The Sound of a Wild Snail...

To all the Saturday Samplers:


I just finished reading our next selection "The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating". I had no idea what to expect from this book but I found it a complete delight.  It was a wonderful oasis from my other reading and the daily news.  I did feel bad for the author that she had to give up so much of her life to illness, but I am grateful to her for writing this book.  To whoever recommended it for the book club, THANK YOU!!! 


Jilana

Books that had a great impact on our lives

Albert Camus books by Albert Camus
Alexander McCall Smith books by Alexander McCall Smith
Ayn Rand books by Ayn Rand
Charles Dickens books by Charles Dickens
Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
David McCullough books by David McCullough
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Mark Twain books by Mark Twain
Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keene
P.G. Wodehouse books by P.G. Wodehouse
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky

Some suggestions from the July meeting

The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout
Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks
Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
He's Gone by Deb Caletti
Inferno by Dan Brown
Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson
It All Changed in an Instant: More Six:Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure by Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser
Transatlantic by Colum McCann
Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala
A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks
Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple

Think BEACH!

The Beach House by Jane Green

Disregarding local gossip that pegs her as an eccentric, sixty-five-year-old Nantucket widow Nan skinny-dips in unattended pools and steals her neighbors' flowers before her dwindling funds force her to take in boarders, a change that brings an unexpected visitor.

http://catalog.bernardsville.org/polaris/search/title.aspx?pos=4

Folly Beach by Dorothea Benton Frank

Returning to Folly Beach, her childhood home, newly widowed Cate Cooper, whose late husband's financial exploits have left her homeless and broke, discovers that it is possible to go home again and discover the person she was meant to become

http://catalog.bernardsville.org/polaris/search/title.aspx?pos=2

Beach House Memories by Mary Alice Monroe

A tale set in the 1970s American South shares the story of Lovie Rutledge, who reflects on a summer during which a beach vacation to escape her unfaithful, disdainful husband culminates in a fateful romance with a handsome biologist.

http://catalog.bernardsville.org/polaris/search/title.aspx?pos=14

The Cottage at Glass Beach by Heather Barbieri

Learning of the infidelity of her husband, Nora Cunningham packs up her daughters--Annie, seven; and Ella, twelve--and takes refuge on Burke's Island, a craggy spit of land off the coast of Maine where her mother disappeared at sea long ago. Just as Nora begins to regain her balance, her daughters embark on a reckless odyssey of their own--forcing Nora to finally face the truth about her marriage, her mother, and her long-buried past.

http://catalog.bernardsville.org/polaris/search/title.aspx?pos=34

The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine

A modern tale inspired by Sense and Sensibility finds financially strapped literary sisters Miranda and Annie moving in with divorcee Betty in a run-down Connecticut beach cottage, where they find love among the suburban aristocracy.

http://catalog.bernardsville.org/polaris/search/title.aspx?pos=40

The Silver Boat by Luanne Rice

Returning for a final visit to the Martha's Vineyard beach house where they were most happy in childhood, three sisters struggle with family memories and discover astonishing truths in a cache of old letters that compels a journey to their ancestral Ireland.

http://catalog.bernardsville.org/polaris/search/title.aspx?pos=50

Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan

Descending on a family beach house won in a bet years earlier, three generations of women gradually impart difficult respective secrets including a pregnancy, a terrible crush and a deeply held resentment for past misdeeds. 

http://catalog.bernardsville.org/polaris/search/title.aspx?pos=51

Amazon Editors' Top 20 Picks for the Best Books of the Year So Far

So far, Amazon has picked 20 books which they believe are the best books this year...so far.  Why not pick one as one of your 50 books to read?

After Visiting Friends by Michael Hainey
And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
Between Man and Beast by Monte Reel
Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II by Mitchell Zuckoff
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
Gulp: adventures on the alimentary canal by Mary Roach
The Guns at Last Light by Rick Atkinson
The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
Joyland by Stephen King
Lean in : women, work, and the will to lead by Sheryl Sandberg
Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls by David Sedaris
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Schroder by Amity Gaige
The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes
Smoke and Pickles: Reciples and Stories from a New Southern Kitchen by Edward Lee
The Son by Phillip Meyer
Tenth of December: stories by George Saunders
The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud

BVPL Staff Picks

Looking for a book suggestion? These titles are located on our Staff Picks shelves. Take a suggestion from a Bernardsville Public Library staff member for one of your 50 books!

Anne's Pick: The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Annette's Pick: The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
Felicia's Pick: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
Kathy's Pick: The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
Lia's Pick: My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
Margaret's Pick: Following Atticus by Tom Ryan
Mary Jo's Pick: City Dharma: Keeping Your Cool in the Chaos by Arthur Jeon
Rosalie's Pick: Confederates in the Attic: dispatches from America's unfinished Civil War by Tony Horowitz
Sarah's Pick: Cemetery John : the undiscovered mastermind of the Lindbergh kidnapping by Robert Zorn
Susan's Pick: The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. Lee

50 Book Challenge Suggestions from Saturday, April 20

Here is a list of the books we suggested to the group. If we own them, the link to the item in the catalog is provided. If not, please ask us to interlibrary loan it for you!

1. Twelve by Twelve by William Powers
2. My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor
3. Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey
4. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
5. Johnstown Flood by David McCullough
6. In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje
7. Elsewhere by Richard Russo
8. Shocked: My Mother, Schiaparelli, and Me by Patricia Volk
9. Saturday Night Widows by Becky Aikman
10. Chief Bruno Courrèges series by Martin Walker
11. What I Thought I Knew: A Memoir by Alice Eve Cohen
12. End of Your Life Bookclub by Will Schwalbe
13. The Cost of Hope by Amanda Bennett
14. Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
15. Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie
16. Z: a novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Ann Fowler