What We’re Reading

Feeling like your group is in a rut? Try something different! For their most recent selection, the Pine Meadow Book Group in Sisters chose “The Best American Short Stories” edited by Jennifer Egan, and each member read and reported on a different story. The Bibliobabes of Bend held a poetry reading retreat in Fall River where each woman read aloud one to two selections by Maya Angelou. The Friends and Fellow Readers of Sisters choose a book category each month, such as biography or history, and then everyone selects their own book within the category.

“Life after Life” by Kate Atkinson

Fair & Tender Ladies

The F&TLs were unanimous in their enjoyment of Atkinson’s latest novel about Ursula Todd, born in 1910 Britain, and reborn 12 more times, with each new start leading down a slightly different path than the previous life. The absorbing novel, at heart a story of war, takes a family saga, merges it with a fluid sense of time, and creates a narrative that sparked a discussion of life choices and how each one affects our life journey. Filled with sharp and lively dialogue between complex characters, the novel is both mournful and celebratory, deeply empathic and scathingly funny. Kirkus Review labeled it “provocative, entertaining and beautifully written.”

“Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal” by Conor Grennan

That Book Club

For 29-year-old Conor Grennan, what began as a footloose trip around the world became a commitment to reunite lost Nepalese children with their parents. “Little Princes” is a remarkable true story of corruption, child trafficking, and civil war in a faraway country and of how Grennan found himself, in the process of saving the children. TBC felt that Grennan related his feelings and experiences in a way that kept them wanting to know more about him and the children. At turns tragic and joyful, “Little Princes” is a testament to the power of faith and the ability of love to carry us beyond our wildest expectations.

“The Burgess Boys” by Elizabeth Strout

Paulina Springs Book Club

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout (for “Olive Kitteridge” in 2009) combines excellent storytelling and remarkable insight into character to create two deeply human protagonists whose struggles and triumphs illuminate the ties that bind us to family and home. Plainspoken Mainers who have escaped to New York City from a tragedy in their hometown of Shirley Falls, corporate lawyer Jim and big-hearted legal aid attorney Bob Burgess return home to address a politically incorrect prank perpetrated by their sister Susan’s son. What they discover is that their distrust, and love, for one another have never really gone away. The PSBC enjoyed a “great discussion about the characters” most of whom they all thought “were unlikable but believable.”

“Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China” by Jung Chang

Read, Wine and Bleu

Combining the intimacy of memoir and the sweeping panorama of eyewitness history, “Wild Swans” is a heartbreaking and uplifting tribute to three generations of courageous and articulate Chinese women: the author, who saw the oppressive, inhuman side of communism, and left China in 1978 to study in London; her mother, a revolutionary who married one of Mao’s soldiers and was later branded a “enemy of the people;” and her grandmother, born in 1909 feudal China, who escaped from her life as a concubine of an ex-warlord. This book is banned in China so the RW&B members felt privileged to freely read it here.

Bookmark This!

Central Oregon Book Clubs are invited to hold their April meetings in the QuiltWorks gallery in Bend where more than 50 quilts will be exhibited based on the novel “A Tale for the Time Being” by Ruth Ozeki. This is the Deschutes County Library’s 12th year to select a novel for A Novel Idea…Read Together, and QuiltWorks’ fifth year to host a quilt exhibit based on the chosen novel. Groups can contact Marilyn Forestell to reserve a spot at marilyn@quiltworks.com. Tables and chairs are provided, and groups can bring food and refreshments. The exhibit will be unveiled Friday, April 3 and will be up through Wednesday, April 29.