Some Summer Reading...

In June we met at Crystals house and discussed the Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax. Actually, a few members read the Amazing Mrs. Pollifax and enjoyed it! We decided to keep things easy this summer and not meet again until September 18th. So for the months of July and August we will be reading The Heiress of Winterwood by Sarah Ladd. 

Amelia Barrett, heiress to an ancestral estate nestled in the English moors, defies family expectations and promises to raise her dying friend’s infant baby. She'll risk everything to keep her word—even to the point of proposing to the child’s father, Graham, a sea captain she’s never met.

Tragedy strikes when the child vanishes with little more than a sketchy ransom note hinting to her whereabouts. Fear for the child’s safety drives Amelia and Graham to test the boundaries of their love for this infant.

Amelia’s detailed plans would normally see her through any trial, but now, desperate and shaken, she examines her soul and must face her one weakness: pride.

Graham’s strength and self-control have served him well and earned him much respect, but chasing perfection has kept him a prisoner of his own discipline.

Both must learn to accept God’s sovereignty and relinquish control so they can grasp the future He has for planned for them.

* In August we will meet to discuss the above book and also The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. 

Henrietta Lacks, as HeLa, is known to present-day scientists for her cells from cervical cancer. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells were taken without her knowledge and still live decades after her death. Cells descended from her may weigh more than 50M metric tons. 

HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. Yet Henrietta Lacks was buried in an unmarked grave.

The journey starts in the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s, her small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia — wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo. Today are stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells, East Baltimore children and grandchildren live in obscurity, see no profits, and feel violated. The dark history of experimentation on African Americans helped lead to the birth of bioethics, and legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.

Have a relaxing summer and don't forget to bring these 2 books with you on your next trip! See everyone in September!

New Year, New Books, New Author

Last night we met with new book suggestions and have chosen books for February, March, May, October, and December. The February selection is The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey. Here is a synopsis...

Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart--he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. 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. This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods. She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness. As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter. But in this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.

Also, here is a list of the other book suggestions. Look these over and come prepared next time to discuss the rest of the year's schedule. If you click on each, it will take you to a Goodreads synopsis:

Friends and Foes by Sarah M. Eden 

Divergent by Veronica Roth

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Mrs. Queen Takes the Train by William Kuhn

The End of  Your Life Bookclub by Will Schwalbe

Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse

The Dressmaker by Kate Alcott

How to Hug a Porcupine by John Lewis Lund

A Poisoned Season by Tasha Alexander

The Anatomy of Peace by The Arbinger Institute

The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows

The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax By Dorothy Gilman

The Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell

Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton

Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage

I still Dream About You by Fannie Flagg

*The Guardian (don't know who the author is, but if you suggested this book, leave a comment with who it is)

If you weren't there last night or there are any other books you would like to suggest, please leave a comment and I will add them to the list.

Happy reading!