Fall Book Club Books

First we are reading The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty.  

In the Blood by Lisa Unger is our psychological thriller we will discuss on November 11th.

Fannie Flagg's The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion is tentatively next - we usually like a good Christmas story but it's kinda early to find one and it's also hard to find a good one.  We always do our Christmas Exchange - our usual date would be Dec. 9th.  Anybody want to volunteer their house this year?  If not, I can probably have it at my house.

Private Relations : 25th Anniversary Edition by Diane Chamberlain is our pick for February 10th.  You will probably have to order it on Amazon - it's an old book that's been re-released.  She's one of my favorite authors.  We also looked at reading Necessary Lies by her also - it's a Target Club Pick if you want to read it.

Other books looked at (I may have missed a few):

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kid - Target Club Pick
This is Where I Leave You by Jonathon Tropper
Little Mercies by Heather Gudenkauf
Someone Else's Love Story by Joshily Jackson - Target Club Pick Aug 14
Sea Creatures by Susanna Daniel - Target Club Pick Sept 14
Whistling Past the Graveyard - by Susan Crandall - Target Club Pick Feb 14
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian
A Long Time Gone by Karen White

Books from last email:
Their October 2014 pick is Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain - we've read her books before - just an idea.

Vogue has a Fall List that looks interesting -

The Children's Act by Ian McEwan
The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters (Also Entertainment Weekly recommends)
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
Nora Webster by Colin Tobins
Lila by Marilynne Robinson

Here's the current book club picks from BookMovement - we've read some of them.

This Week's Top Club Picks & Rising Stars:

1. Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
2. The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
3. The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
4. The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
5. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
6. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
7. The Giver by Lois Lowry
8. The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton
9. The Shoemaker's Wife by Adriana Trigiani
10. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Some other's to look at that I sent out this summer:

Goodnight June by Sarah Jio

The New York Times bestselling author of Blackberry Winter imagines the inspiration for Goodnight Moon
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown (Goodnight Songs) is an adored childhood classic, but its real origins are lost to history. In Goodnight June, Sarah Jio offers a suspenseful and heartfelt take on how the “great green room” might have come to be.

June Andersen is professionally successful, but her personal life is marred by unhappiness. Unexpectedly, she is called to settle her great-aunt Ruby’s estate and determine the fate of Bluebird Books, the children’s bookstore Ruby founded in the 1940s. Amidst the store’s papers, June stumbles upon letters between her great-aunt and the late Margaret Wise Brown—and steps into the pages of American literature.

Vintage by Susan Gloss

Vintage is Susan Gloss's sparkling debut novel in the vein of The Friday Night Knitting Club, centered around a Midwestern vintage clothing shop and and a group of women who eventually transform the store and each others' lives.

At Hourglass Vintage in Madison, Wisconsin, every item in the boutique has a story to tell . . . and so do the women who are drawn there.

Violet Turner has always dreamed of owning a shop like Hourglass Vintage. When she is faced with the possibility of losing it, she realizes that, as much as she wants to, she cannot save it alone.

Eighteen-year-old April Morgan is nearly five months along in an unplanned pregnancy when her hasty engagement is broken. When she returns the perfect 1950s wedding dress, she discovers unexpected possibilities and friends who won't let her give up on her dreams.

Betrayed by her husband, Amithi Singh begins selling off her old clothes, remnants of her past life. After decades of housekeeping and parenting a daughter who rejects her traditional ways, she fears she has nothing more ahead for her.

An engaging story that beautifully captures the essence of women's friendship and love, Vintage is a charming tale of possibility, of finding renewal and hope when we least expect it.


Some Girls Some Hats by Trudi Kanter

In 1938 Trudi Kanter, stunningly beautiful, chic and charismatic, was a hat designer for the best-dressed women in Vienna. She frequented the most elegant cafés. She had suitors. She flew to Paris to see the latest fashions. And she fell deeply in love with Walter Ehrlich, a charming and romantic businessman. But as Hitler’s tanks rolled into Austria, the world this young Jewish couple knew collapsed, leaving them desperate to escape.

In prose that cuts straight to the bone, Some Girls, Some Hats and Hitler tells the true story of Trudi’s astonishing journey from Vienna to Prague to blitzed London seeking safety for her and Walter amid the horror engulfing Europe. It was her courage, resourcefulness and perseverance that kept both her and her beloved safe during the Nazi invasion and that make this an indelible memoir of love and survival.

Sifting through a secondhand bookshop in London, an English editor stumbled upon this extraordinary book, and now, though she died in 1992, the world has a second chance to discover Trudi Kanter’s enchanting story. In these pages she is alive—vivid, tenacious and absolutely unforgettable.

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A Perfect Life by Danielle Steel

Sometimes I'm in the mood for a good story where I don't have to concentrate on too many characters or a complicated plot line.  That was me yesterday when I read  A Perfect Life by Danielle Steel.  I always read all of her books -loved her early work and have kept them all and reread many!  A Perfect Life is a typical Danielle Steel plot line - woman who has a great career - is lonely - parents died young - meets a man who doesn't fit her usual type and falls in love.  And this time there is a child who is Type 1 diabetic and blind.  Good story - quick read.  I'd give it 4 stars and would not recommend it for book club.

Book Description from Amazon:

The epitome of intelligence, high-powered energy, and grace, Blaise McCarthy is an icon in the world of television news, asking the tough questions and taking on the emotionally charged issues of world affairs and politics with courage and insight. A single mother, she manages her well-ordered career meticulously, always prepared on the air or interviewing world-renowned figures and heads of state. To her audience, Blaise seems to have it all. But privately, and off the set, there is another untold story she has kept hidden for years.
 
Blaise’s teenage daughter, Salima, was blinded by Type 1 diabetes in childhood, and her needs have kept her away in a year-round boarding school with full-time medical care and assistance ever since. When Salima’s school closes after a tragedy, Salima returns to her mother’s New York City apartment, and suddenly they face challenges they’ve never had to deal with before, and that Blaise feels ill-equipped to handle. A new caretaker provided by Salima’s school creates as many problems as he solves. Handsome, accomplished, thirty-two-year-old Simon Ward, with strong opinions on every topic, questions how mother and daughter view themselves and each other. Simon opens new doors for both of them and refuses to accept Salima’s physical limitations. He turns their world upside down, and the three become friends.
 
Then everything starts to unravel and Blaise can’t keep her two worlds separate anymore. A beautiful young anchorwoman is hired at the network; it is no secret that she is being groomed to take Blaise’s place. Her career as she has known it is threatened, and her previously well-ordered life feels totally out of control. For the first time, Blaise’s life is not perfect, but real.
 
In this unforgettable tale, the incomparable Danielle Steel has written a novel that pulsates with emotion and honesty as three people face the truth about themselves. A Perfect Life is about what we do when facades fall away and we can no longer run from the truth. As old ideas fail, everything changes, and life is suddenly brand-new.

Dear Daughter by Elizabeth Little

I really wanted to like Dear Daughter by Elizabeth Little.  It's been compared to Gone Girl, etc. but this book did not live up to it's billing.  The book dragged a little - I really didn't relate to Janie Jenkins who is trying to figure out her mother's past and who could have killed her mother.  The book was ok - 3 stars - not a good book club book.

Book Description from Goodreads:

As soon as they processed my release Noah and I hit the ground running. A change of clothes. A wig. An inconspicuous sedan. We doubled back once, twice, then drove south when we were really headed east. In San Francisco we had a girl who looked like me board a plane to Hawaii.

Oh, I thought I was so clever.

But you probably already know that I'm not.

LA IT girl Janie Jenkins has it all. The looks, the brains, the connections. The criminal record.

Ten years ago, in a trial that transfixed America, Janie was convicted of murdering her mother. Now she's been released on a technicality she's determined to unravel the mystery of her mother's last words, words that send her to a tiny town in the very back of beyond. But with the whole of America's media on her tail, convinced she's literally got away with murder, she has to do everything she can to throw her pursuers off the scent.

She knows she really didn't like her mother. Could she have killed her?(less)

Heroes Are My Weakness by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

I devour everything written by Susan Elisabeth Phillips and usually read each book many times.  That being said, this book Heroes Are My Weakness, was good but not great.  No laugh at loud moments, I was a little bored in the beginning and the book was totally predictable.  I will keep reading her but probably won't recommend this title.  Not a good book club read - 3 1/2 stars.

Book Description from Goodreads:

The dead of winter.  An isolated island off the coast of Maine .  A man.  A woman.

A sinister house looming over the sea ...

He's a reclusive writer whose macabre imagination creates chilling horror novels. She's a down-on-her-luck actress reduced to staging kids' puppet shows. He knows a dozen ways to kill with his bare hands. She knows a dozen ways to kill with laughs.

But she's not laughing now. When she was a teenager, he terrified her. Now they're trapped together on a snowy island off the coast of Maine. Is he the villain she remembers or has he changed? Her head says no. Her heart says yes.

It's going to be a long, hot winter.(less)

This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

I absolutely loved every minute of This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper - this book was published in 2009 - don't know how I missed it!  It's absolutely hilarious and totally inappropriate with lots of sex - don't recommend it to people who would be offended.  

The book is narrated by Judd Foxman who is separated from his wife and been called back home to sit shiva for his father.  His family is (of course) very dysfunctional - his mother (played by Jane Fonda in the movie that has just been released) is a child-rearing expert who has a boob job and has no problem talking about her sex life and her children's!  Each character in this book is developed well and shades of every family are probably present and totally relatable!  Loved it!  5 stars but inappropriate!  Would be a great book club book!


Book Description from Amazon:

The death of Judd Foxman's father marks the first time that the entire Foxman clan has congregated in years. There is, however, one conspicuous absence: Judd's wife, Jen, whose affair with his radio- shock-jock boss has recently become painfully public. Simultaneously mourning the demise of his father and his marriage, Judd joins his dysfunctional family as they reluctantly sit shiva-and spend seven days and nights under the same roof. The week quickly spins out of control as longstanding grudges resurface, secrets are revealed and old passions are reawakened. Then Jen delivers the clincher: she's pregnant.

This Is Where I Leave You is Jonathan Tropper's (One Last Thing Before I Go) most accomplished work to date, and a riotously funny, emotionally raw novel about love, marriage, divorce, family, and the ties that bind-whether we like it or not.