Book Group Buzz: New “Best” Picks

Ella Minnow Pea

By Mark Dunn

Call
#: F Dunn

Ella
Minnow Pea is a girl living happily on the fictional island
of Nollop
off the coast of South Carolina.
Nollop was named after Nevin Nollop, author of the immortal pangram,
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.  Now
Ella finds herself acting to save her friends, family, and fellow
citizens from the encroaching totalitarianism of the island Council,
which has banned the use of certain letters
of
the alphabet as they fall from a memorial
statue
.

Once Upon A Day

By
Lisa Tucker

Call
#: F Tucker

23-year-old
Dorothea has left her overprotective father’s secluded 35-acre New Mexico
estate, called the Sanctuary, where she and her brother, Jimmy, had
been sheltered from current news and all modern-day innovations.
Searching for her runaway brother in St. Louis,
Dorothea meets a recently widowed doctor-turned-cabbie, who introduces
her to the vibrant outside world he’s been trying to escape.

The Uncommon
Reader

By Alan Bennett

Call
#:

When
her yapping corgis lead her to a mobile library, Her Majesty develops a
new obsession with reading. She finds herself devouring works by a
tantalizing range of authors, from the Brontë sisters to Jean
Genet. With a young member of the palace kitchen staff guiding her
choices, it’s not long before the Queen begins to develop a
new perspective on the world – one that alarms her closest advisers and
tempts her to make bold new decisions.

One Thousand
White Women: The journals of May Dodd

By
Jim Fergus

Call
#: F 
Fergus

May
Dodd and a colorful assembly of pioneer women, under the auspices of
the U.S.
government, travel to the western prairies in 1875 to intermarry among
the Cheyenne Indians. The covert and controversial “Brides for Indians”
program, launched by the administration of Ulysses S. Grant, is
intended to help assimilate the Indians into the white man’s world.
Toward that end May and her
friends
embark upon the adventure
of their lifetime.

Founding
Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation

By Cokie Roberts

Call
#: 920 Rob

Personal
correspondence, private journals, and even favored recipes bring to
life the everyday trials and extraordinary triumphs of individuals like
Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, Deborah Read Franklin, Eliza
Pinckney, Catherine Littlefield Green, Esther DeBerdt Reed, and Martha
Washington — proving that without our exemplary women, the new country
might never have survived.

The Help

By
Kathryn Stockett

In
Jackson,
Mississippi,
in 1962, there are lines that are not crossed. With the civil rights
movement exploding all around them, three women start a movement of
their own, forever changing a town and the way women–black and white,
mothers and daughters–view one another.

Life As We Knew
It

By
Susan Beth Pfefferr

Through
journal entries sixteen-year-old Miranda describes her family’s
struggle to survive after a meteor hits the moon, causing worldwide
tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. This amazing story shows
how quickly normal can change. It made me reevaluate how I  look
at myself and wonder how I would act in a similar situation. Maybe not
the way I would like to? Could this happen? Maybe, but lets hope not.

The Guernsey
Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

By
Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

In
1946, writer Juliet Ashton finds inspiration for her next book
in her correspondence with a native of Guernsey,
who tells her about the
Guernsey
Literary
and Potato
Peel
Pie
Society,
a book
club born as an alibi during German occupation. A marvelous book
written in letter format which little by little reveals the story of
the channel Islands occupation for 5 years by the Germans. Wonderful
and amazing. I couldn’t put it down!

The Secret Life
of Bees

By
Sue Monk Kidd

During
the summer of 1964 in rural South Carolina,
a young girl is given a home by three beekeeping sisters and discovers
a place where she can find the single thing her heart longs for most.

The Next Thing
on My List

By
Jill Smolinski

After
a dark turn of events involving Weight Watchers, a chili recipe, and a
car accident in which her passenger, Marissa, dies, June Parker finds
herself in possession of a list Marissa has written, “20
Things to Do By My 25th Birthday.” Even though they barely
knew each other, June is compelled by both guilt and a desire to set
things right and sets out to finish the list for Marissa.