A free monthly lunchtime book discussion group at Tacoma’s downtown Main Library

Winter and Spring 2009 Series        
Tuesdays @ 12:10 p.m., Olympic Room
Main Library, 1102 Tacoma Avenue South

Escape the ordinary and explore the extraordinary work of these exciting writers. Grab your lunch and join us for one discussion or all three! Discussions will be led by Library staff. No reservations necessary. Copies of these books are available at the Tacoma Public Library and through your local book store. Information: 253-591-5666.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (2007)

By Barbara Kingsolver

A fascinating read about a year in the life of Kingsolver and her family on an Appalachian farm.  Kingsolver recounts a year spent eating homegrown food and, if not that, then grown or raised locally. Accomplished gardeners, the Kingsolver clan grows a large garden and spends the summer "putting food by," as the classic kitchen title goes. Her tale is classy and disarming, substantive and entertaining, earnest and funny.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Middle Passage (1990)

By Charles Johnson

In this savage parable of the African American experience, Rutherford Calhoun, a newly freed slave eking out a living in New Orleans in 1830, hops aboard a square-rigger to evade the prim Boston schoolteacher who wants to marry him. But the Republic turns out to be a slave clipper bound for Africa. Calhoun, whose master educated him as a humanist, becomes the captain's cabin boy, and though he hates himself for acting as a lackey, he's able to help the African slaves recently taken aboard to stage a revolt before the rowdy, drunken crew can spring a mutiny. Middle Passage won the 1990 National Book Award.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian (2007)

By Sherman Alexie

Exploring Indian identity, both self and tribal, Alexie's first young adult novel is a semi-autobiographical chronicle of Arnold Spirit, aka Junior, a Spokane Indian from Wellpinit, WA. The bright 14-year-old was born with water on the brain, is regularly the target of bullies, and loves to draw. He says, "I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats." The teen's determination to both improve himself and overcome poverty, despite the handicaps of birth, circumstances, and race, delivers a positive message in a humorous and low-key manner.

Tuesday, 21 April

Ishmael (1992)

By Daniel Quinn

The unnamed narrator of this story is a disillusioned modern writer who answers a personal ad ("Teacher seeks pupil . . . Apply in person."), and thereby meets a wise, learned gorilla named Ishmael that can communicate telepathically. A series of philosophical conversations between the man and ape ultimately ask the question, "To whom does the earth belong?"

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2008)

By Mary Ann Shaffer

This epistolary novel, based on Mary Ann Shaffer’s painstaking, lifelong research, is an homage to booklovers and a nostalgic portrayal of an era. As her quirky, loveable characters cite the works of Shakespeare, Austen, and the Brontës, Shaffer subtly weaves those writers’ themes into her own narrative. However, it is the tragic stories of life under Nazi occupation of Guernsey that animate the novel and give it its urgency