Auburn Library Blog.

Here is a list of books discussed by the Auburn Book Club in the past three years. 

November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and the Auburn Library is supporting local writers by offering space to write your novel in our meeting room on Wednesdays in November from 11:30am - 2:30pm.

Just a reminder that Tuesday Nov. 13 @ 6:30pm we will be discussing The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.  Here's a reading guide from LitLovers and a book review from the New York Times.  Hopefully at the November meeting we will also be choosing the books we want to read for the first half of next year. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The book for December (Dec. 11 @ 6:30) is Northwest author Jim Lynch's latest, Truth Like the Sun.  A classic and hugely entertaining political novel, the cat-and-mouse story of urban intrigue in Seattle both in 1962, when Seattle hosted the World's Fair, and in 2001, after its transformation in the Microsoft gold rush.  Larger than life, Roger Morgan was the mastermind behind the fair that made the city famous and is still a backstage power forty years later, when at the age of seventy he runs for mayor in hopes of restoring all of Seattle's former glory. Helen Gulanos, a reporter every bit as eager to make her mark, sees her assignment to investigate the events of 1962 become front-page news with Morgan's candidacy, and resolves to find out who he really is and where his power comes from: in 1962, a brash and excitable young promoter, greeting everyone from Elvis Presley to Lyndon Johnson, smooth-talking himself out of difficult situations, dipping in and out of secret card games; now, a beloved public figure with, it turns out, still-plentiful secrets. Wonderfully interwoven into this tale of the city of dreams are backroom deals, idealism and pragmatism, the best and worst ambitions, and all the aspirations that shape our communities and our lives.

The next meeting of the Auburn Book Group is July 10 and the book up for discussion is This Beautiful Life by Helen Schulman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On August 14, we will be discussing a Northwest classic, The Egg & I by Betty MacDonald.

Join us on June 12th @ 6:30pm as we discuss two of Richard Russo's books!  Read one or the other.  The first, Straight Man, is the humorous story of the head of the English department at a university, while Bridge of Sighs is the story of a man and his wife preparing for the trip of a lifetime to Italy.

 

The Auburn Book Club usually meets at Zola's Cafe, 402 E Main Street, Auburn. Location subject to change

Also, at the last meeting, we decided the books we would like to read for the rest of the year:

This Beautiful Life - Helen Schulman - This Beautiful Life is a devastating exploration of the blurring boundaries of privacy and the fragility of self, a clear-eyed portrait of modern life that will have readers debating their assumptions about family, morality, and the sacrifices and choices we make in the name of love.

The Sisters Brothers - Patrick deWitt - Set against the back-drop of the great California Gold Rush, this darkly comic novel follows the misadventures of the fabled Sisters brothers, two hired guns, who, under the order of the mysterious Commodore, try to kill Hermann Kermit Warm, a man who gives them a run for their money.

The Buddha in the Attic - Julie Otsuka - Presents the stories of six Japanese mail-order brides whose new lives in early twentieth-century San Francisco are marked by backbreaking migrant work, cultural struggles, children who reject their heritage, and the prospect of wartime internment.

The Egg & I - Betty MacDonald - When Betty MacDonald married a marine and moved to a small chicken farm on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, she was largely unprepared for the rigors of life in the wild.

The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern - Waging a fierce competition for which they have trained since childhood, circus magicians Celia and Marco unexpectedly fall in love with each other and share a fantastical romance that manifests in fateful ways.

Truth Like the Sun - Jim Lynch - A classic and hugely entertaining political novel, the cat-and-mouse story of urban intrigue in Seattle both in 1962, when Seattle hosted the World's Fair, and in 2001, after its transformation in the Microsoft gold rush.

This may not necessarily be the reading order, that will depend on availability of copies of the book and/or whether we can obtain some paperback copies.

We are going to switch up the schedule for May & June.  

The book for May will be Cleopatra: a life by Stacy Schiff :

and the book for June will be Straight Man by Richard Russo. 

 

Hi everyone.  Just a reminder that the next Auburn Library Book Group meeting is Tuesday February 14 @ 6:30pm where we will be discussing Traveling With Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor.  We will be meeting at Zola's Cafe at 402 E Main Street.  Copies of the March book, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, is currently available at the Auburn Library Temporary Location @ 1140 Auburn Way S behind Big Daddy's Drive-in in the former Herr Cabinets and Lumber building.

Based on a recent meeting, these are the titles for the first half of 2012:

Jan - What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures - Malcolm Gladwell
Feb - Traveling with Pomegranates - Sue Monk Kidd
Mar - The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society - Mary Ann Shaffer & Ann Barrows
Apr - Isaac's Storm - Erik Larson
May - Straight Man - Richard Russo
June - Cleopatra: A Life - Stacy Schiff

I did not include The Lonely Polygymist due to it's 602 page length.

The next meeting of the Auburn Library Book Group is Tuesday, December 13 @ 6:30pm.  The location for the meeting has yet to be determined due to our usual meeting place being unavailable, stay tuned.  We will be reading Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler which is available in multiple formats including as a digital download via Overdrive.