Book Club Meeting will be on September 28, 2010 – 8:00 PM @ Library
This month’s book club book is:
Favorite Wife: Escape from Polygamy by Susan Ray Schmidt
A riveting memoir of life inside one of North America’s most notorious polygamous cults.
She had no choice in the matter—none of the girls did. Her mission was to give birth to and raise many children in devoted service to a shared husband. Susan was fifteen years old when she became the sixth wife of Verlan LeBaron, one of the leaders of a rogue Mormon cult, who was engaged in a blood feud with his brother that from 1972 to 1988 claimed up to two dozen lives.
In this gripping and eloquent book, Susan Ray Schmidt tells the story of growing up on the inside and of her ultimate escape with her children from an oppressive and violent life. Delving more deeply into this mysterious underworld than any previous work, Favorite Wife is a powerful account of the affairs of the heart, coming of age under exceptional circumstances, and the tough choices that are sometimes painfully necessary to preserve human dignity.
August’s book club book was: The Help by Kathryn Stockett
What perfect timing for this optimistic, uplifting debut novel set during the nascent civil rights movement in Jackson, Miss., where black women were trusted to raise white children but not to polish the household silver. Eugenia Skeeter Phelan is just home from college in 1962, and, anxious to become a writer, is advised to hone her chops by writing about what disturbs you. The budding social activist begins to collect the stories of the black women on whom the country club sets relies and mistrusts enlisting the help of Aibileen, a maid who’s raised 17 children, and Aibileen’s best friend Minny, who’s found herself unemployed more than a few times after mouthing off to her white employers. The book Skeeter puts together based on their stories is scathing and shocking, bringing pride and hope to the black community, while giving Skeeter the courage to break down her personal boundaries and pursue her dreams. Assured and layered, full of heart and history, this one has bestseller written all over it.
July’s book club book was:
The Letters of John and Abigail Adams by Abigail Adams, John Adams, and Frank Shuffelton
The Letters of John and Abigail Adams provides an insightful record of American life before, during, and after the Revolution; the letters also reveal the intellectually and emotionally fulfilling relationship between John and Abigail that lasted fifty-four years and withstood historical upheavals, long periods apart, and personal tragedies. Covering key moments in American history-the Continental Congress, the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, and John Adams’s diplomatic missions to Europe-the letters reveal the concerns of a couple living during a period of explosive change, from smallpox and British warships to raising children, paying taxes, the state of women, and the emerging concepts of American democracy.
June’s book club book was:
Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza
In 1994, when Immaculee was 22 years old and home from college for her Easter vacation, the death of Rwanda’s Huto President started the slaughter of nearly one million ethnic Tutsis. Immaculee survived by hiding in a tiny bathroom, 4′ by 3′, with 7 other starving women for 91 cramped, terrifying days. During this time she not only learned to pray, but to forgive those who killed most of her family and sought to find and kill her. This is one of the most amazing stories on the value of prayer that you will ever read.
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