When: Saturday, April 28, 2012
Time: 1-3 pm
Where: Queen’s Room @ Peteetneet
10 North 600 East, Payson

Get your copy today so you can be ready for the marvelous discussion and luncheon.

Please don your very best attire of gowns, gloves, and hats so you will feel like a lady. Everyone is asked to please bring a sweet or savory appetizer to share. Feel free to bring your camera to the event as well. This event was so successful last year that we have moved it to the Peteetneet Queen’s Room however you will still sign up and purchase tickets at the Historic Payson Library, 66 South Main Street. Tickets are $2.00 per person. This is a pre-sold event so tickets will not be sold after April 21st. If you would like to donate food, decor, set up, sponsor, or volunteer please contact Alice at the Payson Library by email at aliceh@payson.org or by phone at the Payson Library at 801-465-5220. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

This event is sponsored by Mayor Rick Moore as part of his Literacy Initiative. We are encouraging mothers, daughters, grandmothers, and women of all ages to read The Secret Garden together and then discuss this wonderful, classic book. The library has 12 copies available and a VHS video of The Secret Garden. The book is also available at many school libraries and is a free Kindle downloadable book.

The purpose of the event is to promote the reading of great books of moral character that are enlightening and enriching, to teach ladylike grace, charm, and poise, to promote bonding relationships between mothers, daughters, and other women mentors in our community, and to raise money for the library’s literary collection. Come enjoy a delightful tea party discussion with us. We hope to see you there!

This month’s book club book is:
Peace like a River by Leif Enger

Dead for 10 minutes before his father orders him to breathe in the name of the living God, Reuben Land is living proof that the world is full of miracles. But it’s the impassioned honesty of his quiet, measured narrative voice that gives weight and truth to the fantastic elements of this engrossing tale.

From the vantage point of adulthood, Reuben tells how his father rescued his brother Davy’s girlfriend from two attackers, how that led to Davy being jailed for murder and how, once Davy escapes and heads south for the Badlands of North Dakota, 12-year-old Reuben, his younger sister Swede and their janitor father light out after him. But the FBI is following Davy as well, and Reuben has a part to play in the finale of that chase, just as he had a part to play in his brother’s trial.

It’s the kind of story that used to be material for ballads, and Enger twines in numerous references to the Old West, chiefly through the rhymed poetry Swede writes about a hero called Sunny Sundown. That the story is set in the early ’60s in Minnesota gives it an archetypal feel, evoking a time when the possibility of getting lost in the country still existed. Enger has created a world of signs, where dead crows fall in a snowstorm and vagrants lie curled up in fields, in which everything is significant, everything has weight and comprehension is always fleeting.

This is a stunning debut novel, one that sneaks up on you like a whisper and warms you like a quilt in a North Dakota winter, a novel about faith, miracles and family that is, ultimately, miraculous.

This month’s book club book is:
Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis

To those familiar with the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis’ novel Till We Have Faces A Myth Retold may come as a pleasant surprise. Till We Have Faces is a dark, complex novel suitable for adults. This is a sophisticated retelling of the Greek Myth of Psyche and the god Cupid years ago, which Lewis himself admitted was his greatest work of fiction.

This month’s book club book is:
Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo

Heaven Is for Real is the true story of the four-year old son of a small town Nebraska pastor who during emergency surgery slips from consciousness and enters heaven. He survives and begins talking about being able to look down and see the doctor operating and his dad praying in the waiting room. The family didn’t know what to believe but soon the evidence was clear.

Colton said he met his miscarried sister whom no one had told him about, and his great grandfather who died 30 years before Colton was born, then shared impossible-to-know details about each. He describes the horse that only Jesus could ride, about how “reaaally big” God and his chair are, and how the Holy Spirit “shoots down power” from heaven to help us.

Told by the father but often in Colton’s own words, the disarmingly simple message is heaven is a real place, Jesus really loves children, and be ready there is a coming last battle.

This month’s book club book is:
The Christmas Train by David Baldacci

Tom Langdon’s life hasn’t been the same since his all-time love, Eleanor Carter, left him years ago while the two were hotshot journalists, and since he’s quit serious reporting for writing fluff. Banned from flying for a year because of an air rage incident, he’s decided to write about riding the rails over the Christmas holidays, planning to link up with his erstwhile girlfriend, a Hollywood star, in L.A. Aboard the Capitol Limited, running from D.C. to Chicago, Tom meets a host of unusual fellow travelers, including rambunctious train personnel, lonely wanderers and a pair of elopers; he also runs into Eleanor, now a screenwriter for a legendary film director who’s on board researching a possible film about trains. Matters complicate further aboard the Southwest Chief, running from Chicago to L.A., as Tom’s Tinseltown girlfriend shows up and proposes marriage just as Tom and Eleanor are working their way back together; a sneak thief nabs valuables; and an avalanche traps the train in the midst of a historic blizzard.

The narrative is loaded with cool train lore (Baldacci dedicates the book to “everyone who loves trains and holidays”) and plenty of romance and good cheer, though suspense is low who can doubt how things will work out?

This month’s book club book is:
The Duggars: 20 and counting by Michelle & Jim Bob Duggar

This practical, positive book reveals the many parenting strategies that Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar use as they preside over America’s best-known mega-family. Each time a new baby arrives, the press from around the world clamors for interviews and information. Visitors are amazed to find seventeen (baby number twenty is due April, 2012) well-groomed, well-behaved, well-schooled children in a home that focuses on family, financial responsibility, fun—and must importantly, faith.

Readers will learn about the Duggars’ marriage—how they communicate effectively, make family decisions, and find quality time alone. They’ll discover how the Duggars manage to educate all their children at home, while providing experiences that go beyond the family walls, through vacations and educational trips. And they’ll see how the Duggar family manages their finances and lives debt-free—even when they built their own 7,000-square-foot house.

Answering the oft asked question—How can I do with one or two children what you do with seventeen(soon to be eighteen)?—Jim Bob and Michelle reveal how they create a warm and welcoming home filled with what Michelle calls “serene chaos.” They show how other parents can succeed whether they’re rearing a single child or several. With spiritual insights, experience-based wisdom,  practical tips, and plenty of humorous and tender anecdotes, the Duggars answer the questions that pour into the family’s Web site on a daily basis—especially after every national media interview and TV appearance—including their segments on the Discovery Health Channel’s “Meet the Duggars” series.

This month’s book club book is:
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

This may be the most wacky by-product of the busy Jane Austen fan-fiction industry—at least among the spin-offs and pastiches that have made it into print. In what’s described as an “expanded edition” of Pride and Prejudice, 85 percent of the original text has been preserved but fused with “ultraviolent zombie mayhem.”

For more than 50 years, we learn, England has been overrun by zombies, prompting people like the Bennets to send their daughters away to China for training in the art of deadly combat, and prompting others, like Lady Catherine de Bourgh, to employ armies of ninjas. Added to the familiar plot turns that bring Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy together is the fact that both are highly skilled killers, gleefully slaying zombies on the way to their happy ending. Is nothing sacred? Well, no, and mash-ups using literary classics that are freely available on the Web may become a whole new genre. What’s next? Wuthering Heights and Werewolves?

This month’s book club book is:
Matched by Ally Condie

For Cassia, nothing is left to chance–not what she will eat, the job she will have, or the man she will marry. In Matched, the Society Officials have determined optimal outcomes for all aspects of daily life, thereby removing the “burden” of choice.

When Cassia’s best friend is identified as her ideal marriage Match it confirms her belief that Society knows best, until she plugs in her Match microchip and a different boy’s face flashes on the screen. This improbable mistake sets Cassia on a dangerous path to the unthinkable–rebelling against the predetermined life Society has in store for her. As author Ally Condie’s unique dystopian Society takes chilling measures to maintain the status quo, Matched reminds readers that freedom of choice is precious, and not without sacrifice.

This month’s book club book is:
The Wednesday Letters by Jason F. Wright

Jack and Laurel Cooper are two hardworking, loving Christian pillars of the community who die in each others arms one night in the bed-and-breakfast that they own and operate. The event calls their three grown children home for the funeral, including their youngest son, a fugitive from the law who must face an outstanding warrant for his arrest and confront his one true love, now engaged to another man. As events unfold around the funeral, the three children discover a treasure trove of family history in the form of Wednesday letters-notes that Jack wrote to his wife every single week of their married lives. As they read, the children brush across the fabric of a devoted marriage that survived a devastating event kept secret all these years. It’s a lovely story: heartening, wholesome, humorous, suspenseful and redemptive. It resonates with the true meaning of family and the life-healing power of forgiveness all wrapped up in a satisfying ending.

This month’s book club book is:
A Distant Prayer by Joseph Banks

A two-time recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross, Joe Banks served on a B-17 bomber out of Foggia, Italy in World War II. If he could complete fifty missions he got to home. But on the 49th mission his aircraft was shot down, with all his crew mates killed. Joe parachuted into Germany where he was taken prisoner of war. He had to make a 600 kilometer walk across frozen Germany before escaping to Allied lines. A truly inspirational story that tells the price paid for freedom. A book that everyone in the family will read, from teenagers to grandparents.