The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley - August CC Book Club Selection

[Mary13]

Thanks for all the great suggestions! I have listed 10 books. A few more were mentioned above, but I think conversationally rather than as “nominees.” Let me know if I’m wrong about that.

The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne.

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth and It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

American War by Omar El Akkad

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout

How To Stop Time by Matt Haig

I would happily read any of the above. (I don’t know if my algorithms are screwed up, but I can only find American War on Amazon in Italian and French.)

I like the sound of The Great Believers – partly because it’s subject matter we have never tackled (the AIDS epidemic in the 80’s). Really though, I’m up for anything.

Any vetoes / swaps / additions? We’ll need to strike some titles, so don’t be shy.

[Midwest67]

Female Persuasion was mentioned upthread, but didn’t make the list @Mary13

This round, I’m least interested in Middlemarch & Roth/Lewis.

Need to do some Googling on the others.

[SouthJerseyChessMom]

Hearts invisible furies

Named Book of the MonthClub’s Book of the Year, 2017
Selected one of New York Times Readers’ Favorite Books of 2017

From the beloved New York Times bestselling author of The Boy In the Striped Pajamas, a sweeping, heartfelt saga about the course of one man’s life, beginning and ending in post-war Ireland

Cyril Avery is not a real Avery – or at least, that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he?

Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead. At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from - and over his many years, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country, and much more.

In this, Boyne’s most transcendent work to date, we are shown the story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of one ordinary man. The Heart’s Invisible Furies is a novel to make you laugh and cry.

[SouthJerseyChessMom]

Plot against America

Never more relevant than now, this national bestseller will challenge all who believe that “it can’t happen here.”

“A terrific political novel . . . Sinister, vivid, dreamlike . . . creepily plausible. . . You turn the pages, astonished and frightened.” — The New York Times Book Review

In an extraordinary feat of narrative invention, Philip Roth imagines an alternate history where Franklin D. Roosevelt loses the 1940 presidential election to heroic aviator and rabid isolationist Charles A. Lindbergh. Shortly thereafter, Lindbergh negotiates a cordial “understanding” with Adolf Hitler, while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism.

For one boy growing up in Newark, Lindbergh’s election is the first in a series of ruptures that threaten to destroy his small, safe corner of America–and with it, his mother, his father, and his older brother.

[SouthJerseyChessMom]

The Immortalist

If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life?

It’s 1969 in New York City’s Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children—four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness—sneak out to hear their fortunes.

The prophecies inform their next five decades. Golden-boy Simon escapes to the West Coast, searching for love in '80s San Francisco; dreamy Klara becomes a Las Vegas magician, obsessed with blurring reality and fantasy; eldest son Daniel seeks security as an army doctor post-9/11; and bookish Varya throws herself into longevity research, where she tests the boundary between science and immortality.

A sweeping novel of remarkable ambition and depth, The Immortalists probes the line between destiny and choice, reality and illusion, this world and the next. It is a deeply moving testament to the power of story, the nature of belief, and the unrelenting pull of familial bonds.

[SouthJerseyChessMom]

Little Fires Everywhere

From the bestselling author of Everything I Never Told You, a riveting novel that traces the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives.

In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned – from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.

Enter Mia Warren – an enigmatic artist and single mother – who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town–and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia’s past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs.

Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhood – and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster.

Perfect for book clubs! Visit celesteng.com for discussion guides and more.

[SouthJerseyChessMom]

American War

An audacious and powerful debut novel: a second American Civil War, a devastating plague, and one family caught deep in the middle—a story that asks what might happen if America were to turn its most devastating policies and deadly weapons upon itself.

Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, and that unmanned drones fill the sky. When her father is killed and her family is forced into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she begins to grow up shaped by her particular time and place. But not everyone at Camp Patience is who they claim to be. Eventually Sarat is befriended by a mysterious functionary, under whose influence she is turned into a deadly instrument of war. The decisions that she makes will have tremendous consequences not just for Sarat but for her family and her country, rippling through generations of strangers and kin alike.

[SouthJerseyChessMom]

The great Believers

In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico’s funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico’s little sister.

Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago crisis, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways AIDS affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. The two intertwining stories take us through the heartbreak of the eighties and the chaos of the modern world, as both Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster.

[SouthJerseyChessMom]

Middlemarch

Set during the early part of the 19th century, George Eliot’s “Middlemarch” is a work of epic scope that centers on the intersecting lives of the inhabitants of the fictitious titular town of Middlemarch. The themes of the novel are as numerous as its characters. Through the narrative of the story the author addresses the status of women, the nature of marriage, politics, religion, and education in the 19th century. The story is principally concerned with the lives of Dorothea Brooke, an energetic, intelligent, wealthy young woman and of Tertius Lydgate, an idealistic, talented, yet naïve young doctor. Strong parallels can be drawn between the two characters; they both have great aspirations in their work and find themselves in marriages in which they are not happy with. In addition, numerous sub-plots draw together the lives of the inhabitants of the town. Considered one of the great achievements of English literature, George Eliot’s “Middlemarch” was immensely popular upon its original publication and remains to this day one of the finest examples of the author’s prolific and accomplished literary career. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.

[SouthJerseyChessMom]

Anything is Possible

Recalling Olive Kitteridge in its richness, structure, and complexity, Anything Is Possible explores the whole range of human emotion through the intimate dramas of people struggling to understand themselves and others.

Here are two sisters: One trades self-respect for a wealthy husband while the other finds in the pages of a book a kindred spirit who changes her life. The janitor at the local school has his faith tested in an encounter with an isolated man he has come to help; a grown daughter longs for mother love even as she comes to accept her mother’s happiness in a foreign country; and the adult Lucy Barton (the heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton, the author’s celebrated New York Times bestseller) returns to visit her siblings after seventeen years of absence.

Reverberating with the deep bonds of family, and the hope that comes with reconciliation, Anything Is Possible again underscores Elizabeth Strout’s place as one of America’s most respected and cherished authors.

[SouthJerseyChessMom]

How To Stop Time

Tom Hazard has just moved back to London, his old home, to settle down and become a high school history teacher. And on his first day at school, he meets a captivating French teacher at his school who seems fascinated by him. But Tom has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he’s been alive for centuries. Tom has lived history–performing with Shakespeare, exploring the high seas with Captain Cook, and sharing cocktails with Fitzgerald. Now, he just wants an ordinary life.

Unfortunately for Tom, the Albatross Society, the secretive group which protects people like Tom, has one rule: Never fall in love. As painful memories of his past and the erratic behavior of the Society’s watchful leader threaten to derail his new life and romance, the one thing he can’t have just happens to be the one thing that might save him. Tom will have to decide once and for all whether to remain stuck in the past, or finally begin living in the present.

How to Stop Time tells a love story across the ages—and for the ages—about a man lost in time, the woman who could save him, and the lifetimes it can take to learn how to live. It is a bighearted, wildly original novel about losing and finding yourself, the inevitability of change, and how with enough time to learn, we just might find happiness.

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Benedict Cumberbatch.

[SouthJerseyChessMom]

Can you tell I like my screaming fast new IPad 6th generation- big upgrade from my iPad 2 so copying and pasting from Amazon was so fast and easy. No reason for all of us to spend the time when I can play with my new toy.

Here is the one mentioned up thread , not on official list, but Pretty sure section 5828 of the bylaws allows more than 10 options. Of course, this is our amazing leader, Mary13’s decision .

The Female Persuasion

From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Interestings, an electric novel not just about who we want to be with, but who we want to be.

To be admired by someone we admire - we all yearn for this: the private, electrifying pleasure of being singled out by someone of esteem. But sometimes it can also mean entry to a new kind of life, a bigger world.

Greer Kadetsky is a shy college freshman when she meets the woman she hopes will change her life. Faith Frank, dazzlingly persuasive and elegant at sixty-three, has been a central pillar of the women’s movement for decades, a figure who inspires others to influence the world. Upon hearing Faith speak for the first time, Greer- madly in love with her boyfriend, Cory, but still full of longing for an ambition that she can’t quite place- feels her inner world light up. And then, astonishingly, Faith invites Greer to make something out of that sense of purpose, leading Greer down the most exciting path of her life as it winds toward and away from her meant-to-be love story with Cory and the future she’d always imagined.

Charming and wise, knowing and witty, Meg Wolitzer delivers a novel about power and influence, ego and loyalty, womanhood and ambition. At its heart, The Female Persuasion is about the flame we all believe is flickering inside of us, waiting to be seen and fanned by the right person at the right time. It’s a story about the people who guide and the people who follow (and how those roles evolve over time), and the desire within all of us to be pulled into the light.

[ignatius]

With apologies to @jollymama, I’m striking Anything Is Possible. It’s a grouping of (depressing) interconnected short stories. I missed the “anything is possible” message and just wanted everyone put out of their misery - including myself. On the other hand, I read My Name Is Lucy Barton and really liked it.

Maybe I won’t strike it after all. Obviously I missed something. You guys could help me realize what it is (though I won’t read it again to find out.)

[psychmom]

@SouthJerseyChessMom, Thank you for posting those summaries…will look through them later today!

[jollymama]

May I strike Plot against America? I don’t think I could stomach a fictional dystopia while living through a real-life one!

There’s a lot to like in the list above (my thanks, too, to @SouthJerseyChessMom ). The only one that calls out to me strongly is Middlemarch, but I’ve read it several times already, and I do acknowledge it would make a better curl-up-in-winter book. Glad to keep it on the back burner.

[ignatius]

I’m being difficult this morning but do y’all realize that The Plot Against America is 400 pages and It Can’t Happen Here is 331? That’s 731 pages, otherwise known as a heck of a lot. Usually at least one book in our duos is short but not always. This isn’t a veto but a heads up - ahead of time. I’m good to go with any of the books, except with strong reservations re Anything Is Possible. More agree with @jollymama though if you look at Goodreads. I don’t understand it [-( but tis a fact.

[VeryHappy]

@SouthJerseyChessMom: That was so helpful!!

In no particular order, I would be in favor of *The Female Persuasion/i, Heart’s Invisible Furies, The Immortalist, The Great Believers and How to Stop Time. I am not a tremendous fan of Elizabeth Strout nor of short stories, so I’m pretty negative about that one.

[AnAsmom]

I want to second(third?) The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin. It was going to be one of my suggestions.

May I add one more suggestion to the list or is it too late? I was all set to post yesterday but then a family emergency got me distracted.
A friend recommended Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi as a good read and it is on my reading list for this month. It would be nice to read it as a group. I apologize if it has been already read and discussed — I haven’t checked the past threads yet.
I’m okay with most of the books suggested above except for Roth/Lewis combo — not quite ready to delve into dystopia again.

[jollymama]

@AnAsmom , I am a huge fan of Homegoing. My husband met the author’s parents, for what that’s worth. Well, nothing, but it’s a great book.

[CBBBlinker]

@Mary13 - I was actually suggesting “Waking Lions” as a possible read. (Guess I was too obtuse.) Ultimately it doesn’t matter to me since I’ve already read it …

As always. I’m up for most anything. I will say, though, that a duo of 731 pages is most likely not doable for me. I’ve got the above mentioned Books on the Beach, which is every 2 weeks, PLUS there’s golf to be played – lots of golf!