PageTurners Read “About Schmidt”

About Schmidt
by Louis Begley
Proud, traditional, and impeccably organized, Albert Schmidt is a buttoned-down lawyer of the old school. But now, after years of careful management, his life is slowly unraveling. His beloved wife has recently died. He stumbles–or is he being pushed?–into early retirement. And his daughter, his only child, is planning to marry a man Schmidt cannot approve of, for reasons he can scarcely admit, even to himself. As Schmidt gropes for resolutions, he finds unexpected hope in an intense passion that comes out of the blue.

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The PageTurners Book Club met on Thursday, October 4 at 6 pm in the Bottom Shelf Room at the Rice Lake Public Library. Seven people attended the discussion. The general consensus was that the dialog was confusing, primarily because it didn’t use punctuation. No one was certain whether Schmidt was speaking to someone or thinking to himself.  Nobody was excited about this novel. The average score awarded to this book was  2.5 out of 5 books; the lowest score was a 2 / 5 and the highest score 3 / 5.

Click on the book graphic below to see a full recap of book club members’ opinions.

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About Schmidt by Louis Begley is available at the Rice Lake Public Library. There are over five copies of this book in the MORE System. Please visit the card catalog website or call us at 234-4861 to reserve a copy today.

PageTurners Read “The Fates Will Find Their Way”

The Fates Will Find Their Way
by Hannah Pittard

Sixteen-year-old Nora Lindell is missing. And the neighborhood boys she’s left behind are caught forever in the heady current of her absence. As the days and years pile up, the mystery of her disappearance grows kaleidoscopically. A collection of rumors, divergent suspicions, and tantalizing what-ifs, Nora Lindell’s story is a shadowy projection of teenage lust, friendship, reverence, and regret, captured magically in the disembodied plural voice of the boys who still long for her. Pittard’s  novel tracks the emotional progress of the sister Nora left behind, the other families in their leafy suburban enclave, and the individual fates of the boys in her thrall. Far more eager to imagine Nora’s fate than to scrutinize their own, the boys sleepwalk into an adulthood of jobs, marriages, families, homes, and daughters of their own, all the while pining for a girl–and a life–that no longer exists, except in the imagination.

The PageTurners Book Club met on Thursday, September 6 at 6 pm in the Bottom Shelf Room at the Rice Lake Public Library. Twelve people attended the discussion. The general consensus was that the situation described in the book was contrived and insipid. Nobody was enthused about this novel. The average score awarded to this book was  1.625 out of 5 books; the lowest score was a 1 / 5 and the highest score 2 / 5.

Click on the book graphic below to see a full recap of book club members’ opinions.

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The Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard is available at the Rice Lake Public Library. There are over ten copies of this book in the MORE System. Please visit the card catalog website or call us at 234-4861 to reserve a copy today.

PageTurners Read “The Language of Flowers”

The Language of Flowers
by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
The Victorian language of flowers was used to convey romantic expressions: honeysuckle for devotion, asters for patience, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it’s been more useful in communicating grief, mistrust, and solitude. After a childhood spent in the foster-care system, she is unable to get close to anybody, and her only connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings. Now eighteen and emancipated from the system, Victoria has nowhere to go and sleeps in a public park, where she plants a small garden of her own. Soon a local florist discovers her talents, and Victoria realizes she has a gift for helping others through the flowers she chooses for them. But a mysterious vendor at the flower market has her questioning what’s been missing in her life, and when she’s forced to confront a painful secret from her past, she must decide whether it’s worth risking everything for a second chance at happiness.

The PageTurners Book Club met on Thursday, June 7, at 6 pm in the Bottom Shelf Room at the Rice Lake Public Library. Six people attended the discussion. The average score awarded to this book was  3.83 out of 5 books; the lowest score was a 2.5 / 5 and the highest score 4.5 / 5.

Click on the book graphic below to see a full recap of book club members’ opinions.

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The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh is available at the Rice Lake Public Library. There over ten copies of this book in the MORE System. Please visit the card catalog website or call us at 234-4861 to reserve a copy today.

PageTurners Read “Hart’s War”

Hart’s War
by John Katzenbach
World War II was racially segregated, the lowliest jobs going to African American GIs. A distinguished few called the Tuskegee Airmen, however, became officers in the U.S. Air Force, escorting bombers in their lethal new longrange Mustang fighters. When proud, defiant First Lieutenant Lincoln Scott arrives at Stalag Luft Thirteen, he is subjected to hostile treatment by bigoted airmen who refuse to acknowledge that any black man can equal them in skill and courage. Scott’s persistent tormentor, Captain Vincent Befford, is soon found murdered. Honor, courage, and sacrifice are revealed in unexpected ways as a ranking U.S. prisoner in a Nazi POW camp is joined in December 1944 by a law-student lieutenant who’d been captured despite his father’s powerful military connections. When First Lieutenant Lincoln Scott is falsely accused of murdering fellow prisoner, Captain Vincent Befford, Second Lieutenant Tommy Hart, the only prisoner with any legal training, is appointed to defend him in a formal military trial observed by top- ranking German officers, who will furnish the firing squad when the defendant is almost certainly convicted.

The PageTurners Book Club met on Thursday, May 3, at 6 pm in the Bottom Shelf Room at the Rice Lake Public Library. Six people attended the discussion. The general consensus about the book was that it started slow but became more enjoyable once the mystery began. Several participants watched the movie in lieu of reading the book; it was agreed that the movie differed substantially from the book. The average score awarded to this book was  3.75 out of 5 books; the lowest score was a 3.5 / 5 and the highest score 4 / 5.

Click on the book graphic below to see a full recap of book club members’ opinions.

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Hart’s War by John Katzenbach is available at the Rice Lake Public Library. There over ten copies of this book in the MORE System. Please visit the card catalog website or call us at 234-4861 to reserve a copy today.

PageTurners Read “The Samurai’s Garden”

The Samurai’s Garden
Gail Tsukiyama
The daughter of a Chinese mother and a Japanese father, Tsukiyama uses the Japanese invasion of China during the late 1930s as a somber backdrop for her unusual story about a 20-year-old Chinese painter named Stephen who is sent to his family’s summer home in a Japanese coastal village to recover from a bout with tuberculosis. Here he is cared for by Matsu, a reticent housekeeper and a master gardener. Over the course of a remarkable year, Stephen learns Matsu’s secret and gains not only physical strength, but also profound spiritual insight. Matsu is a samurai of the soul, a man devoted to doing good and finding beauty in a cruel and arbitrary world, and Stephen is a noble student, learning to appreciate Matsu’s generous and nurturing way of life and to love Matsu’s soulmate, gentle Sachi, a woman afflicted with leprosy.

The PageTurners Book Club met on Thursday, April 12, at 6 pm in the Bottom Shelf Room at the Rice Lake Public Library. Seven people attended the discussion. The general consensus about the book was that it was well written and lyrical. The average score awarded to this book was  out of 5 books; the lowest score was a 4 / 5 and the highest score 4.5 / 5.

Click on the book graphic below to see a full recap of book club members’ opinions.

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The Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama is available at the Rice Lake Public Library. There over ten copies of this book in the MORE System. Please visit the card catalog website or call us at 234-4861 to reserve a copy today.

The PageTurners Book Club is sponsored by the Friends of the Rice Lake Public Library. It usually meets on the first Thursday of each month at 6 pm at the Rice Lake Public Library. Discussion lasts an hour; everyone is welcome.

PageTurners Read “Passing Strange”

Passing Strange : a Gilded Age Tale of love and Deception Across the Color Line
by Martha A. Sandweiss
Clarence King is a hero of nineteenth-century western history. Brilliant scientist and witty conversationalist, bestselling author and architect of the great surveys that mapped the West after the Civil War, King hid a secret from his Gilded Age cohorts and prominent Newport family: for thirteen years he lived a double life–as the celebrated white Clarence King and as a black Pullman porter and steelworker. Unable to marry the black woman he loved, the fair-haired, blue-eyed King passed as a Negro, revealing his secret to his wife Ada only on his deathbed. Historian Martha Sandweiss is the first writer to uncover the life that King tried so hard to conceal. She reveals the complexity of a man who, while publicly espousing a personal dream of a uniquely American amalgam of white and black, hid his love for his wife and their five biracial children.

The PageTurners Book Club met on Thursday, March 1, at 6 pm in the Bottom Shelf Room at the Rice Lake Public Library. Seven people attended the discussion. The general consensus about the book was that the author spent too much time on describing Clarence King’s career, and not enough time on his marriage. The average score awarded to this book was 3.25 out of 5 books; the lowest score was a 3 / 5 and the highest score 4 / 5.

Click on the book graphic below to see a full recap of book club members’ opinions.

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Passing Strange by Martha A. Sandweiss is available at the Rice Lake Public Library. There are several copies of this book in the MORE System. Please visit the card catalog website or call us at 234-4861 to reserve a copy today.

The PageTurners Book Club is sponsored by the Friends of the Rice Lake Public Library. It usually meets on the first Thursday of each month at 6 pm at the Rice Lake Public Library. Discussion lasts an hour; everyone is welcome.

PageTurners Read “Lord of the Flies”

Lord of the Flies
William Golding

At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate. This far from civilization they can do anything they want. Anything. But as order collapses, as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins its reign, the hope of adventure seems as far removed from reality as the hope of being rescued… This work is a frightening parody on man’s return (in a few weeks) to that state of darkness from which it took him thousands of years to emerge.

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The PageTurners Book Club met on Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 6 pm. Nine people attended. Discussion lasted an hour; at times it was heated as participants debated the merits of this classic novel. The average rating was 2.9 / 5 books; the lowest rating was a 1, and the highest was a 4.

Click on the book graphic below to see a full recap of book club members’ opinions.

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Lord of the Flies by William Golding is available at the Rice Lake Public Library. There are over ten copies of this book in the MORE System. Please visit the card catalog website or call us at 234-4861 to reserve a copy today.

The PageTurners Book Club is sponsored by the Friends of the Rice Lake Public Library. It usually meets on the first Thursday of each month at 6 pm at the Rice Lake Public Library. Discussion lasts an hour; everyone is welcome.

PageTurners Read “Holidays on Ice”

Holidays on Ice
David Sedaris
Holidays on Ice is a collection of stories and creative essays by Sedaris with a common Christmas theme.  David Sedaris’s dark humor is evident in “Seasons Greetings to Our Friends and Family!!!” a parody of the relentlessly cheerful holiday letters written by thousands of people extolling the virtues of their dubious brood. “Front Row Center with Thaddeus Bristol,” is a vicious theatrical review of children’s Christmas pageants. Sedaris explores some of his own holiday memories in “Dinah, the Christmas Whore” and ”SantaLand Diaries”.

The PageTurners Book Club met on Thursday, December 8, at 6 pm in the Bottom Shelf Room at the Rice Lake Public Library. Five people attended the discussion. The general consensus about the book was that Sedaris walked a fine line between hilarious and offensive with these stories. The average score awarded to this book was 3.2 out of 5 books; the lowest score was a 2 / 5 and the highest score 4 / 5.

Click on the book graphic below to see a full recap of book club members’ opinions.

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Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris is available at the Rice Lake Public Library. There are over ten copies of this book in the MORE System. Please visit the card catalog website or call us at 234-4861 to reserve a copy today.

The PageTurners Book Club is sponsored by the Friends of the Rice Lake Public Library. It usually meets on the first Thursday of each month at 6 pm at the Rice Lake Public Library. Discussion lasts an hour; everyone is welcome.

PageTurners Read “The Ghost at the Table”

The Ghost at the Table
by Suzanne Berne

Rival sisters search for family truths over a Thanksgiving holiday. Frances Fiske longs for harmony and decides to host a blowout dinner to reunite her estranged family. Out of pity and a sense of obligation, Cynthia Fiske flies east from her sequestered life as a writer to join in her sister’s feast. But in her quest for unity, Frances packs the house with high-wattage conflict, for when three generations of the Fiske family gather, tempers flair and skeletons begin tumbling out of closets.

Five people attended the discussion of this book on Thursday, November 10 at 6 pm. The consensus was that the family dynamics were intriguing and realistic. The average rating was 3.43 out of 5; the lowest score was a 3 and the lowest was a 4.

Click on the book graphic below to see a full recap of book club members’ opinions.

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The Ghost at the Table by Suzanne Berne is available at the Rice Lake Public Library. There are over ten copies of this book in the MORE System. Please visit the card catalog website or call us at 234-4861 to reserve a copy today.

The PageTurners Book Club is sponsored by the Friends of the Rice Lake Public Library. It usually meets on the first Thursday of each month at 6 pm at the Rice Lake Public Library. Discussion lasts an hour; everyone is welcome.

PageTurners Read “Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter”

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
Tom Franklin

Silas “32″ Jones and Larry Ott were great friends for a few brief months in their childhood. Unfortunately, this wasn’t to last. Suspicion is cast upon Larry when a girl goes missing who was last seen with him. Silas moved away to pursue his dreams of playing baseball and Larry remained, convicted but not in prison. Twenty five years later, a new mystery draws them together again. Another girl is missing, and everyone seems to think Larry caused it. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter explores the thin line between friendship and hatred.

The PageTurners Book Club met on Thursday, October 6 at 6 pm at the Rice Lake Public Library to discuss this book. Six people attended.

Click on the book graphic below to see a full recap of book club members’ opinions.

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Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin is available at the Rice Lake Public Library. There are over ten copies of this book in the MORE System. Please visit the card catalog website or call us at 234-4861 to reserve a copy today.

The PageTurners Book Club is sponsored by the Friends of the Rice Lake Public Library. It usually meets on the first Thursday of each month at 6 pm at the Rice Lake Public Library. Discussion lasts an hour; everyone is welcome.