First Tuesday Book Club, Tue 6/5/18 at 6:30 pm, Visalia Library

 

First Tuesday Book Club

Still Time by Jean Hegland

June 5th, 2018 | 6:30 pm

This novel is shaped through lines from the plays of Shakespeare. The protagonist has spent his life teaching Shakespeare’s works as a university professor which gives meaning to the damaged relationship with his daughter and his confused desire to reconnect with her.

Book Club, Tue 5/1 6:30 pm, Visalia Library

 

Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant living in Harlem, has come to the United States to provide a better life for himself, his wife, Neni, and their six-year-old son. In the fall of 2007, Jende can hardly believe his luck when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Clark demands punctuality, discretion, and loyalty—and Jende is eager to please.

However, the world of great power and privilege conceals troubling secrets, and soon Jende and Neni notice cracks in their employers’ façades. As all four lives are dramatically upended, Jende and Neni are forced to make an impossible choice.

Book Club, 6:30 pm Tues 1/2/18, Visalia Library

First Tuesday Book Club

January 2, 2018

6:30 pm in the Blue Room

 

The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman is a captivating, beautiful, and stunningly accomplished debut novel that opens in 1918 Australia - the story of a lighthouse keeper and his wife who make one devastating choice that forever changes two worlds.  For more information call 559-713-2703.

Book Club, 'Epitaph for a Peach', Tue 6/6 at 6:30, Visalia Library

First Tuesday Book Club

Epitaph for a Peach by Mas Masumoto

June 6th at 6:30 pm

Visalia Branch Library

 

 

“Del Rey-area peach grower David Mas Masumoto’s “Epitaph for a Peach” is at once a contemporary look at Valley agriculture and a look back at the ties that bind farmers to their land. But it’s so much more. His seductive, spare-prose style invites readers to share his observations and emotions but doesn’t preach. Masumoto’s brilliant descriptions about the seasonal looks and sounds and smells of Valley farming remind the reader of Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence.” —Fresno Bee Book Review

Dreamland, 5/2 at 6:30, Visalia Library

First Tuesday Book Club

Dreamland by Sam Quinones

May 2nd at 6:30 pm

Visalia Branch Library

 

 

“Journalist Quinones weaves an extraordinary story, including the personal journeys of the addicted, the drug traffickers, law enforcement, and scores of families affected by the scourge, as he details the social, economic, and political forces that eventually destroyed communities in the American heartland and continues to have a resounding impact.” ―Booklist

 

 

 

 

Book Club - 4/4 at 6:30 pm - Green Grass, Running Water

 

First Tuesday Book Club

Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King

April 4th at 6:30 pm

Visalia Branch Library

 

Strong, sassy women and hard-luck hardheaded men, all searching for the middle ground between Native American tradition and the modern world, perform an elaborate dance of approach and avoidance in this magical, rollicking tale by Cherokee author Thomas King.

Alberta, a university professor, would like to trade her two boyfriends for a baby but no husband; Lionel is forty and still sells televisions for a patronizing boss; Eli and his log cabin stand in the way of a profitable dam project. These three—and others—are coming to the Blackfoot reservation for the Sun Dance and there they encounter four Indian elders and their companion, the trickster Coyote—and nothing in the small town of Blossom will be the same again…

First Tuesday Book Club, 3/7/17, Americanah

 

First Tuesday Book Club

March 7th at 6:30

Visalia Branch Library

Americanah approaches the questions of racial and cultural identity from a unique perspective. Ifemelu and Obinze are not the deprived immigrants of our automatic assumptions. Nor are they Black Americans with a lifelong knowledge of racial bias and discrimination. Nigerians, middle class, intelligent and educated, they fall in love in high school, then travel different paths into Western culture. Ifemelu earns a scholarship to study at an American college and Obinze plans to join her after his university graduation. When denied a U.S. visa, he ends up in London where he suffers the degradations and dangers of an illegal immigrant including eventual deportation. Ifemelu encounters many of the same indignities in her quest to succeed in America. After time she seems to overcome them, but then one day, after being complimented on her American accent, her identity maybe lost. Facing the possibility of being labeled as a pretentious ‘Americanah,’ Ifemelu nonetheless returns home.

Fifteen years after the couple separated, Ifemelu and Obinze reunite in Nigeria. Braided through post war Nigeria, American academia and the gritty streets of London, their love story for each other and their native land makes Americanah a compelling novel. Written by award winning Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and one of The New York Times ten best books of the year, Americanah won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction.

 

Book Club 2/7 - A Man Called Ove

“This charming debut novel by Backman should find a ready audience with English-language readers… hysterically funny… wry descriptions, excellent pacing… In the contest of Most Winning Combination, it would be hard to beat grumpy Ove and his hidden, generous heart.” -Kirkus Reviews
“A funny crowd-pleaser that serves up laughs to accompany a thoughtful reflection on loss and love… The author writes with winning charm.” -Publishers Weekly, starred review

First Tuesday Book Club - 12/6 at 6:30 pm - The Whistling Season

Come by the library and pick up your FREE copy of the book and then join us on December 6th to discuss the book!

“Set in the early 1900s, this novel is a nostalgic, bittersweet story about a widower, his three sons, and the year these boys spend in a one-room country schoolhouse… This is an affectionate, heartwarming tale that also celebrates a vanished way of life and laments its passing.” -Patrick Sullivan, Library Journal Reviews, 2006

First Tuesday Book Club, Epitaph, 11/01 at 6:30 pm

First Tuesday Book Club

Epitaph by Mary Doria Russell

November 1, 6:30 pm

 

Mary Doria Russell, the bestselling, award-winning author of The Sparrow, makes her Ecco debut with Epitaph—an American Iliad, this richly detailed and meticulously researched historical novel continues the story she began in Doc, following Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday to Tombstone, Arizona, and to the gunfight at the O.K. Corral
A deeply divided nation. Vicious politics. A shamelessly partisan media. A president loathed by half the populace. Smuggling and gang warfare along the Mexican border. Armed citizens willing to stand their ground and take law into their own hands...
That was America in 1881.
All those forces came to bear on the afternoon of October 26th when Doc Holliday and the Earp brothers faced of...f against the Clantons and the McLaurys in Tombstone, Arizona. It should have been a simple misdemeanor arrest. Thirty seconds and thirty bullets later, three officers were wounded and three citizens lay dead in the dirt.
Wyatt Earp was the last man standing, the only one unscathed. The lies began before the smoke cleared, but the gunfight at the O.K. Corral would soon become central to American beliefs about the Old West.
Epitaph tells Wyatt’s real story, unearthing the Homeric tragedy buried under 130 years of mythology, misrepresentation, and sheer indifference to fact. Epic and intimate, this novel gives voice to the real men and women whose lives were changed forever by those fatal 30 seconds in Tombstone. At its heart is the woman behind the myth: Josephine Sarah Marcus, who loved Wyatt Earp for forty-nine years and who carefully chipped away at the truth until she had crafted the heroic legend that would become the epitaph her husband deserved - www.goodreads.com

 

First Tuesday Book Club, 10/4 at 6:30 pm - A Tree Grows In Brooklyn

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a 1943 novel written by Betty Smith. The story focuses on an impoverished but aspirational, second-generation Irish-American, adolescent girl and her family in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City, during the first two decades of the 20th century - wikipedia.org

First Tuesday Book Club, 10/4 at 6:30 - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a 1943 novel written by Betty Smith. The story focuses on an impoverished but aspirational, second-generation Irish-American, adolescent girl and her family in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City, during the first two decades of the 20th century - wikipedia.org

Come by the Reference Desk (559-713-2703) and check out a copy of the book for FREE!

First Tuesday Book Club, September 6th, 2016, at 6:30, The Silent Sister by Diane Chamberlain

Drop by the Visalia Branch and pick up a FREE copy to read!

First Tuesday Book Club, May 3

For May, we're reading The Bartender's Tale by Ivan Doig.

Summary: Tom Harry has a streak of frost in his black pompadour and a venerable bar called The Medicine Lodge, the chief watering hole and last refuge of the town of Gros Ventre, in northern Montana. Tom also has a son named Rusty, an “accident between the sheets” whose mother deserted them both years ago.The pair make an odd kind of family, with the bar their true home, but they manage just fine. 

Until the summer of 1960, that is, when Rusty  turns twelve. Change arrives with gale force, in the person of Proxy, a taxi dancer Tom knew back when, and her beatnik daughter, Francine. Is Francine, as Proxy claims, the unsuspected legacy of her and Tom’s past? Without a doubt she is an unsettling gust of the future, upending every certainty in Rusty’s life and generating a mist of passion and pretense that seems to obscure everyone’s vision but his own. As Rusty struggles to decipher the oddities of adult behavior and the mysteries build toward a reckoning, Ivan Doig wonderfully captures how the world becomes bigger and the past becomes more complex in the last moments of childhood.

We are meeting in the Visalia Branch Blue Room to discuss this book on May 3 from 6:30 pm - 7:45 pm.

First Tuesday Book Club, April 5

For April, we're reading On the Beach by Nevil Shute.

Summary: After a nuclear World War III has destroyed most of the globe, the few remaining survivors in southern Australia await the radioactive cloud that is heading their way and bringing certain death to everyone in its path. Among them is an American submarine captain struggling to resist the knowledge that his wife and children in the United States must be dead. Then a faint Morse code signal is picked up, transmitting from somewhere near Seattle, and Captain Towers must lead his submarine crew on a bleak tour of the ruined world in a desperate search for signs of life. Both terrifying and intensely moving, On the Beach is a remarkably convincing portrait of how ordinary people might face the most unimaginable nightmare.

We are meeting in the Visalia Branch Blue Room to discuss this book on April 5 from 6:30 pm - 7:45 pm.

First Tuesday Book Club, March 1

For March, we're reading The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein.

Summary: 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. On the eve of his death, Enzo takes stock of his life, recalling all that he and his family have been through.

A heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope, The Art of Racing in the Rain is a beautifully crafted and captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life...as only a dog could tell it.

We are meeting in the Visalia Branch Blue Room to discuss this book on March 1 from 6:30pm - 7:45pm.

First Tuesday Book Club, February 2

For February, we're reading In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson.

Summary: Every time Bill Bryson walks out the door, memorable travel literature threatens to break out. His previous excursion along the Appalachian Trail resulted in the sublime national bestsellerA Walk in the Woods. In A Sunburned Country is his report on what he found in an entirely different place: Australia, the country that doubles as a continent, and a place with the friendliest inhabitants, the hottest, driest weather, and the most peculiar and lethal wildlife to be found on the planet. The result is a deliciously funny, fact-filled, and adventurous performance by a writer who combines humor, wonder, and unflagging curiousity.

Despite the fact that Australia harbors more things that can kill you in extremely nasty ways than anywhere else, including sharks, crocodiles, snakes, even riptides and deserts, Bill Bryson adores the place, and he takes his readers on a rollicking ride far beyond that beaten tourist path. Wherever he goes he finds Australians who are cheerful, extroverted, and unfailingly obliging, and these beaming products of land with clean, safe cities, cold beer, and constant sunshine fill the pages of this wonderful book. Australia is an immense and fortunate land, and it has found in Bill Bryson its perfect guide.

We are meeting in the Visalia Branch Blue Room to discuss this book on February 2 from 6:30pm - 7:45pm.

First Tuesday Book Club, January 5

For January, we're reading Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler.

Summary: A tale inspired by the marriage of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald follows their union in defiance of her father's opposition and her abandonment of the provincial finery of her upbringing in favor of a scandalous flapper identity that gains her entry into the literary party scenes of New York, Paris and the French Riviera.

We are meeting in the Visalia Branch Blue Room to discuss this book on January 5 from 6:30pm - 7:45pm.

First Tuesday Book Club, December 1

For December, we're reading Brave New World: with the essay "Brave New World Revisited" by Aldous Huxley.

Summary: Huxley's vision of the future comes to life in his astonishing 1931 novel Brave New World--a world of tomorrow in which capitalist civilization has been reconstituted through the most efficient scientific and psychological engineering--and its sequel, written thirty years after his classic novel of the future, in which Huxley describes the shocking scientific devices and techniques available to any group in a position to manipulate society. 

We will be meeting in the Visalia Branch Blue Room to discuss this book on December 1 from 6:30pm - 7:45pm.

First Tuesday Book Club, November 3

For November, we're reading 1984 by George Orwell.  

Summary: Published in 1949, 1984 was George Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the future as a warning about the menaces of totalitarianism. The novel is set in an imaginary future world that is dominated by three perpetually warring totalitarian police states. The book's hero, Winston Smith, is a minor party functionary in one of these states. His longing for truth and decency leads him to secretly rebel against the government. Smith has a love affair with a like-minded woman, but they are both arrested by the Thought Police. The ensuing imprisonment, torture, and reeducation of Smith are intended not merely to break him physically or make him submit but to root out his independent mental existence and his spiritual dignity.  

We will be meeting in the Visalia Branch Blue Room to discuss this book on November 3 from 6:30pm - 7:45pm.