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Book Recommendations
November 2012 Meeting
Title
Anthropology of an American Girl
Author
Hilary Thayer Hamann
Number of Pages
592 pages
Review Detail
3.3 on Good Reads
Other Information
On Amazon for $15.39. Self-published in 2004 then re-released by a major publisher in 2010
Synopsis
This novel follows one girl as she grows up in an Eden she takes for granted with the solipsism of
youth. The actual place is the town of East Hampton on Long Island; the book's second half is set
for four hectic years in Manhattan during the early '80s, with all its sex and cocaine and money
and AIDS whirling in a merciless torrent of social change.
Recommended By
Madelyn
Title
Crossing to Safety
Author
Wallace Stegner
Number of Pages
335 pages
Review Detail
4.2 on Good Reads
Other Information
$10.88 on Amazon
Synopsis
The story, as related by the aged Larry Morgan, is one of marriage and of friendship. At its centre
are two couples: the Morgans, Larry and his angelic wife Sally; and the Langs, the weak but
charming Sid, and the vibrant and impossibly bossy Charity. It is Charity who starts the friendship
and who then dictates much of what ensues. Rich and confident as the Langs are not, she almost
literally sweeps them off their feet. As Larry says: "We straggled into Madison, western orphans,
and the Langs adopted us into their numerous, rich, powerful, reassuring tribe." In a virtuoso
scene – one of many – the Morgans find themselves basking in the Langs' golden light while
another, less fortunate couple can only glare in envy from the sidelines. Thus is a life-long
friendship born.
Recommended By
Madelyn
Title
The Best of Everything
Author
Rona Jaffe
Number of Pages
448 pages
Review Detail
3.7 on Good Reads
Other Information
Originally published in 1958.
Synopsis
Jaffe's book follows the lives of three young women making their way in New York City. Love,
sex, happiness and career goals all crash headlong into each other as the main characters find
their footing in the big city.
Recommended By
Madelyn
Pageturners: A Miami Book Club for Women (South)
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Title
Behind the beautiful forevers: life, death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity
Author
Katherine Boo
Number of Pages
244 pages
Review Detail
3.99 on Good Reads
Other Information
Used on Amazon for $10 + $4 shipping
Synopsis
Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and
as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and
enterprising Muslim teenager, sees “a fortune beyond counting” in the recyclable garbage that
richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a childhood in
rural poverty, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption. With a little
luck, her sensitive, beautiful daughter—Annawadi’s “most-everything girl”—will soon become its
first female college graduate. And even the poorest Annawadians, like Kalu, a fifteen-year-old
scrap-metal thief, believe themselves inching closer to the good lives and good times they call
“the full enjoy.”
Recommended By
Annica
Title
Give me the World
Author
Leila Hadley
Number of Pages
354 pages
Review Detail
Good Reads- 4.05 stars
Other Information
$14.95 from Amazon, or New from $5.75 or Used from $.01 + 3.99 shipping
Synopsis
At the age of twenty-five, Leila Hadley, bored with her New York PR job, buys two tickets aboard
a cargo ship headed for Hong Kong: one for herself and one for her six-year-old son Kippy. This
decision sets her life on an entirely new course. After Manila, Hong Kong, and Bangkok, their
travels take an unexpected turn: She meets four young men sailing their boat around the world,
and convinces them to let her and Kippy join them. Seal is thrilled to release the paperback
edition of this lush and richly evocative travel narrative, first published in 1958, in which Hadley
offers sensuous descriptions of the places she visits, as well as lively accounts of the people and
traditions. It’s not only the luminous vitality of her prose that makes this travelogue such a
pleasure to read but also the courage of her decision to toss expectations to the wind and
embrace all the adventures the world has to offer. Give Me the World is the gold standard by
which all travel memoirs are judged—it endures as an inspiration to the adventurer that lurks
within us all.
Recommended By
Barbara C.
Title
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
Author
Laura Hillenbrand
Number of Pages
496 pages
Good Reads - 4.47 stars; out of 85,325 ratings, 60% were 5 stars.
Review Detail
The New York Times Book Review - “Ambitious and powerful… Hillenbrand is intelligent and
restrained, and wise enough to let the story unfold for itself. Her research is thorough, her writing
crystalline. Unbroken is gripping in an almost cinematic way
Other Information
Amazon, $16.20, New from $10.69, plus $3.99 shipping, Used from $4.00, with $3.99 shipping.
Miami Dade Public Library- 42 copies
Pageturners: A Miami Book Club for Women (South)
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Synopsis
From Laura Hillenbrand, the bestselling author of Seabiscuit, comes Unbroken, the inspiring true
story of a man who lived through a series of catastrophes almost too incredible to be believed. In
evocative, immediate descriptions, Hillenbrand unfurls the story of Louie Zamperini--a juvenile
delinquent-turned-Olympic runner-turned-Army hero. During a routine search mission over the
Pacific, Louie’s plane crashed into the ocean, and what happened to him over the next three
years of his life is a story that will keep you glued to the pages, eagerly awaiting the next turn in
the story and fearing it at the same time. You’ll cheer for the man who somehow maintained his
selfhood and humanity despite the monumental degradations he suffered, and you’ll want to
share this book with everyone you know.
Recommended By
Barbara C.
Title
A Casual Vacancy
Author
JK Rowling
Number of Pages
503 pages
Review Detail
3.4 on Good Reads
Other Information
Synopsis
When Barry Fairbrother dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in
shock. Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient
abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at
war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils….
Pagford is not what it first seems. And the empty seat left by Barry on the town’s council soon
becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election
fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations? Blackly comic, thought-provoking and
constantly surprising, The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults.
Recommended By
Talia
Title
The Light Between Oceans
Author
Mil Stedman
Number of Pages
343 pages
Review Detail
4.1 on Good Reads
Other Information
Synopsis
After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes
a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this
isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season and shore leaves are granted every
other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two
miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has
washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby. Tom, whose records as a lighthouse
keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report
the man and infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom’s
judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel
return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice
has devastated one of them. M. L. Stedman’s mesmerizing, beautifully written novel seduces us
into accommodating Isabel’s decision to keep this “gift from God.” And we are swept into a story
about extraordinarily compelling characters seeking to find their North Star in a world where there
is no right answer, where justice for one person is another’s tragic loss.
Recommended By
Talia
Pageturners: A Miami Book Club for Women (South)
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Title
A Casual Vacancy
Author
JK Rowling
Number of Pages
503 pages
Review Detail
3.4 on Good Reads
Other Information
Synopsis
When Barry Fairbrother dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in
shock. Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient
abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at
war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils….
Pagford is not what it first seems. And the empty seat left by Barry on the town’s council soon
becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election
fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations? Blackly comic, thought-provoking and
constantly surprising, The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults.
Recommended By
Talia
Title
Years of Wonder
Author
Geraldine Brooks
Number of Pages
308 pages
Review Detail
4.0 on Good Reads
Other Information
Synopsis
When an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated village, a housemaid
named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. Through Anna's eyes we follow the
story of the fateful year of 1666, as she and her fellow villagers confront the spread of disease
and superstition. As death reaches into every household and villagers turn from prayers to
murderous witch-hunting, Anna must find the strength to confront the disintegration of her
community and the lure of illicit love. As she struggles to survive and grow, a year of catastrophe
becomes instead annus mirabilis, a "year of wonders."
Recommended By
Margit S.
Title
In the Garden of Beasts
Author
Erik Larson
Number of Pages
488 pages
Review Detail
3.7 on Good Reads
Other Information
Paperback, $10.88
Synopsis
The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador
to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history. A mild-mannered
professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At
first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third
Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence.
Enamored of the “New Germany,” she has one affair after another, including with the surprisingly
honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts,
confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely
indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the
press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds
Pageturners: A Miami Book Club for Women (South)
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and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance—and
ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler’s true character
and ruthless ambition.
Recommended By
Margit S.
Title
The Dovekeepers
Author
Alice Hoffman
Number of Pages
528 pages
Review Detail
Paperback, $10.88
Other Information
4.0 on Good Reads
Synopsis
Nearly two thousand years ago, nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of
Romans on Masada, a mountain in the Judean desert. According to the ancient historian
Josephus, two women and five children survived. Based on this tragic and iconic event,
Hoffman’s novel is a spellbinding tale of four extraordinarily bold, resourceful, and sensuous
women, each of whom has come to Masada by a different path. Yael’s mother died in childbirth,
and her father, an expert assassin, never forgave her for that death. Revka, a village baker’s
wife, watched the murder of her daughter by Roman soldiers; she brings to Masada her young
grandsons, rendered mute by what they have witnessed. Aziza is a warrior’s daughter, raised as
a boy, a fearless rider and expert marksman who finds passion with a fellow soldier. Shirah, born
in Alexandria, is wise in the ways of ancient magic and medicine, a woman with uncanny insight
and power.
Recommended By
Margit S.
Title
Life of Pi
Author
Yann Martel
Number of Pages
140 pages
Review Detail
3.8 on Good Reads
Other Information
Paperback, $8.86
The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a
fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America
aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes.
Synopsis
The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a
wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all
but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days
while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle,
never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story
and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story
much less fantastical, much more conventional--but is it more true?
Recommended By
Margit S.
Title
The Poisonwood Bible
Author
Barbara Kingsolver
Pageturners: A Miami Book Club for Women (South)
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Number of Pages
546 pages
Review Detail
3.9 on Good Reads
Other Information
$10.19 from Amazon
Synopsis
The phrase ''heart of darkness'' occurs only once, as far as I can tell, in Barbara Kingsolver's
haunting new novel, ''The Poisonwood Bible.'' When it does, it falls from the mouth of Orleanna
Price, a Baptist missionary's wife who uses it to describe not the Belgian Congo, where she, her
husband and their four daughters were posted in 1959, but the state of her marriage in those
days and the condition of what she calls ''the country once known as Orleanna Wharton,'' wholly
occupied back then by Nathan Price, aforesaid husband and man of God. Joseph Conrad's great
novella flickers behind her use of that phrase, and yet it doesn't. Orleanna is not a quoting
woman, and for the quoting man in the family, her strident husband, there can be only one source
-- the Bible, unambiguous and entire, even in a land that demonstrates daily the suppleness of
language. ''Tata Jesus is bangala!'' he shouts during his African sermons. It never occurs to him
that in Kikongo, a language in which meaning hangs on intonation, bangala may mean '''precious
and dear,'' but it also means the poisonwood tree -- a virulent local plant -- when spoken in the
flat accent of an American zealot.
The Prices are Nathan and Orleanna and their daughters: Ruth May, the youngest; Rachel, the
oldest, a pale blond Mrs. Malaprop of a teen-ager; and the twins, Leah and Adah. Both twins are
gifted, but Adah suffers from hemiplegia, which leaves her limping and nearly speechless. The
female members of the family narrate ''The Poisonwood Bible'' in turn. Orleanna does so in
retrospect, from her later years on Sanderling Island, off the coast of Georgia. The girls, however,
tell their story from the Congo as it happens, on the precipice of events, like an epistolary novel
written from a place with no postal service and no hope of pen pals.
Recommended By
Susan S.
Title
The God of Small Things
Author
Arundhati Roy
Number of Pages
321 pages
Review Detail
3.9 on Good Reads
Other Information
Winner of the Booker Prize
Synopsis
There is no single tragedy at the heart of Arundhati Roy's devastating first novel. Although ''The
God of Small Things'' opens with memories of a family grieving around a drowned child's coffin,
there are plenty of other intimate horrors still to come, and they compete for the reader's
sympathy with the furious energy of cats in a sack. Yet the quality of Ms. Roy's narration is so
extraordinary -- at once so morally strenuous and so imaginatively supple -- that the reader
remains enthralled all the way through to its agonizing finish.his ambitious meditation on the
decline and fall of an Indian family is part political fable, part psychological drama, part fairy tale,
and it begins at its chronological end, in a landscape of extravagant ruin. When 31-year-old
Rahel Kochamma returns to Ayemenem House, her former home in the south Indian state of
Kerala, its elegant windows are coated with filth and its brass doorknobs dulled with grease; dead
insects lie in the bottom of its empty vases. The only animated presence in the house seems to
be great-aunt Baby Kochamma's new television set -- in front of which she and her servant sit
day after day, munching peanuts. New York Times May 1997.
Recommended By
Susan S.
Pageturners: A Miami Book Club for Women (South)