Book Ends January Selection

Flight Behavior, is a brilliant and suspenseful novel set in present day Appalachia; a breath taking parable of catastrophe and denial. A story of a young wife and mother on a failing farm in rural Tenn. who experiences something she cannot explain.

Book Ends March and April Selection

 The Price of Salt, is our March Selection. A chance encounter between two lonely women leads to a passionate romance in the lesbian cult classic.....



Our April Selection, The Room, For 5 yr old Jack, the room is his world. The Room is a tale at once shocking, riveting, exhilarating-a story of unconquerable love in harrowing circumstances, and of the demand of a hard bond between a mother and her child.

Book Ends December selection

Ladies, the December selection for book club is:

                               Go Set A Watchman 

"Don't let 'Go Set A Watchman' change the way you think about Atticus Finch...the hard truth is that a man such as Atticus, born barely a decade after the Reconstruction to a family of Southern
gentry, would have had a complicated and tortuous history
with race."(Los Angeles Times)

Book Ends February Selection

Our FEBRUARY book club selection is The Circle by Dave Eggers. Our moderator for this month will be Joanna H.

When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world's most powerful internet company, she feels she's been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users' personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operation system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company's modernity and activity. There are parties that last through the night, there are famous musicians playing on the lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the Marianas Trench by the CEO. Mae can't believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in the world--even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public. What begins as the captivating story of one woman's ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions of memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge.  Amazon prime

Book Ends Book Selection Year to Date

The following is a list of the books we have read in the past for easy referencing.

When The Emperor was Devine, Julie Otsuka
Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Jamie Ford
Orphan Train, Christina Baker Kline
The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
Behind the Beautiful Flowers, Katherine Boo
The Valley of Amazement, Amy Tan
Cousin Bette, Honore Balzac
Finding the Dragon Lady, Monique Brinson Demery
Blue Jeans and Coffee Beans, Joan Demaio
Year of Wonders, Geraldine Brooks
South of Broad, Pat Conroy
The Storied Life of AJ Finky, Gabrielle Zevin
From Doon with Death, Ruth Rendell
All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
From Doon to Death, Ruth Rendel
Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee
Flight Behavior, Barbara Kingsolver
The Price of Salt, Patricia Highsmith
Room, Emma Donaghue
The Circle, Dave Eggers
Devil in the Grove, Gilbert King
The Nazi Officer's Wife, Edith Hahn Beer

BookEnds September Selection

Our September selection will be The Glassblower. It will be moderated by Susan Revall.
In the small village of Lauscha in Germany, things have been done the same way for centuries.  The men blow the glass, and the women decorate and pack it. Read what happens as three sisters are left to figure out how to survive when their beloved father passes one cold winter. This is the first book in a trilogy set by this author.

Book Ends October and November Selections

 This selection will be our featured read in October and will be moderated by Cindy McKeown. Winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. "In the terrifying story of the Groveland boys Gilbert King recreates an extraordinary moment in America's long, hard struggle for racial justice. Devin in the Grove is a harrowing, haunting, utterly mesmerizing book." (Kevin Boyle, author of Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age)



In November, Lael Kirkpatrick will be moderating her choice, The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust. This is an well written narrative that reads like a novel. It is the story of a young Austrian woman's struggle to survive during WWII. As a nonobservant Jew who finds herself in Germany, to marriage to a Nazi officer and the subsequent birth of a daughter, the author weaves us into the story as she reveals all the sacrifices, struggles, fears and decisions she must face to stay alive during this violent time in history.

Island Bookies Next 3-Month's Selections!

SEPTEMBER SELECTION

Brought to Kenya from England as a child and then abandoned by her mother, Beryl is raised by both her father and the native Kipsigis tribe who share his estate. Her unconventional upbringing transforms Beryl into a bold young woman with a fierce love of all things wild and an inherent understanding of nature’s delicate balance. But even the wild child must grow up, and when everything Beryl knows and trusts dissolves, she is catapulted into a string of disastrous relationships.

Beryl forges her own path as a horse trainer, and her uncommon style attracts the eye of the Happy Valley set, a decadent, bohemian community of European expats who also live and love by their own set of rules. But it’s the ruggedly charismatic Denys Finch Hatton who ultimately helps Beryl navigate the uncharted territory of her own heart. The intensity of their love reveals Beryl’s truest self and her fate: to fly.

Set against the majestic landscape of early-twentieth-century Africa, McLain’s powerful tale reveals the extraordinary adventures of a woman before her time, the exhilaration of freedom and its cost, and the tenacity of the human spirit.

OCTOBER SELECTION

Billie Breslin has traveled far from her home in California to take a job at Delicious!, New York’s most iconic food magazine. Away from her family, particularly her older sister, Genie, Billie feels like a fish out of water—until she is welcomed by the magazine’s colorful staff. She is also seduced by the vibrant downtown food scene, especially by Fontanari’s, the famous Italian food shop where she works on weekends. Then Delicious! is abruptly shut down, but Billie agrees to stay on in the empty office, maintaining the hotline for reader complaints in order to pay her bills.

To Billie’s surprise, the lonely job becomes the portal to a miraculous discovery. In a hidden room in the magazine’s library, Billie finds a cache of letters written during World War II by Lulu Swan, a plucky twelve-year-old, to the legendary chef James Beard. Lulu’s letters provide Billie with a richer understanding of history, and a feeling of deep connection to the young writer whose courage in the face of hardship inspires Billie to comes to terms with her fears, her big sister and her ability to open her heart to love.

NOVEMBER SELECTION

Richard Dawkins, bestselling author and the world’s most celebrated evolutionary biologist, has spent his career elucidating the many wonders of science. Here, he takes a broader approach and uses his unrivaled explanatory powers to illuminate the ways in which the world really works. Filled with clever thought experiments and jaw-dropping facts, The Magic of Reality explains a stunningly wide range of natural phenomena: How old is the universe? Why do the continents look like disconnected pieces of a jigsaw puzzle? What causes tsunamis? Why are there so many kinds of plants and animals? Who was the first man, or woman? Starting with the magical, mythical explanations for the wonders of nature, Dawkins reveals the exhilarating scientific truths behind these occurrences. This is a page-turning detective story that not only mines all the sciences for its clues but primes the reader to think like a scientist as well.

Island Bookies August selection

Travel to to Botswana Africa and prepare to be delighted...

This first novel in Alexander McCall Smith’s widely acclaimed The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series tells the story of the delightfully cunning and enormously engaging Precious Ramotswe, who is drawn to her profession to “help people with problems in their lives.” Immediately upon setting up shop in a small storefront in Gaborone, she is hired to track down a missing husband, uncover a con man, and follow a wayward daughter. But the case that tugs at her heart, and lands her in danger, is a missing eleven-year-old boy, who may have been snatched by witchdoctors.
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency received two Booker Judges’ Special Recommendations and was voted one of the International Books of the Year and the Millennium by the Times Literary Supplement.

Book Ends Selections July & August

 The July selection is From Doon with Death, a psychological thriller/mystery, the first installment in the Wexford series by novelist, Ruth Rendell. Hostess, Denise

The August selection is by award winning author Anthony Doerr, This story revolves around occupied France during WWII with the story bringing together a blind French girl and a German boy as their worlds collide. Pulitizer Prize winner.  Hostess, Susan

Island Bookies July Selection

The Light Between the 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...

Island Bookies June Selection

For our June 16th meeting, Island Bookies will be reading:

THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN
by Garth Stein

Enzo knows he is different from other dogs: a philosopher with a nearly human soul (and an obsession with opposable thumbs), he has educated himself by watching television extensively, and by listening very closely to the words of his master, Denny Swift, an up-and-coming race car driver. Through Denny, Enzo has gained tremendous insight into the human condition, and he sees that life, like racing, isn’t simply about going fast. Using the techniques needed on the race track, one can successfully navigate all of life’s ordeals.

Book Ends June Selection

  The June book selection is The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin. We will meet at the home of Linda H. She will be sending directions via email. Hope to see you on June 22nd. See ya there.

Island Bookies May selection

Now in paperback, the international bestselling romantic comedy “bursting with warmth, emotional depth, and…humor,” (Entertainment Weekly) featuring the oddly charming, socially challenged genetics professor, Don, as he seeks true love.

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. 

Book Ends May Selection South of Broad by Pat Conroy

Please mark your calendar: Our May meeting has been changed to June 1 due to Memorial Day falling on our regular schedule day. Our selection is South of Broad by Pat Conroy. Our hostess will be Suzy Osborne and she will be sending out directions to her home on Goodland.

April BookEnds Selection

The April Selection is Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks and will be hosted by Kathryn S.

"When an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated village, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. Inspired by the true story of Eyam, a village in the rugged hill country of England, Years of Wonders is a richly detailed evocation of a singular moment in history "(The Wall Street Journal).

Book Ends March

Finally, Ladies, this chicks got it (with help from Laura Wright).

Our book selection this month as I said previously is a easy, laid back, enjoyable read. Meeting will be held at my house and I look forward to seeing all of you.

Island Bookies selections for March and April

March:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Swan-House-Series/dp/0764225081

Mary Swan Middleton has always taken for granted the advantages of her family's wealth. But a tragedy that touches all of Atlanta sends her reeling in grief. When the family maid challenges her to reach out to the less fortunate as a way to ease her own pain, Mary Swan meets Carl and everything changes.



April:

 http://www.amazon.com/Princess-True-Story-Behind-Saudi/dp/0967673747/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1424210074&sr=1-1&keywords=princess+saudi+arabia

Sultana is a Saudi Arabian princess, a woman born to fabulous, uncountable wealth. She has four mansions on three continents, her own private jet, glittering jewels, designer dresses galore. But in reality she lives in a gilded cage. She has no freedom, no control over her own life, no value but as a bearer of sons.


 

Island Bookies February Read

Very informative and the discussion was lively.    To add to the interest, the Father of one of our members was on an Orphan Train that took him to Southern Louisiana....small world!

It was a general consensus that we all liked the book.

Between The Covers - January - The Four Agreements

                                                      The Four Agreements
                                                             By Don Miguel Ruiz

  
Our group discussed the 4 agreements and that sometimes it is difficult to practice them. There was discussion as to whether they are meant to be guidelines or rules. Most of the group agreed it is beneficial to reflect on how we communicate to one another. The group rated this book 3.23.

Between The Covers December Read - A Midnight Clear

                                                                 

                                                                     A Midnight Clear
                                                                     By William Wharton


               

 A World War II story that unfolds on Christmas Eve 1944. Our group concluded that war is ugly at any
time. The members of Between The Covers rated this book  3.79

Bookies February

Should be an interesting discussion.

February Bookends

In February

The Bookends are reading

"Finding the Dragon Lady, The Mystery of Madame Nhu" 

by Monique Binson Dimery

Instead of our usual discussion group,

The Bookends will attend a luncheon at the Island Club where 

Barbara Rinella, a noted storyteller and entertainer

Will tell the story of Vietnam's Dragon Lady 

as well as stories about the author.