Southern Novels and Authors

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, April 26th at 6:30pm and the topic up for discussion will be all things disaster, natural or man-made.  Last night, our Genre Reading group met to talk about southern authors and novels.

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

In a garden surrounded by a tall fence, tucked away behind a small, quiet house in an even smaller town, is an apple tree that is rumored to bear a very special sort of fruit. In this luminous debut novel, Sarah Addison Allen tells the story of that enchanted tree, and the extraordinary people who tend it....

The Waverleys have always been a curious family, endowed with peculiar gifts that make them outsiders even in their hometown of Bascom, North Carolina. Even their garden has a reputation, famous for its feisty apple tree that bears prophetic fruit, and its edible flowers, imbued with special powers. Generations of Waverleys tended this garden. Their history was in the soil. But so were their futures.

A successful caterer, Claire Waverley prepares dishes made with her mystical plants--from the nasturtiums that aid in keeping secrets and the pansies that make children thoughtful, to the snapdragons intended to discourage the attentions of her amorous neighbor. Meanwhile, her elderly cousin, Evanelle, is known for distributing unexpected gifts whose uses become uncannily clear. They are the last of the Waverleys--except for Claire's rebellious sister, Sydney, who fled Bascom the moment she could, abandoning Claire, as their own mother had years before.

When Sydney suddenly returns home with a young daughter of her own, Claire's quiet life is turned upside down--along with the protective boundary she has so carefully constructed around her heart. Together again in the house they grew up in, Sydney takes stock of all she left behind, as Claire struggles to heal the wounds of the past. And soon the sisters realize they must deal with their common legacy--if they are ever to feel at home in Bascom--or with each other.

Enchanting and heartfelt, this captivating novel is sure to cast a spell with a style all its own....

The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen

In this irresistible novel, Sarah Addison Allen, author of the New York Times bestselling debut, Garden Spells, tells the tale of a young woman whose family secrets—and secret passions—are about to change her life forever.

Josey Cirrini is sure of three things: winter is her favorite season, she’s a sorry excuse for a Southern belle, and sweets are best eaten in the privacy of her closet. For while Josey has settled into an uneventful life in her mother’s house, her one consolation is the stockpile of sugary treats and paperback romances she escapes to each night…. Until she finds her closet harboring Della Lee Baker, a local waitress who is one part nemesis—and two parts fairy godmother. With Della Lee’s tough love, Josey’s narrow existence quickly expands. She even bonds with Chloe Finley, a young woman who is hounded by books that inexplicably appear when she needs them—and who has a close connection to Josey’s longtime crush. Soon Josey is living in a world where the color red has startling powers, and passion can make eggs fry in their cartons. And that’s just for starters.

Brimming with warmth, wit, and a sprinkling of magic, here is a spellbinding tale of friendship, love—and the enchanting possibilities of every new day.

A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash

In his phenomenal debut novel—a mesmerizing literary thriller about the bond between two brothers and the evil they face in a small North Carolina town—author Wiley Cash displays a remarkable talent for lyrical, powerfully emotional storytelling. A Land More Kind than Home is a modern masterwork of Southern fiction, reminiscent of the writings of John Hart (Down River), Tom Franklin (Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter), Ron Rash (Serena), and Pete Dexter (Paris Trout)—one that is likely to be held in the same enduring esteem as such American classics as To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, and ASeparate Peace. A brilliant evocation of a place, a heart-rending family story, a gripping and suspenseful mystery—with A Land More Kind than Home, a major American novelist enthusiastically announces his arrival.

GENERAL DISCUSSION:

Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia by Dennis CovingtonFor New York Times reporter Dennis Covington, what began as a journalistic assignment—covering the trial of an Alabama pastor convicted of attempting to murder his wife with poisonous snakes—would evolve into a headlong plunge into a bizarre, mysterious, and ultimately irresistible world of unshakable faith: the world of holiness snake handling. Set in the heart of Appalachia, Salvation on Sand Mountain is Covington’s unsurpassed and chillingly captivating exploration of the nature, power, and extremity of faith—an exploration that gradually turns inward, until Covington finds himself taking up the snakes.

Time Assassins by R. Kyle Hannah

History has always been written by the victor, but in the shadows, history has been manipulated by an ancient Guild of Time Assassins. Until now. Rick Brewer, assassin's apprentice, is sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit. He escapes to a distant past and, stranded in time, seeks revenge against the Guild by creating instability in the time-line by choosing powerful targets - The Presidents of the United States of America. Reginald Mayweather is a ruthless business tycoon and not one to accept no as an answer, but when a business prospect fails, he demands the help of the Assassin's Guild to eradicate the competition by killing his competitor's ancestors. If successful, it could prove disastrous to the time-line on a global scale. Jason Lassiter joined the Assassin's Guild because he wanted to experience history first hand. Little does he know that his future, and the future of the Guild, rests in his hands.

Nexus by Brian Weimer

Following recent sightings of mysterious lights in the night sky, the account of a traumatized woman, and a local suicide, supernatural investigator Josh Blair and University student Daniel Summers are drawn into the heart of the battle between good and evil, uncovering the connection to seemingly unrelated events as powerful dark forces threaten to destroy them and their entire city.

GENERAL DISCUSSION:

The Haunted Mesa by Louis L’AmourThe Navajo called them the Anasazi, the “ancient enemy,” and their abandoned cities haunt the canyons and plateaus of the Southwest. For centuries the sudden disappearance of these people baffled historians. Summoned to a dark desert plateau by a desperate letter from an old friend, renowned investigator Mike Raglan is drawn into a world of mystery, violence, and explosive revelations. Crossing a border beyond the laws of man and nature, he will learn of the astonishing world of the Anasazi and discover the most extraordinary frontier ever encountered.

The Sparrow by Mary Doria RussellThe Sparrow is a novel about a remarkable man, a living saint, a life-long celibate and Jesuit priest, who undergoes an experience so harrowing and profound that it makes him question the existence of God. This experience--the first contact between human beings and intelligent extraterrestrial life--begins with a small mistake and ends in a horrible catastrophe.

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin

In a small Mississippi town, two men are torn apart by circumstance and reunited by tragedy in this resonant new novel from the award-winning author of the critically-acclaimed Hell at the Breech.

Larry Ott and Silas ''32'' Jones were unlikely boyhood friends. Larry was the child of lower middle-class white parents, Silas the son of a poor, single, black mother -- their worlds as different as night and day. Yet a special bond developed between them in Chabot, Mississippi. But within a few years, tragedy struck. In high school, a girl who lived up the road from Larry had gone to the drive-in movie with him and nobody had seen her again. Her stepfather tried to have Larry arrested but no body was found and Larry never confessed. The incident shook up the town, including Silas, and the bond the boys shared was irrevocably broken.

Almost thirty years have passed. Larry, a mechanic, lives a solitary existence in Chabot, never able to rise above the whispers of suspicion, the looks of blame that have shadowed him. Silas left home to play college baseball, but now he's Chabot's constable. The men have few reasons to cross paths, and they rarely do -- until fate intervenes again.

Another teenaged girl has disappeared, causing rumors to swirl once again. Now, two men who once called each other friend are finally forced to confront the painful past they've buried for too many years.

The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty

The Optimist's Daughter is the story of Laurel McKelva Hand, a young woman who has left the South and returns, years later, to New Orleans, where her father is dying. After his death, she and her silly young stepmother go back still farther, to the small Mississippi town where she grew up. Alone in the old house, Laurel finally comes to an understanding of the past, herself, and her parents.

I Still Dream About You by Fannie Flagg

The beloved Fannie Flagg is at her irresistible and hilarious best in I Still Dream About You, a comic mystery romp through the streets of Birmingham, Alabama, past, present, and future.

Meet Maggie Fortenberry, a still beautiful former Miss Alabama. To others, Maggie’s life seems practically perfect—she’s lovely, charming, and a successful agent at Red Mountain Realty. Still, Maggie can’t help but wonder how she wound up living a life so different from the one she dreamed of as a child. But just when things seem completely hopeless, and the secrets of Maggie’s past drive her to a radical plan to solve it all, Maggie discovers, quite by accident, that everybody, it seems, has at least one little secret.

I Still Dream About You is a wonderful novel that is equal parts southern charm, murder mystery, and that perfect combination of comedy and old-fashioned wisdom that can be served up only by America’s own remarkable Fannie Flagg.

Miss Susie Slagle’s (not in library system, but you may order via the link to Interlibrary Loan) by Augusta Tucker Townsend 

Originally published in 1939, Miss Susie Slagle's spent half a year on the national best-seller lists, went through twenty-three hardcover printings, and became a major Hollywood motion picture produced by John Houseman. Augusta Tucker's beloved novel of Baltimore in the halcyon years before the Great War -- and of the Johns Hopkins medical students who boarded at Miss Susie Slagle's house on Biddle Street -- is richly detailed and warmly nostalgic.

Overheard In a Drugstore by Andrew Glaze

Andrew Glaze's poetry has been described as "funny, quixotic, and very wise," while writer Norman Rosten once called him "a serious, irreverent poet, capable of setting off fireworks in the museum." Overheard in a Drugstore continues in that maverick tradition, offering poems that are humorous, affectionate, moving, evocative, and controversial -- sometimes simultaneously.

From poems such as "Blue Ridge" and "Sunset Rock," in which he artfully overlaps a current landscape with ghosts of the past, to "Fishermen," in which he compares writers to anglers aiming to hook the perfect prose, his unique voice paints vivid imagery for the reader.

Glaze has been highly praised in the New York Times, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and honored with awards from Poetry Magazine and the Southeastern Booksellers Association. His first full-length collection, Damned Ugly Children (1966) was named a "Notable Book" by the American Library Association. He is in the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame and served as the Eleventh Poet Laureate of Alabama. He died February 7, 2016 at the age of 95.

GENERAL DISCUSSION:

Zora’s Roots: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston (Documentary film)This documentary examines the life of author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston. The film follows Hurston, best known for her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, to the subtropical paradise that shaped her childhood and her life's work - where she returned again and again for inspiration and solace. This documentary tells her story through the people who knew her and the places and events that she brought to the world through her writing.

Irene Latham
Irene Latham is the award winning author of two novels for children LEAVING GEE'S BEND and DON'T FEED THE BOY. She also serves as poetry editor for Birmingham Arts Journal and has published three volumes of poetry for adults. Her current focus is on poetry for children with the 2014 release of DEAR WANDERING WILDEBEEST, which was named an SCBWI Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award Honor book, and two 2016 titles: FRESH DELICIOUS and WHEN THE SUN SHINES ON ANTARCTICA. 

What are YOU reading?

Hollywood, old and new

The next Genre Reading Group meeting will be on Tuesday, March 29th at 6:30pm in the library’s conference room.  The topic up for discussion is southern authors & novels.  Grab one and join us!

Emmet O’Neal Library is please to again partner with the Birmingham Holocaust Education Center for the Holocaust In Film movie series.  Visit our website for times, dates, and titles at http://www.eolib.org/adults-specialevents.php

This week, GRG met to talk about all things Hollywood.  From the seedy underbelly to some of the most recognizable landmarks in the country to the stars and other celebrities who captivate millions around the world, Tinseltown shined in our discussion.

The Archaeology of Hollywood: Traces of the Golden Age by Paul Bahn

(amazon) The Golden Age of Hollywood, dating to the hazy depths of the early 20th Century, was an era of movie stars worshipped by the masses and despotic studio moguls issuing decrees from poolside divans… but despite the world-wide reach of the movie industry, little more than memories of that era linger amidst the freeways and apartment complexes of today’s Los Angeles. Noted archaeologist Paul G. Bahn digs into the material traces of that Tinseltown in an effort to document and save the treasures that remain.

Bahn leads readers on a tour of this singular culture, from the industrial zones of film studios to the landmarks where the glamorous lived, partied, and played, from where they died and were buried to how they’ve been memorialized for posterity. The result is part history, part archaeology—enlivened with pop culture, reminiscence, and whimsy—and throughout, it feeds and deepens our fascination with an iconic place and time, not to mention the personalities who brought it to life.

Of All the Gin Joints: Stumbling Through Hollywood History by Mark Bailey and Edward Hemingway

(amazon) True tales of celebrity hijinks are served up with an equal measure of Hollywood history, movie-star mayhem, and a frothy mix of forty cocktail recipes.

Humphrey Bogart got himself arrested for protecting his drinking buddies, who happened to be a pair of stuffed pandas. Ava Gardner would water-ski to the set of Night of the Iguana holding a towline in one hand and a cocktail in the other. Barely legal Natalie Wood would let Dennis Hopper seduce her if he provided a bathtub full of champagne. Bing Crosby’s ill-mannered antics earned him the nickname “Binge Crosby.” And sweet Mary Pickford stashed liquor in hydrogen peroxide bottles during Prohibition. From the frontier days of silent film up to the wild auteur period of the 1970s, Mark Bailey has pillaged the vaults of Hollywood history and lore to dig up the true―and often surprising―stories of seventy of our most beloved actors, directors, and screenwriters at their most soused.

Bite-size biographies are followed by ribald anecdotes and memorable quotes. If a star had a favorite cocktail, the recipe is included. Films with the most outrageous booze-soaked stories, like Apocalypse Now, From Here to Eternity, and The Misfits, are featured, along with the legendary watering holes of the day (and the recipes for their signature drinks). Edward Hemingway’s portraits complete this spirited look at America’s most iconic silver-screen legends.

“This book is like being at the best dinner party in the world. And I thought I was the first person to put a bar in my closet. I was clearly born during the wrong era.” ―Chelsea Handler

Hollywood Babylon II by Kenneth Anger

(amazon) Originally published in Paris, this is a collection of Hollywood's darkest and best kept secrets from the pen of Kenneth Anger, a former child movie actor who grew up to become one of America's leading underground film-makers.

Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg

(amazon) Few American icons provoke more enduring fascination than Charles Lindbergh—renowned for his one-man transatlantic flight in 1927, remembered for the sorrow surrounding the kidnapping and death of his firstborn son in 1932, and reviled by many for his opposition to America's entry into World War II. Lindbergh's is "a dramatic and disturbing American story," says the Los Angeles Times Book Review, and this biography—the first to be written with unrestricted access to the Lindbergh archives and extensive interviews of his friends, colleagues, and close family members—is "the definitive account."

You’ll Never Make Love in This Town Again by Robin, Liza, Linda, and Tiffany As Told To Jennie Frankel

(amazon) This all-true tell-all follows the lives of three women living in the "cesspool" called Hollywood. From Jack Nicholson to Heidi Fleiss to Sylvester Stallone, this scintillating book exposes a seedy side of the movie making industry, equally as insidious as the business truths exposed in You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again--and twice as intriguing.

The Way We Lived Then: Recollections of a Well-Known NameDropper by Dominick Dunne

(amazon) Mesmerizing, revelatory text combines with more than two hundred photographs -- most of them taken by the author -- in a startling illustrated memoir that will both astonish and move you.

When Dominick Dunne lived and worked in Hollywood, he had it all: a beautiful family, a glamorous career, and the friendship of the talented and powerful. He also had a camera and loved to take pictures. These photographs, which Dunne carefully preserved in more than a dozen leatherbound scrapbooks -- along with invitations, telegrams, personal notes, and other memorabilia -- record the parties, the glittering receptions, the society weddings, and scenes from the everyday lives of the Dunnes and those they knew, including Jane Fonda, Frank Sinatra, Paul Newman, Roddy McDowall, Elizabeth Taylor, Natalie Wood, Brooke Hayward, Jennifer Jones, and David Selznick.

You'll meet them all in this fascinating book -- captured in snapshots as these celebrities relax at poolside barbecues, gossip at cozy get-togethers and dance at the Dunnes' dazzling black-and-white ball. And you will meet Dominick Dunne's beautiful wife, Lenny, and his children, Griffin, Alex, and Dominique, as they celebrate Christmases, birthdays, and graduations.  But, most of all, you will meet Dominick Dunne and learn about the peaks and valleys of his years in Hollywood, the disastrous turn his life took, and the long road back that led to his triumphant career as a writer. With its engaging photographs and candid text, The Way We Lived Then is a riveting and unvarnished account of a life among the stars and a life almost lost.

The Hollywood Sign: Fantasy and Reality of an American Icon by Leo Braudy

(amazon) Hollywood's famous sign, constructed of massive white block letters set into a steep hillside, is an emblem of the movie capital it looms over. Mixing social history, urban studies, literature, and film, this book offers an account of how a temporary structure has become a permanent icon of American culture.

Hollywood: Then and Now by Rosemary Lord

(amazon) Moorish and Spanish revival architecture and Frank Lloyd Wright homes still stand alongside modern structures such as Frank Gehry's breathtaking Disney Concert Hall. This book features early photographs matched with specially commissioned contemporary images of the same locations, including Graumann's Chinese Theatre and the Cocoanut Grove nightclub, and show what has changed and what has remained after 100 years of Hollywood. Sites include Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood and Vine, Immaculate Heart High School, Beachwood Village, Hollywoodland, Griffith Observatory, Hollywood High School, Gower Street, Lasky Studios, Fox Studios, Chaplin Field, MGM Studios, RKO Radio Pictures, Paramount, Hollywood Forever Cemetry, Chateau Marmont, Whitley Heights, Roosevelt Hotel, and the Garden of Allah.

The Young and the Dead (DVD)

Alas, not in the public libraries of Jefferson County. (amazon) An irreverent look at how a fertile imagination and 21st century technology can turn the most unlikely business into an exciting--and profitable--undertaking. The Young and The Dead tells the story of how the Hollywood Memorial Cemetery became Hollywood Forever: a metamorphosis from decrepit burial ground to a modern, interactive, state-of-the-art facility, with touch-screen kiosks and a gift shop complete with souvenirs. And how a cemetery became, according to LA magazine, one of the sexiest places in LA.

Take a tour of the cemetery in the attached video!

The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend by Glenn Frankel

(amazon) In 1836 in East Texas, nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker was kidnapped by Comanches. She was raised by the tribe and eventually became the wife of a warrior. Twenty-four years after her capture, she was reclaimed by the U.S. cavalry and Texas Rangers and restored to her white family, to die in misery and obscurity. Cynthia Ann's story has been told and re-told over generations to become a foundational American tale. The myth gave rise to operas and one-act plays, and in the 1950s to a novel by Alan LeMay, which would be adapted into one of Hollywood's most legendary films, The Searchers, "The Biggest, Roughest, Toughest... and Most Beautiful Picture Ever Made!" directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne.

Glenn Frankel, beginning in Hollywood and then returning to the origins of the story, creates a rich and nuanced anatomy of a timeless film and a quintessentially American myth. The dominant story that has emerged departs dramatically from documented history: it is of the inevitable triumph of white civilization, underpinned by anxiety about the sullying of white women by "savages." What makes John Ford's film so powerful, and so important, Frankel argues, is that it both upholds that myth and undermines it, baring the ambiguities surrounding race, sexuality, and violence in the settling of the West and the making of America.

Follies of God: Tennessee Williams and the Women of the Fog by James Grissom
(amazon) An extraordinary book; one that almost magically makes clear how Tennessee Williams wrote; how he came to his visions of Amanda Wingfield, his Blanche DuBois, Stella Kowalski, Alma Winemiller, Lady Torrance, and the other characters of his plays that transformed the American theater of the mid-twentieth century; a book that does, from the inside, the almost impossible—revealing the heart and soul of artistic inspiration and the unwitting collaboration between playwright and actress, playwright and director.

At a moment in the life of Tennessee Williams when he felt he had been relegated to a “lower artery of the theatrical heart,” when critics were proclaiming that his work had been overrated, he summoned to New Orleans a hopeful twenty-year-old writer, James Grissom, who had written an unsolicited letter to the great playwright asking for advice. After a long, intense conversation, Williams sent Grissom on a journey on the playwright’s behalf to find out if he, Tennessee Williams, or his work, had mattered to those who had so deeply mattered to him, those who had led him to what he called the blank page, “the pale judgment.”

Among the more than seventy giants of American theater and film Grissom sought out, chief among them the women who came to Williams out of the fog: Lillian Gish, tiny and alabaster white, with enormous, lovely, empty eyes (“When I first imagined a woman at the center of my fantasia, I . . . saw the pure and buoyant face of Lillian Gish. . . . [She] was the escort who brought me to Blanche”) . . . Maureen Stapleton, his Serafina of The Rose Tattoo, a shy, fat little girl from Troy, New York, who grew up with abandoned women and sad hopes and whose job it was to cheer everyone up, goad them into going to the movies, urge them to bake a cake and have a party.  (“Tennessee and I truly loved each other,” said Stapleton, “we were bound by our love of the theater and movies and movie stars and comedy. And we were bound to each other particularly by our mothers: the way they raised us; the things they could never say . . . The dreaming nature, most of all”) . . . Jessica Tandy (“The moment I read [Portrait of a Madonna],” said Tandy, “my life began. I was, for the first time . . . unafraid to be ruthless in order to get something I wanted”) . . . Kim Stanley . . . Bette Davis . . . Katharine Hepburn . . . Jo Van Fleet . . . Rosemary Harris . . . Eva Le Gallienne (“She was a stone against which I could rub my talent and feel that it became sharper”) . . . Julie Harris . . . Geraldine Page (“A titanic talent”) . . . And the men who mattered and helped with his creations, including Elia Kazan, José Quintero, Marlon Brando, John Gielgud . . .James Grissom’s Follies of God is a revelation, a book that moves and inspires and uncannily catches that illusive “dreaming nature.”

Cooper & Hemingway: The True Gen (DVD)

(amazon) Cooper and Hemingway: The True Gen is an unprecedented look at the bond between two of the most iconic artists of the 20th century. Utter opposites ... nothing in common. The cowboy and the suburbanite. The conservative and the liberal. And yet these two artists (a word both men scoffed at) were the best of friends, right up to their deaths a mere seven weeks apart in 1961. But is the friendship of these two men really so surprising? A study of these two men is a study of the 20th century. Their internationally renowned careers (Gary Cooper, two Best Actor Academy Awards; Ernest Hemingway, Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes) were played out over the same turbulent decades: the hedonistic 20s, the grim Depression 30s, the war-ravaged 40s, and the deceptively slumbering 50s; throughout, their public and private lives connected, parted, re-connected, intertwined, over-lapped, and collided. It is no small irony that the lives of these two men should suffer untimely ends at the dawn of the erupting sixties. Their final, poignant chapter closed at the beginning of a decade which would challenge many of the very ideals and precepts which both men so prominently represented.

GENERAL DISCUSSION: Looking ahead to next month’s discussion of southern authors and novels, one member remarked on an excellent episode of the Diane Rehm show during which she interviewed William Faulkner’s niece, Dean Faulkner Wells.

Visit The Diane Rehm Show website to listen to the interview. https://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-03-30/dean-faulkner-wells-every-day-sun

What are YOU reading, watching, and/or listening to?

Holley

Reading Watching Free for All

The next Genre Reading Group meeting will be on Tuesday, January 26 at 6:30pm in the Library's Conference Room and the topic up for discussion will be classics.  There are many definitions and opinions as to what a "classic" actually is: school reading classics, modern classics...we'll discuss them all!  Also, don't forget to put the annual Friends of Emmet O'Neal Library Book Sale on your February calendar.  The invite-only Preview Party will be on Thursday, February 18 and the sale will be open to the public Friday-Sunday, February 19-21.

Last week, GRG met for one of our biannual salon discussions, when there is no assigned topic and participants may bring what ever they'd like for discussion.


Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks Her Way Through Great Books by Cara Nicoletti
(powells) Blogger, butcher, pastry chef, and voracious reader Cara Nicoletti explores the intersection of great books and great food.

Cara Nicoletti has been an avid reader since childhood, and she is an equally enthusiastic eater and cook. Here she combines her passions in a delicious literary feast, essays on beloved books and the food scenes that give their characters texture and depth. Nicoletti also includes her own original recipes — inspired by the books — at the end of each chapter.

She discovers the perfect soft-cooked egg in Jane Austen's Emma, makes Grilled Peaches with Homemade Ricotta in tribute to Joan Didion's "Goodbye to All That," and even creates a recipe for Fava Bean and Chicken Liver Mousse (and a nice Chianti) after reading Thomas Harris's The Silence of the Lambs. Voracious is a book-lover's delight and a foodie's feast that explores the literary and culinary roads to happiness.

Inside the O'Briens by Lisa Genova
(powells) From award-winning, New York Times bestselling author and neuroscientist Lisa Genova comes a powerful new novel that does for Huntington’s Disease what her debut Still Alice did for Alzheimer’s.

Joe O’Brien is a forty-four-year-old police officer from the Irish Catholic neighborhood of Charlestown, Massachusetts. A devoted husband, proud father of four children in their twenties, and respected officer, Joe begins experiencing bouts of disorganized thinking, uncharacteristic temper outbursts, and strange, involuntary movements. He initially attributes these episodes to the stress of his job, but as these symptoms worsen, he agrees to see a neurologist and is handed a diagnosis that will change his and his family’s lives forever: Huntington’s Disease.

Huntington’s is a lethal neurodegenerative disease with no treatment and no cure. Each of Joe’s four children has a 50 percent chance of inheriting their father’s disease, and a simple blood test can reveal their genetic fate. While watching her potential future in her father’s escalating symptoms, twenty-one-year-old daughter Katie struggles with the questions this test imposes on her young adult life. Does she want to know? What if she’s gene positive? Can she live with the constant anxiety of not knowing?

As Joe’s symptoms worsen and he’s eventually stripped of his badge and more, Joe struggles to maintain hope and a sense of purpose, while Katie and her siblings must find the courage to either live a life “at risk” or learn their fate. Praised for writing that “explores the resilience of the human spirit” (The San Francisco Chronicle), Lisa Genova has once again delivered a novel as powerful and unforgettable as the human insights at its core.

GENERAL DISCUSSION: Huntington's is part of a group of physical dysfunctions known as basal ganglia diseases.  Find more info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_ganglia_disease#Associated_disorders

The Venetian Betrayal by Steve Berry

(powells) In 323 B.C.E, having conquered Persia, Alexander the Great set his sights on Arabia, then suddenly succumbed to a strange fever. Locating his final resting place-unknown to this day-remains a tantalizing goal for both archaeologists and treasure hunters. Now the quest for this coveted prize is about to heat up. And Cotton Malone-former U.S. Justice Department agent turned rare-book dealer-will be drawn into an intense geopolitical chess game.

After narrowly escaping incineration in a devastating fire that consumes a Danish museum, Cotton learns from his friend, the beguiling adventurer Cassiopeia Vitt, that the blaze was neither an accident nor an isolated incident. As part of campaign of arson intended to mask a far more diabolical design, buildings across Europe are being devoured by infernos of unnatural strength.

And from the ashes of the U.S.S.R., a new nation has arisen: Former Soviet republics have consolidated into the Central Asian Federation. At its helm is Supreme Minister Irina Zovastina, a cunning despot with a talent for politics, a taste for blood sport, and the single-minded desire to surpass Alexander the Great as historys ultimate conqueror.

Backed by a secret cabal of powerbrokers, the Federation has amassed a harrowing arsenal of biological weapons. Equipped with the hellish power to decimate other nations at will, only one thing keeps Zovastina from setting in motion her death march of domination: a miraculous healing serum, kept secret by an ancient puzzle and buried with the mummified remains of Alexander the Great-in a tomb lost to the ages for more than 1,500 years.

Together, Cotton and Cassiopeia must outrun and outthink the forces allied against them. Their perilous quest will take them to the shores of Denmark, deep into the venerated monuments of Venice, and finally high inside the desolate Pamir mountains of Central Asia to unravel a riddle whose solution could destroy or save millions of people-depending on who finds the lost tomb first.

The Alexandria Link by Steve Berry

(powells) Cotton Malone retired from the high-risk world of elite operatives for the U.S. State Department to lead the low-key life of a rare-book dealer. But his quiet existence is shattered when he receives an anonymous e-mail: "You have something I want. You're the only person on earth who knows where to find it. Go get it. You have 72 hours. If I don't hear from you, you will be childless." His horrified ex-wife confirms that the threat is real: Their teenage son has been kidnapped. When Malone's Copenhagen bookshop is burned to the ground, it becomes brutally clear that those responsible will stop at nothing to get what they want. And what they want is nothing less than the lost Library of Alexandria.

A cradle of ideas — historical, philosophical, literary, scientific, and religious — the Library of Alexandria was unparalleled in the world. But fifteen hundred years ago, it vanished into the mists of myth and legend — its vast bounty of wisdom coveted ever since by scholars, fortune hunters, and those who believe its untold secrets hold the key to ultimate power.

Now a cartel of wealthy international moguls, bent on altering the course of history, is desperate to breach the library's hallowed halls — and only Malone possesses the information they need to succeed. At stake is an explosive ancient document with the potential not only to change the destiny of the Middle East but to shake the world's three major religions to their very foundations.

Pursued by a lethal mercenary, Malone crosses the globe in search of answers. His quest will lead him to England and Portugal, even to the highest levels of American government — and the shattering outcome, deep in the Sinai desert, will have worldwide repercussions.

The Americans (TV series)

(amazon) Secrets can be deadly in this suspenseful thriller about undercover Russian spies in 1980s Washington, D.C. Philip (Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth Jennings (Keri Russell) seem to be a typical suburban couple, but they're actually lethal KGB agents plotting to bring down America. As the Cold War escalates, Philip and Elizabeth must take extreme measures to continue their mission and keep their true identities hidden. But when an FBI agent moves in across the street, they become ensnared in a pulse-pounding game of cat and mouse.

Halt and Catch Fire (TV series) 

(amazon) At the dawn of the PC era, 3 unlikely “cowboys,” Joe MacMillan, Gordon Clark and Cameron Howe, take personal and professional risks in the race to build a breakthrough computer. Tensions build within the group as they tread the line between visionary and fraud, genius and delusion, as their drive to do something that matters runs up against their ability to truly innovate. The series begins in the early 80s in Dallas, aka The Silicon Prairie, during the boom of the computer industry. IBM has released the first PC and is seemingly dominating the cutthroat field. MacMillan, Gordon and Cameron form an alliance at the smaller (fictional) tech company, Cardiff Giant, infiltrating it from within and using its people and resources to revolutionize the computer, shake up the competition and redeem their past personal failures. The show is not just about the ruthless rise of the computer business, or the obsessive striving for competitive advantage in the marketplace. Rather, it’s about people at war with themselves as they search for something bigger. During their search, they’ll struggle with the dark side of the human ego, the destructive power of ambition, and the often thin line separating genius from delusion.

GENERAL DISCUSSION: Mountain Brook residents with a valid library card may borrow 5 HOOPLA items per month. HOOPLA is a digital content service which library cardholders can use to instantly download and stream digital movies, music, ebooks, and audiobooks.  Visit our website: http://www.eolib.org/adults-resources.php

Apartment Troubles (film)

Olivia (Jennifer Prediger) and Nicole (Jess Weixler) are codependent roommates who are definitely going to make it; They're just not sure how. When they get evicted from their shoebox apartment in Manhattan--conceptual art just doesn't cover the rent--they boldly take off to L.A. and the promise of sunshine. As one door slams shut, another opens--a tarot card reading later, the duo decide to take their performance art sensibilities to the mainstream by auditioning for a reality TV talent show. This madcap buddy film marks the screenwriting and directorial debuts of costars and real-life friends Jennifer Prediger and Jess Weixler. Strong comedic performances by Megan Mullally, Jeffrey Tambor and Will Forte reveal the vulnerability behind even their most bizarre behavior.

The Newspaper Boy: Coming of Age in Birmingham, AL During the Civil Rights Era by Chervis Isom

(amazon) The Newspaper Boy is a remarkable collection of memories and personal reflections of the deep emotional conflicts a young newspaper delivery boy, Chervis Isom, encountered while growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, in a time of racial strife and discord in the 1950s and early '60s. A quiet and shy boy, the young Isom was a reader, and it would be the written word he would turn to as he tried to make sense of his world. Many of Isom's stories are tied to the "Southern Way of Life," a culture in which he grew up that assumed an inflexible white superiority represented by Jim Crow laws, laws that his father, a Greyhound Bus driver, was obligated to enforce in the face of a rising reaction by his African American riders that he neither understood nor tolerated. Isom's early adolescent views, shaped by his father's frustrations, are thrown into stark contrast as he is drawn to the positive influence of Helen and Vern Miller, a young couple from the Far North who moved onto his paper route, bringing with them alien ideas completely out of step with his own culture and teachings. Even though the Millers' views would clash with his own, they quickly became his favorite customers. Each Saturday they opened their door to him at collection time, inviting him in to politely discuss and debate the day's issues. Through the Millers' progressive approach to the growing racial unrest in Birmingham in the mid-to late-1950s, the young Isom gradually learned, in a series of fits and starts, advances and setbacks, to question the prevailing cultural attitudes and biases towards the African American community. In the end, he would come to understand the simple truth, as expressed by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., that people must be judged not "by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." 

When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II by Molly Guptill Manning

(powells) When America entered World War II in 1941, we faced an enemy that had banned and burned 100 million books. Outraged librarians launched a campaign to send free books to American troops and gathered 20 million hardcover donations. In 1943, the War Department and the publishing industry stepped in with an extraordinary program: 120 million small, lightweight paperbacks for troops to carry in their pockets and rucksacks in every theater of war. These Armed Services Editions were beloved by the troops and are still fondly remembered today. Soldiers read them while waiting to land at Normandy, in hellish trenches in the midst of battles in the Pacific, in field hospitals, and on long bombing flights. They helped rescue The Great Gatsby from obscurity and made Betty Smith, author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn into a national icon. When Books Went to War is the inspiring story of the Armed Services Editions, and a treasure for history buffs and book lovers alike.

Librarian's Night Before Christmas by David Davis

(amazon) A librarian who is busy shelving books on Christmas Eve is surprised to see Santa flying toward the library in his red bookmobile. Bringing wonderful gifts of new books, carpet, and more, Santa and his elves make the library as good as new.

Outhouses by Famous Architects by Steve Schaecher

(powells) Outhouses have been much ridiculed and maligned structures, thought worthy of only the lowliest of humor and virtually ignored by architectural critics as inconsequential blips in the development of building design. And yet -- as architect Steve Schaecher so poignantly reveals in this collection of renderings -- architects of genius from time immemorial have used their considerable talents to enhance the beauty and function of the outhouse.

Here are reproductions of stylish (dare we say "perfectionist"?) renderings from Wright's Flushingwater to the Centre Pompidoodoo -- the unmistakable outhouse for that weird-looking French museum -- and many others. Each is accompanied by insightful historical and analytical text, depending on your definitions of insightful and analytical. The preface, by architectural critic I. P. Daley, will leave you in no doubt of the importance of this completely nonsensical book.

Life (film) 

(amazon) Inspired by the true story of photographer Dennis Stock and Hollywood's rebel actor James Dean, brought together for a LIFE Magazine assignment. Their journey leads to an unbreakable friendship and some of the most iconic images of the age.

Coco and the Little Black Dress by Annmarie Van Haeringen

(amazon) "Hurry up! You may only go to bed when all the sheets are ironed." Little Coco grew up in the orphanage and had to work hard for a living sewing and embroidering like an angel. Until her eighteenth birthday . . . Coco knew one thing for sure Coco. She would never, never be poor again. A beautifully illustrated picture book biography of Coco Chanel. Coco Chanel (1883-1971) was a famous French fashion designer. Born into a poor family, strictly brought up in the orphanage, influenced by the style of wealthy suitors , she remained faithful throughout her life to the simplicity. A luxurious simplicity , which has produced memorable style icons like the little black dress and perfume Chanel No. 5.

Coco Before Chanel (film)

(amazon) Audrey Tautou (The Da Vinci Code, Amélie) shines in this intriguing portrait of the early life of Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel, the orphan who would build a fashion empire and be known universally by her nickname, Coco. She journeys from a mundane seamstress job to boisterous cabarets to the opulent French countryside, possessing little more than her unwavering determination, unique style and visionary talent. Also starring Benoît Poelvoorde (In His Hands) and Alessandro Nivola (Junebug). Featuring lush settings and stunning costume design, Coco Before Chanel is the gripping and dramatic story of an icon who defied convention and defined the modern woman.

Petty: The Biography by Warren Zanes

(powells) No one other than Warren Zanes, rocker, writer, and friend, could author a book about Tom Petty that is as honest and evocative of Petty's music and the remarkable rock and roll history he and his band helped to write. From meeting Elvis to producing Del Shannon, backing Bob Dylan, putting together a band with George Harrison, Dylan, Roy Orbison, and Jeff Lynne, and sending over a dozen of his own recordings high onto the charts, Petty's story has all the drama of a rock and roll epic. Now in his mid-60s, still making records and still touring, Petty, known for his reclusive style, has shared with Zanes his insights and arguments, his regrets and lasting ambitions, and the details of his life on and off the stage. Zanes’s Petty: The Biography (Henry Holt) is for those who want to see the classic rock and roll era embodied in one man's remarkable story. Dark and mysterious, Petty manages to come back, again and again, showing us what the music can do and where it can take us.

GENERAL DISCUSSION: If you subscribe to satellite radio, Tom Petty has a Sirius XM show called Buried Treasure. https://www.siriusxm.com/tompettysburiedtreasure

Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland by Gerald Clarke

(powells) Judy Garland. The girl with the pigtails, the symbol of innocence in The Wizard of Oz. Judy Garland. The brightest star of the Hollywood musical and an entertainer of almost magical power. Judy Garland. The woman of a half-dozen comebacks, a hundred heartbreaks, and countless thousands of headlines. Yet much of what has previously been written about her is either inaccurate or incomplete, and the Garland the world thought it knew was merely a sketch for the astonishing woman Gerald Clarke portrays in Get Happy. Here, more than thirty years after her death, is the real Judy. 

Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay

(powells) In this vivid and captivating journey through the colors of an artist's palette, Victoria Finlay takes us on an enthralling adventure around the world and through the ages, illuminating how the colors we choose to value have determined the history of culture itself.

How did the most precious color blue travel all the way from remote lapis mines in Afghanistan to Michelangelo's brush? What is the connection between brown paint and ancient Egyptian mummies? Why did Robin Hood wear Lincoln green? In Color, Finlay explores the physical materials that color our world, such as precious minerals and insect blood, as well as the social and political meanings that color has carried through time.

Roman emperors used to wear togas dyed with a purple color that was made from an odorous Lebanese shellfish — which probably meant their scent preceded them. In the eighteenth century, black dye was called logwood and grew along the Spanish Main. Some of the first indigo plantations were started in America, amazingly enough, by a seventeen-year-old girl named Eliza. And the popular van Gogh painting White Roses at Washington's National Gallery had to be renamed after a researcher discovered that the flowers were originally done in a pink paint that had faded nearly a century ago. Color is full of extraordinary people, events, and anecdotes — painted all the more dazzling by Finlay's engaging style.

Embark upon a thrilling adventure with this intrepid journalist as she travels on a donkey along ancient silk trade routes; with the Phoenicians sailing the Mediterranean in search of a special purple shell that garners wealth, sustenance, and prestige; with modern Chilean farmers breeding and bleeding insects for their viscous red blood. The colors that craft our world have never looked so bright.

Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own by Kate Bolick

(powells) A bold, original, moving book that will inspire fanatical devotion and ignite debate. “Whom to marry, and when will it happen — these two questions define every woman’s existence.” So begins Spinster, a revelatory and slyly erudite look at the pleasures and possibilities of remaining single. Using her own experiences as a starting point, journalist and cultural critic Kate Bolick invites us into her carefully considered, passionately lived life, weaving together the past and present to examine why­ she — along with over 100 million American women, whose ranks keep growing — remains unmarried.

This unprecedented demographic shift, Bolick explains, is the logical outcome of hundreds of years of change that has neither been fully understood, nor appreciated. Spinster introduces a cast of pioneering women from the last century whose genius, tenacity, and flair for drama have emboldened Bolick to fashion her life on her own terms: journalist Neith Boyce, essayist Maeve Brennan, social reformer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, and novelist Edith Wharton. By animating their unconventional ideas and choices, Bolick shows us that contemporary debates about settling down, and having it all, are timeless, the crucible upon which all thoughtful women have tried for centuries to forge a good life.

Follies of God: Tennessee Williams and the Women of the Fog by James Grissom

(powells) An extraordinary book; one that almost magically makes clear how Tennessee Williams wrote; how he came to his visions of Amanda Wingfield, his Blanche DuBois, Stella Kowalski, Alma Winemiller, Lady Torrance, and the other characters of his plays that transformed the American theater of the mid-twentieth century; a book that does, from the inside, the almost impossible — revealing the heart and soul of artistic inspiration and the unwitting collaboration between playwright and actress, playwright and director.

GENERAL DISCUSSION: Short stories/essays in which you may be interested-

The Ledge by Lawrence Sargent Hall

A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell

Rotten Ice by Gretel Ehrlich 

Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell

Anything by Willa Cather

Trumbo (film) 

(amazon) Bryan Cranston leads an all star cast in a riveting portrayal of Dalton Trumbo, one of Hollywood's most talented and best known script writers and the efforts of the House of Un-Amercian Activity to purify Hollywood and protect the American viewing public from the communist menace of the early Cold War era.

Pets and Animals

The final Genre Reading Group meeting of the year will take place on Tuesday, December 29th at 6:30pm, as usual.  The library will be on Holiday Hours and will be closed, but I will be here to let you in to the building.  It will be one of our biannual Salon Discussion so there is no assigned topic.  You may bring whatever kind/topic of book you’d like to share with the group.

Last week, GRG met to discuss pets & animals!

Buttercups and Daisy by Elizabeth Cragoe
This book is too old and too obscure and as such, has fallen off the radar.  I have found no official reviews, so here is my personal one. Elizabeth Cragoe and her husband, city dwellers both, pick up and move to the Welsh countryside in the early 1970’s to take up life as dairy farmers in this charming tale, told during the moment in history when industrialized farming was just beginning to become popular.  She speaks candidly about how her animals fare in making the swap to more industrial milking practices as well as how chickens perform in battery cages.  It is an interesting look at the lives of rural Welsh farmers (I cannot pronounce ANY of the farms, landscape features, nor most of the characters’ names) as well as the evolution of farming in Europe.  I love her family and look forward to reading more of her books out there in the world if I can find them.

Once Upon a Flock: Life With My Soulful Chickens by Lauren Scheuer
(amazon) When longtime illustrator and lover of power tools Lauren Scheuer was looking for a project, she got the idea to raise backyard chickens. Her husband and teenage daughter looked on incredulously as coop sketches and chicken-raising books filled their New England home. But when the chicks arrived, the whole family fell in love with the bundles of fluff and the wild adventures began. 

Rabbit series by John Updike
(wikipedia) Updike's most famous work is his "Rabbit" series (the novels Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit at Rest; and the novella Rabbit Remembered), which chronicles the life of the middle-class everyman Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom over the course of several decades, from young adulthood to death. Both Rabbit Is Rich (1982) and Rabbit at Rest (1990) were recognized with the Pulitzer Prize. Updike is one of only three authors to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others were Booth Tarkington and William Faulkner). He published more than twenty novels and more than a dozen short story collections, as well as poetry, art criticism, literary criticism and children's books. Hundreds of his stories, reviews, and poems appeared in The New Yorker starting in 1954. He also wrote regularly for The New York Review of Books.

Nova: Dawn of Humanity (2015)

NOVA and National Geographic present exclusive access to an astounding discovery of ancient fossil human ancestors. Deep in a South African cave, a special team of experts has brought to light an unprecedented wealth of fossils belonging to a crucial gap in the record of our origins that spans the transition between the ape-like australopithecines (such as the famous Lucy) and the earliest members of the human family. At the center of the discovery is paleoanthropologist Lee Berger, a character brimming with enthusiasm and opinions, whose claims have stirred long controversy in the contentious field of human origins. Join NOVA to solve a two million year-old "crime scene" and dig into extraordinary new clues about what made us human.

Flash: The Homeless Donkey Who Taught Me about Life, Faith,and Second Chances by Rachel Anne Ridge

(amazon) The heartwarming tale of an irrepressible donkey who needed a home―and forever changed a family. Rachel Anne Ridge was at the end of her rope. The economy had crashed, taking her formerly thriving business along with it. She had been a successful artist, doing work she loved, but now she felt like a failure. How would her family pay their bills? What would the future hold? If only God would somehow let them know that everything was going to be all right . . . and then Flash the donkey showed up.

Summer According to Humphrey by Betty Birney

(amazon) When Humphrey hears that school is ending, he can't believe his ears. What's a classroom hamster to do if there's no more school? It turns out that Mrs. Brisbane has planned something thrilling for Humphrey and Og the frog: they're going to Camp Happy Hollow with Ms. Mac and lots of the kids from Room 26! Camp is full of FUN-FUN-FUN new experiences, but it's also a little scary. There are fur-raising wild sounds and smells, and there's something called the Howler to watch out for. Humphrey is always curious about new adventures, but could camp be too wild even for him?

The Hamster in Our Class by Kathleen Tracy

(amazon) Playful and affectionate, hamsters can make terrific class pets. In this book you'll learn about the different types of hamsters, whether they like to live alone or in groups, what kind of food they eat, how much exercise they need, and the best kind of cage for them. Hamsters can be shy at first, but once they get to know you, they can be held. They will make a delightful addition to any classroom.

The Red Pony by John Steinbeck

(amazon) Written at a time of profound anxiety caused by the illness of his mother, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck draws on his memories of childhood in these stories about a boy who embodies both the rebellious spirit and the contradictory desire for acceptance of early adolescence. Unlike most coming-of-age stories, the cycle does not end with a hero “matured” by circumstances. The Red Pony is imbued with a sense of loss. Jody’s encounters with birth and death express a common theme in Steinbeck’s fiction: They are parts of the ongoing process of life, “resolving” nothing. The Red Pony was central not only to Steinbeck’s emergence as a major American novelist but to the shaping of a distinctly mid twentieth-century genre, opening up a new range of possibilities about the fictional presence of a child’s world.

The Pugilist at Rest: Stories by Thom Jones
In the short story "I Want to Live," Mrs. Wilson is a woman diagnosed with an advanced cancer. Her husband had died from cancer ten years earlier. Her memories of the past include a very precocious chicken.

Essays of E.B. White by E.B. White
(nytimes.com) “In 1948, E. B. White wrote "Death of a Pig" which appeared in Atlantic Monthly, an oddly affecting account of how he failed to save the life of a sick pig, made ironic by the fact that the pig had been bought to act its part in the "tragedy" of the spring pig fattened for winter butchering. Since literature is not life, White set out in "Charlotte's Web" to save his pig in retrospect, this time not from an unexpected illness but from its presumably fated "tragedy."” 

Read “Death of a Pig” here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1948/01/death-pig/309203/

Dewey: The Small Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron

(amazon) How much of an impact can an animal have? How many lives can one cat touch? How is it possible for an abandoned kitten to transform a small library, save a classic American town, and eventually become famous around the world? You can't even begin to answer those questions until you hear the charming story of Dewey Readmore Books, the beloved library cat of Iowa.

Dewey's story starts in the worst possible way. Only a few weeks old, on the coldest night of the year, he was stuffed into the returned book slot at the Spencer Public Library. He was found the next morning by library director, Vicki Myron, a single mother who had survived the loss of her family farm, a breast cancer scare, and an alcoholic husband. Dewey won her heart, and the hearts of the staff, by pulling himself up and hobbling on frostbitten feet to nudge each of them in a gesture of thanks and love. For the next nineteen years, he never stopped charming the people of Spencer with his enthusiasm, warmth, humility, (for a cat) and, above all, his sixth sense about who needed him most.

As his fame grew from town to town, then state to state, and finally, amazingly, worldwide, Dewey became more than just a friend; he became a source of pride for an extraordinary Heartland farming town pulling its way slowly back from the greatest crisis in its long history.

What are YOU reading?