We'd love to have you join us at either our Evening Book Club (meets the second Wednesday each month from 7 - 8:30 p.m.) or our Afternoon Book Club (meets the third Wednesday each month from 1:00 - 2:30 p.m.) The evening club will meet tomorrow night, May 14 and the afternoon club will meet next week, May 21. If you are curious about either group, this is the perfect month to stop in and visit as both will be holding their planning sessions to discuss books selections for July-December 2008.
The book selection for the evening club for June 11 is "Memoirs of a Geisha: A Novel" by Arthur Golden.
From Library Journal: "I wasn't born and raised to be a Kyoto geisha....I'm a fisherman's daughter from a little town called Yoroido on the Sea of Japan." How nine-year-old Chiyo, sold with her sister into slavery by their father after their mother's death, becomes Sayuri, the beautiful geisha accomplished in the art of entertaining men, is the focus of this fascinating first novel. Narrating her life story from her elegant suite in the Waldorf Astoria, Sayuri tells of her traumatic arrival at the Nitta okiya (a geisha house), where she endures harsh treatment from Granny and Mother, the greedy owners, and from Hatsumomo, the sadistically cruel head geisha. But Sayuri's chance meeting with the Chairman, who shows her kindness, makes her determined to become a geisha. Under the tutelage of the renowned Mameha, she becomes a leading geisha of the 1930s and 1940s... Golden, with degrees in Japanese art and history, has brilliantly revealed the culture and traditions of an exotic world, closed to most Westerners. Highly recommended.
The book selection for the afternoon club meeting on June 18 is "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls.
From Publishers Weekly:
Starred Review. Freelance writer Walls doesn't pull her punches. She opens her memoir by describing looking out the window of her taxi, wondering if she's "overdressed for the evening" and spotting her mother on the sidewalk, "rooting through a Dumpster." Walls's parents—just two of the unforgettable characters in this excellent, unusual book—were a matched pair of eccentrics, and raising four children didn't conventionalize either of them. Her father was a self-taught man, a would-be inventor who could stay longer at a poker table than at most jobs and had "a little bit of a drinking situation," as her mother put it. With a fantastic storytelling knack, Walls describes her artist mom's great gift for rationalizing. Apartment walls so thin they heard all their neighbors? What a bonus—they'd "pick up a little Spanish without even studying." Why feed their pets? They'd be helping them "by not allowing them to become dependent." While Walls's father's version of Christmas presents—walking each child into the Arizona desert at night and letting each one claim a star—was delightful, he wasn't so dear when he stole the kids' hard-earned savings to go on a bender. The Walls children learned to support themselves, eating out of trashcans at school or painting their skin so the holes in their pants didn't show. Buck-toothed Jeannette even tried making her own braces when she heard what orthodontia cost. One by one, each child escaped to New York City. Still, it wasn't long before their parents appeared on their doorsteps. "Why not?" Mom said. "Being homeless is an adventure."
If you have any questions about the book clubs, please call us at 724-941-9430!
If you haven't already, it's not too late to sign up for our Summer Reading Programs for children and teens! This year's theme is "Catch the Reading Bug!" and it's all about bugs, insects, and other creepy creatures! Programs are available for all ages, birth – 5th grade and up, plus awesome new ones for Teens and Tweens in the new Teen Reading Room. Each level features weekly programs with plenty of games, prizes, and uggy buggy ant-ics! The insect fun lasts for eight weeks from June 16 – August 8, concluding with a special Ugly Bug Ball for all our participants. There is a small $5 program fee payable at time of registration.
