both the second class, serf-like treatment of two women and their subjection to physical and emotional brutality that was allowed, enabled and endorsed. We also get to see the bravery, kindness and self-resilience of these same two women. Despite the harsh reality of the story, the humanness and compassion shown by both women while trying to survive in such a brutal and oppressive environment is very uplifting.

THE UNAMERICANS by Molly Antopol // A stunning exploration of characters shaped by the forces of history, the debut work of fiction by Molly Antopol, a 2013 National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" Honoree.

THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU by Jonathan Tropper //  A quirky family gathers for the Jewish ritual of sitting shiva after the death of its patriarch.