Moke Hill READS Book Club

Aug 8, 2017 by contributor

NEXT MEETING:  Tuesday September 5 — 7 PM, Moke Hill Library/Archives

BOOK:  At the Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier.  In 1838, James and Sadie Goodenough settle in the swamp lands of northwest Ohio carving out a new life for their family around an apple orchard. Tragedies ensue, and the story picks up fifteen years later with their youngest son, Robert who ran west – to San Francisco, the grove of Calaveras Big Trees, Murphys, and the Gold Rush world of 1853.  Skills learned in his father’s orchard serve him well, but Robert’s former life catches up with him and he’s forced to confront the past that he’s running from.

 October 3, 2017.  The Girl with Seven Names: Escape from North Korea, by Hyeonseo Lee. An autobiography that reads like a suspense novel, Lee provides extraordinary insight into life under one of the world’s most ruthless and secretive dictatorships.  At 17 she slipped over the border into China and spent the next decade living a secret life to avoid capture and repatriation. Life in the world outside of North Korea exposed the repression and poverty of what she had been told was the most successful country on the planet. It took over a decade before she obtained South Korean refugee citizenship and smuggled out her mother and brother.

 November 7, 2017.  The Nest, by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney.  A warm, funny and acutely perceptive debut novel about four adult siblings and the shared inheritance that has shaped their choices and their lives. Years of simmering tensions finally reach a breaking point as Melody, Beatrice, and Jack Plumb gather to confront their charismatic and reckless older brother, Leo, whose recent accident endangers the joint trust fund that they are mere months away from receiving. The author brings a remarkable cast of characters to life to illuminate what money does to relationships, what happens to our ambitions over the course of time, and the fraught yet unbreakable ties we share with those we love.

Moke Hill Reads Book Club:  First Tuesday of every month. No commitment, No attendance taken, No restrictions, No membership, No dues. For everyone interested in good books and discussions about them. Sponsored by the Mokelumne Hill Friends of the Library. Send your email address or watch for announcements on mokehill.org and other news sources. Contact Janet Dock:  janetdock@me.com