FIND A GOOD BOOK AND LET IT SNOW!

Nothing goes better with swirling snow out the window than an intriguing book in the hand.  Compound your enjoyment by sharing your thoughts about our Book Club selection at our Zoom discussion.  Scheduled for 6 PM the second Tuesday of every-other month, we will meet on January 12.  As always, everyone is invited to tune in to the Zoom Book Club and offer thoughts, or just listen even if you have not read the current title.

Books selected are available from Yakima Valley Libraries, often in hardcopy and electronic versions.  They are also out in paperback and available through Inklings Bookshop at a “Book Club Member” discount.  For instructions to connect to our Zoom gathering, watch your email for the UUCY Weekly Update sent the Thursday prior to our discussion.

Our January selection, Last Bus to Wisdom, provides relief from the grim reality of our more recent choices.  Set in the rural west of the 1950s, Last Bus to Wisdom offers a “charming, wise, and slyly funny” view of a young man trying to find a place. This final book of honored Montana author, Ivan Doig, was named a Best Book of the Year by the Seattle Times and Kirkus Review. Enjoy!

January 12, 2021: Last Bus to Wisdom by Ivan Doig 

Young Donal Cameron is sent off from Montana to his great-Aunt in Wisconsin.  He is in for a rude surprise as his free-roaming habits are challenged by Aunt Kate’s bossy, opinionated, argumentative, and tyrannical expectations.  She henpecks her good-natured husband, Herman the German, and Donal can’t seem to get on her good side. After one contretemps too many, Kate packs him back to the authorities in Montana on the next Greyhound. But as it turns out, Donal isn’t traveling solo: Herman the German has decided to fly the coop with him. In the immortal American tradition, the pair light out for the territory together, meeting a classic Doigian ensemble of characters and having rollicking misadventures along the way.

“Last Bus to Wisdom is a deeply humane coming-of-age tale set in the early 1950s…Forever the master of colorful characters and landscapes reflecting the vastness and vulnerability of the human heart, Doig has left us with a rollicking road trip filled with both.” –Seattle Times

March 9, 2021: Simon the Fiddler by Paulette Jiles

Set at the end of the Civil War, this novel follows Simon, an itinerant fiddle player trying to make a living, and Doris, the charming young Irish lass who steals his heart.  Simon and Doris go their separate ways as he travels around Texas seeking fame and fortune as a musician, and Doris must finish her three years of service. But Simon cannot forget the fair Irish maiden, and vows that someday he will find her again.

“The reader is treated to a kind of alchemy on the page when character, setting and song converge at all the right notes, generating an authentic humanity that is worth remembering and celebrating.” — New York Times

(Book information adapted from web pages for Inklings Bookshop and Yakima Valley Libraries.)

TEN-PLUS YEARS of UUCY BOOK CLUB SELECTIONS

November, 2020 – Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann. Nonfiction.

September, 2020 – The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald.  Humorous Fiction.

July, 2020 – The Overstory by Richard Powers. Fiction.

May, 2020 – Scythe by Neal Shusterman. Dystopian Fiction.

March, 2020 – Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. Historical Fiction

January, 2020 – Educated by Tara Westover. Memoir

November, 2019- Manhattan Beach, A Novel, Jennifer Egan, Historical Fiction

September, 2019- Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng, Fiction

July, 2019-A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles, Historical Fiction

May, 2019-The Underground Railroad: A Novel, Colson Whitehead, Fiction
March, 2019-The One-in-a Million Boy, Monica Wood, Fiction
January, 2019-The Other Einstein: A Novel, Marie Benedict, Historical Fiction
November, 2018-A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole, Fiction
September, 2018-White Trash: The 400-year Untold History of Class in America, Nancy Isenberg, Nonfiction
July, 2018-Beartown, Fredrik Backman, Fiction
May, 2018- H is for Hawk, Helen MacDonald, Memoir
March, 2018-The Invention of Wings, Sue Monk Kidd, Fiction
January, 2018-Orhan’s Inheritance, Aline Ohanesian, Fiction
November, 2017-Await Your Reply, Dan Chaon, Fiction
September, 2017-You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me, Sherman Alexie, Memoir
July, 2017-My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry, Fredrik Backman, Fiction
May, 2017-The Nest, Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, Fiction
March, 2017-House of Sand and Fog, Andre Dubus III, Fiction
January, 2017-Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Fiction
November, 2016-Remarkable Creatures,Tracy Chevalier, Historical Fiction
September, 2016-Maphead, Ken Jennings, Nonfiction
July, 2016-Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, Helen Simonson, Fiction
May, 2016-I am Malala, Malala Yousafzai, Memoir
March, 2016-Plainsong, Kent Haruf, Fiction
January, 2016-The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver, Fiction
November, 2015-The Martian, Andy Weir, Science Fiction
October, 2015-Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier, Historical Fiction
August, 2015-The Boys in the Boat, Daniel James Brown, Nonfiction
June, 2015-The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared,Jonas Jonasson, Comic Fiction
April, 2015-All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr, Historical Fiction
February, 2015-Orphan Train, Christina Baker Kline, Historical Fiction
December, 2014-Life After Life, Kate Atkinson, Fiction
October, 2014-My Beloved World, Sonia Sotomayor, Memoir
August, 2014-Nation, Terry Pratchett, Fiction
June, 2014-Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Fiction
April, 2014-Year of Wonders, Geraldine Brooks, Historical Fiction
February, 2014-The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, Jose Saramago, Fiction
November, 2013-Into the Beautiful North, Luis Alberto Urrea, Fiction
October, 2013-The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton, Fiction
August, 2013-The Lotus Eaters, Tatjana Soli, Historical Fiction
May, 2013-Woodsburner, John Pipkin, Historical Fiction
March, 2013-Carry the One, Carol Anshaw, Fiction
January, 2013-The Book Thief, Markus Zusak, Historical Fiction
October, 2012-West of Here, Jonathan Evison, Fiction
August, 2012-Train Dreams, Denis Johnson, Fiction
July, 2012-State of Wonder, Anne Patchett, Fiction
May, 2012-Acts of Faith, Eboo Patel, Biography
March, 2012-The Women in White, Wilkie Collins, Fiction
January, 2012-Galileo’s Daughter, Dava Sobel, Historical Fiction
November, 2011-The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald,Fiction
September, 2011-Border Songs, Jim Lynch, Fiction
July, 2011-The Known World, Edward P. Jones, Historical Fiction
May, 2011-Cutting for Stone, Abraham Verghese, Fiction
March, 2011-Half Broke Horses, Nannette Walls, Historical Fiction
January, 2011-The Bright Forever, Lee Martin, Fiction
2010-The Whistling Season, Ivan Doig, Historical Fiction
2010-In the Land of the Grasshopper Song: Two Women in the Klamath River Indian Country in 1908-09, Mary Ellicott Arnold and Mabel Reed, Memoir
2010-The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini, Fiction
2010-Lottery, Patricia Wood, Fiction
2010-The Tortilla Curtain, T. C. Boyle, Fiction
2010-The Highest Tide, Jim Lynch, Fiction
2009-Ahab’s Wife: Or, The Star Gazer, Sena Jeter Naslund Fiction
2009-Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore, Comic Fiction