December 2014: 'Everything I never Told You'

Becky has decided to go with Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng for our December 2014 book. It is Amazon's pick for best book of 2014.

ABOUT THE BOOKLydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet . . . So begins the story of this exquisite debut novel, about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee; their middle daughter, a girl who inherited her mother’s bright blue eyes and her father’s jet-black hair. Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue—in Marilyn’s case that her daughter become a doctor rather than a homemaker, in James’s case that Lydia be popular at school, a girl with a busy social life and the center of every party.

When Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together tumbles into chaos, forcing them to confront the long-kept secrets that have been slowly pulling them apart. James, consumed by guilt, sets out on a reckless path that may destroy his marriage. Marilyn, devastated and vengeful, is determined to find a responsible party, no matter what the cost. Lydia’s older brother, Nathan, is certain that the neighborhood bad boy Jack is somehow involved. But it’s the youngest of the family—Hannah—who observes far more than anyone realizes and who may be the only one who knows the truth about what happened.

A profoundly moving story of family, history, and the meaning of home, Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, exploring the divisions between cultures and the rifts within a family, and uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.

REVIEWS

Amazon.com Review

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, July 2014: Lydia is dead. From the first sentence of Celeste Ng’s stunning debut, we know that the oldest daughter of the Chinese-American Lee family has died. What follows is a novel that explores alienation, achievement, race, gender, family, and identity--as the police must unravel what has happened to Lydia, the Lee family must uncover the sister and daughter that they hardly knew. There isn’t a false note in this book, and my only concern in describing my profound admiration for Everything I Never Told You is that it might raise unachievable expectations in the reader. But it’s that good. Achingly, precisely, and sensitively written. --Chris Schluep

From Booklist

*Starred Review* A teenage girl goes missing and is later found to have drowned in a nearby lake, and suddenly a once tight-knit family unravels in unexpected ways. As the daughter of a college professor and his stay-at-home wife in a small Ohio town in the 1970s, Lydia Lee is already unwittingly part of the greater societal changes going on all around her. But Lydia suffers from pressure that has nothing to do with tuning out and turning on. Her father is an American born of first-generation Chinese immigrants, and his ethnicity, and hers, make them conspicuous in any setting. Her mother is white, and their interracial marriage raises eyebrows and some intrusive charges of miscegenation. More troubling, however, is her mother’s frustration at having given up medical school for motherhood, and how she blindly and selfishly insists that Lydia follow her road not taken. The cracks in Lydia’s perfect-daughter foundation grow slowly but erupt suddenly and tragically, and her death threatens to destroy her parents and deeply scar her siblings. Tantalizingly thrilling, Ng’s emotionally complex debut novel captures the tension between cultures and generations with the deft touch of a seasoned writer. Ng will be one to watch. --Carol Haggas

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
 
Celeste Ng is the author of the novel EVERYTHING I NEVER TOLD YOU. She grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Shaker Heights, Ohio, in a family of scientists. Her fiction and essays have appeared in One Story, TriQuarterly, Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere, and she is a recipient of the Pushcart Prize. Currently, she lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and son. To learn more about her and her work, visit her website at http://celesteng.com or follow her on Twitter: @pronounced_ing.

November 2014 book: 'The Riddle-Master of Hed'

So, Amy has selected "The Riddle-Master of Hed" by Patricia McKillip. This is the book Amy said about it: "I started reading it again and remembered how much I enjoyed it. It's what got me started on fantasy books like 'Lord of the Rings.'

"People should be warned that it's fantasy and will have some magical elements.

"Folks should also know that they're looking for just book 1, not the whole Riddle-Master trilogy.

"There's one copy at the (Hennepin County) library. Used copies are available for cheap (like, less than 1 dollar) on Amazon."

ABOUT THE BOOK
Long ago, the wizards had vanished from the world, and all knowledge was left hidden in riddles. Morgon, prince of the simple farmers of Hed, proved himself a master of such riddles when he staked his life to win a crown from the dead Lord of Aum.

But now ancient, evil forces were threatening him. Shape changers began replacing friends until no man could be trusted. So Morgon was forced to flee to hostile kingdoms, seeking the High One who ruled from mysterious Erlenstar Mountain.

Beside him went Deth, the High One's Harper. Ahead lay strange encounters and terrifying adventures. And with him always was the greatest of unsolved riddles -- the nature of the three stars on his forehead that seemed to drive him toward his ultimate destiny.

Meet Martha Grimes

A long-time Anglophile, it was her first poem in Send Bygraves that inspired her to turn from poetry to mystery novels. Martha Grimes sent the novel “over the transom” (sans agent) to several publishers. In 1979 an editor at Little, Brown, Inc. found the book in the “slush pile” (where unsolicited manuscripts are dumped for editorial assistants to read) and offered to publish The Man with a Load of Mischief with a first printing of 3,000 copies. The Man with a Load of Mischief was published in 1981, and from there Martha Grimes has published a book (sometimes two) every year for the past 25 years.

By her fourth and fifth books Martha received major review attention that not only lauded her ability as an American to write authentic British mysteries, but also to merge the conceits of the British form with the tone and atmosphere of the American. “Help the Poor Struggler is rather an American novel, with brooding and cynical overtones of Raymond Chandler” (Time magazine, 7/15/85). In 1987 The Five Bells & Bladebone was her “breakthrough” book, landing on the New York Times bestseller list. Her next two books, The Old Silent and The Old Contemptibles, were also New York Times bestsellers in both hardcover and paperback. Of The Old Contemptibles, The New York Times Book Review said: “The author keeps us enthralled with the rich interior and exterior lives of her characters in this emotionally stormy family saga.”

In 1992, with the publication of The End of the Pier, Martha departed from her beloved cast of characters in the Richard Jury series to write a contemporary novel based in Western Maryland that combined a serial killer murder mystery with a poignant story of the problems in a mother and son relationship. The book established her as a writer of merit outside of mystery fiction — “The End of the Pier is two books in one: a juicy mystery novel and an exploration of human behavior that few readers will forget” (San Francisco Chronicle, 2/7/92). The second book in the series — Hotel Paradise — was published four years later and was praised by the critics as “A place not unlike the novel itself: outside of time, almost unbelievable, utterly engaging” (Washington Post, 5/26/97) and “Meandering and atmospheric, the novel reads with the ease of daydream … the author proves herself a writer of delicate sensibility whose work is notable for its delightfully quirky details, insightful perceptions into human relationships and graceful prose (Los Angeles Times, 5/26/96). ).

Cold Flat Junction (2001) and Belle Ruin (2005) continues the adventures of twelve-year-old detective, Emma Graham. “A tour de force-cobwebby mystery,” according to Kirkus, “Cold Flat Junction melds classic mystery with a coming-of-age story in which the young protagonist must face the hard and often shocking realities of adulthood as she uncovers good and evil in their many guises and tries to set the past at rest” (Baltimore Sun, 1/28/01).

In 1993, with the release of The Horse You Came in On, Martha brought Richard Jury and Melrose Plant to America for the first time to the pub of that name in Baltimore, Maryland. It was such a success and fan reaction was so positive (the Mayor of Baltimore gave her the key to the city and declared August 12, 1993 as “Martha Grimes Day”) she brought Richard Jury over again in Rainbow’s End to investigate a mystery that leads him to Sante Fe, New Mexico

In 1997, Martha returned Richard Jury and Melrose Plant to England in The Case Has Altered. The New York Times Book Review applauded the book’s “enchanting additions tot he Grimes gallery of eccentric characters,” and it was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

The Stargazey, the fifteenth Richard Jury novel, published on November 5, 1998, become an instant bestseller and USA Today praised, “Like good British Tweed, Martha Grimes’ wintry new mystery envelops the reader in all the comforts of a serviceable English whodunit.”

 

The publication of Biting the Moon on April 15, 1999, marked a departure for Grimes, the first book a new series of books focusing on the prevention of animal abuse and featuring two teenage heroines. She donated two-thirds of her royalties to animal abuse organizations across the country, and said, “I do not believe that people are indifferent to the welfare of animals, possibly, the exact opposite is true – people are so affected by stories, pictures, accounts of animal abuse that they simply do not want to know.”

With the publication of The Blue Last in September, 2001, Ms. Grimes found herself back on the New York Times Bestseller list for the first time in a decade. She received more fan mail than for any other book by distraught fans worried about the “death” of Richard Jury. Her following four Jury mysteries, The Grave Maurice (2003), The Winds of Change (2004), The Old Wine Shades (2006) , Dust (2007) and The Black Cat (2010) were also New York Times best sellers.

Vertigo 42 is the latest Martha Grimes novel and the 23rd book in the bestselling Richard Jury mystery series.

Inimitable Scotland Yard Superintendent Richard Jury returns in another “literate, lyrical, funny, funky, discursive, bizarre” mystery, now with a tip of the derby to Alfred Hitchcock’s famous movie, ‘Vertigo’. Martha Grimes’ greatly anticipated Richard Jury mystery, Vertigo 42, is on sale June 3. Luckily you don’t have to wait until then to read the first chapter.

From http://www.marthagrimes.com/authors/biography/

October 2014 book: Help the Poor Struggler

Cindy has selected our October 2014 book: "Help the Poor Struggler" by Martha Grimes. "These are a series but I have read most of them out of order," said Cindy. "We have done this with other books that group had a problem with, but will see how it goes. I love this author and Richard Jury character."

ABOUT THE BOOK
Around bleak Dartmoor, where the Hound of the Baskervilles once bayed, three children have been brutally murdered. Now Richard Jury of Scotland Yard joins forces with a hot-tempered local constable named Brian Macalvie to track down the killer. The trail begins at a desolate pub, Help the Poor Struggler. It leads straight to the estate of Lady Jessica, a ten-year-old orphaned heiress who lives with her mysterious uncle and ever-changing series of governesses. And as suspense spreads across the forbidding landscape, an old injustice returns to haunt Macalvie…with clues that link a murder in the distant past with a killing yet to come.

"A superior writer." --The New York Times Book Review

"A star in the mystery genre...An elegant writer and inventor of dazzling plots." --Publishers Weekly

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Martha Grimes is the bestselling author of twenty-one Richard Jury novels, as well as the novels Dakota and Foul Matter, among others. Her previous two Jury books, The Old Wine Shades and Dust, both appeared on the New York Times bestseller list.

Meet the author

Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew, the author of "Hannah, Delivered" graced our September meeting to talk with us about her book and the 12-year process it took to get it published. We had a lovely time!!

September 2014 book: 'Hannah, Delivered'

I'm picking a book written by a local author for us to read in September:

"Hannah, Delivered" by Elizabeth Jarret Andrew.

The author lives in my neighborhood, and teaches writing classes at The Loft. She has written several other books, including a spiritual memoir.

Hannah, Delivered: A Novel

Late one night in a busy St. Paul hospital, a nurse midwife drags Hannah Larson out from behind her reception desk to assist with a birth.  When Hannah witnesses that baby tumble into the world, her secure, conventional life gets upended by a fierce desire to deliver babies.  So begins Hannah’s journey away from her comfort zone. In a midwifery apprenticeship in New Mexico, she befriends a male midwife, defends a teenage mom, and learns to trust women’s bodies, then moves back to Minnesota to start her own illicit birth practice.  Hannah’s need to stay safe proves both an asset and a liability: homebirth isn’t legal in Minnesota in the 1990’s; to deliver healthy babies, Hannah risks jail time, her community’s respect, and her career.  The key to unlocking her fear rests in one birth—her own.

Hannah, Delivered tells the story of how inexplicable passion, buried strength, and professional skill deliver one woman from fear into a rich and risk-filled life.

New book for August 2014: Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened

Cass previewed the book she thought she wanted us to read as a book club, and then changed her mind. And so, for August 2014 we're reading "Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened" by Allie Brosh.

ABOUT THE BOOK
Every time Allie Brosh posts something new on her hugely popular blog Hyperbole and a Half the internet rejoices.

Touching, absurd, and darkly comic, Allie Brosh’s highly anticipated book Hyperbole and a Half showcases her unique voice, leaping wit, and her ability to capture complex emotions with deceptively simple illustrations.

This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features more than fifty percent new content, with ten never-before-seen essays and one wholly revised and expanded piece as well as classics from the website like, “The God of Cake,” “Dogs Don’t Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving,” and her astonishing, “Adventures in Depression,” and “Depression Part Two,” which have been hailed as some of the most insightful meditations on the disease ever written.

Brosh’s debut marks the launch of a major new American humorist who will surely make even the biggest scrooge or snob laugh. We dare you not to.

FROM THE AUTHOR:
This is a book I wrote. Because I wrote it, I had to figure out what to put on the back cover to explain what it is. I tried to write a long, third-person summary that would imply how great the book is and also sound vaguely authoritative—like maybe someone who isn’t me wrote it—but I soon discovered that I’m not sneaky enough to pull it off convincingly. So I decided to just make a list of things that are in the book:

Pictures
Words
Stories about things that happened to me
Stories about things that happened to other people because of me
Eight billion dollars*
Stories about dogs
The secret to eternal happiness*

*These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness!