Gather to Talk Books!

The UUCY Book Club meets the second Tuesday of alternate months at 6 PM at Taj Palace, 2710 West Nob Hill in Yakima.  Everyone is invited to join for no-host dinner and to share thoughts on the current selection.  If you haven’t finished (or even started the book) you are welcome to sit in, listen to the conversation and share the good company!

All titles are available from the Yakima Valley Libraries, at a discount from Inklings Bookshop by mentioning our book club, and other book outlets. Both of the upcoming books have been named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPR and others.

Upcoming Titles

September 10, 2019: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Tracing the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives, Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, the ferocious pull of motherhood, and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster.

Elena Richardson, with her guiding principle of playing by the rules, is at home with her family in Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive, planned suburb of Cleveland. Then Mia Warren, artist and single mother, arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenage daughter Pearl.  Soon all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair, each for their own reasons.  Mia’s mysterious past and disregard for the status quo upsets Elena, who is determined to uncover secrets to discredit Mia.  But at what cost to the lives involved?

Little Fires Everywhere is scheduled to become a Hulu limited series with Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington.

November 12, 2019: Manhattan Beach: A Novel by Jennifer Egan

Set in Brooklyn in the 1940s, Manhattan Beach tells the story of Anna Kerrigan, a young woman who has dropped out of Brooklyn College to contribute what she can to the American war effort. Unsatisfied with her job of inspecting and measuring machine parts, she attempts to enter the male-only world of deep-sea diving.

Manhattan Beach is rich and atmospheric, highlighting a period when gangs controlled the waterfront, jazz streamed from the doors of nightclubs, and the future for everyone was far from certain. At once a suspenseful noir intrigue and a work of lyrical beauty and emotional heft, Manhattan Beach takes us into a world populated by gangsters, sailors, divers, bankers, and union men in an exploration of a transformative moment in the lives and identities of women and men, of America and the world.

(Book descriptions quoted or adapted from web pages for Yakima Valley Libraries and Inklings Bookshop.)

TEN YEARS of UUCY BOOK CLUB SELECTIONS

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, 201- 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