UUCY Book Club Welcomes All Readers

Fellow readers and talkers, plan on Tuesday, July 14 at 6:00 PM for our next Book Club discussion.  Watch for the Weekly Update email, sent the prior Thursday from UUCY, for instructions to connect to the discussion.

Our July selection provides “a monumental novel about trees and people” in The Overstory by Richard Powers.

This “sweeping, impassioned novel of activism and resistance” brings to the reader the lives, struggles and joys of a diverse group of people for whom trees hold special places in their stories.  Their separate and sometimes intersecting journeys all link to the almost mystical natural forces in forests. If trees are connected and depend on each other in unseen but powerful ways, the same must also be true of people.

Join what promises to be a considered discussion of The Overstory.

A change of pace is on tap for our September 8, 2020 discussion book, The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald, a heartwarming story in which books play a role in changing lives. 

Sara lives a quiet, ordinary, dependable life in Sweden as a bookstore clerk, which is fitting since she much prefers to experience stories in books than real life.  But her job ends and with an uncharacteristic impulse to “do something” for once in her life, Sara travels to a very small town in Iowa to visit Amy her book-loving pen pal.

She does not realize Amy had been ill, and Sara arrives just after the funeral. But the town’s quirky residents each in their own way take her under their wings. Sara taps a spunky streak that helps her find ways to change not only her own story but the life of the entire town.

While the depiction of the town and its residents may be a bit exaggerated, anyone who has experienced small-town life will find familiar elements.  Plus, I laughed out loud nearly every time I let myself into the town of Broken Wheel.  (If you don’t find a copy through the library or bookstore, I have one you can borrow.)

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

TEN-PLUS YEARS of UUCY BOOK CLUB SELECTIONS

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