Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk: A Novel by Ben Fountain

Our next book for discussion is Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk: A Novel by Ben Fountain. 

We will meet on Wednesday, May 8, 2013, 6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m., at Martha Merrell's/Cuddles is. Charlene Sivyer will lead the discussion. Thanks, Charlene!

Book Description: Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk: A Novel by Ben Fountain. (2012); 307 pages, 4.1 out of 5 stars on Amazon.com; 12 copies available through the Cafe library system. Also available for 15% from Martha Merrell's/Cuddles.

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and a finalist for the National Book Award!

Amazon Best Books of the Month, May 2012: Billy Lynn and his Bravo squad mates have become heroes thanks to an embedded Fox News crew’s footage of their firefight against Iraqi insurgents. During one day of their bizarre Victory Tour, set mostly at a Thanksgiving Day football game at Texas Stadium, they’re wooed by Hollywood producers, smitten by Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, and share a stage at halftime with Beyonce. Guzzling Jack and Cokes and scuffling with fans, the Bravos are conflicted soldiers. “Okay, so maybe they aren’t the greatest generation,” writes debut author (!) Ben Fountain, who manages a sly feat: giving us a maddening and believable cast of characters who make us feel what it must be like to go to war. Veering from euphoria to dread to hope, Billy Lynn is a propulsive story that feels real and true. With fierce and fearless writing, Fountain is a writer worth every accolade about to come his way. --Neal Thompson --

Here is a link to the book: http://www.amazon.com/Billy-Lynns-Long-Halftime-Walk/dp/0060885610/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365454517&sr=8-1&keywords=Billy+Lynn%27s+Long+Halftime+Walk%3A+A+Novel+by+Ben+Fountain

There is a reading group guide to the book at: http://www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/13-fiction/8923-billy-lynns-long-halftime-walk-fountain

                                                                                                                                                                         May you enjoy this 26.46 minute video interview with Ben Fountain. http://video.unctv.org/video/2258864914/

Looking forward!

The Island: A Novel by Elin Hilderbrand

Our next book will transport us to summertime when we read The Island: A Novel by Elin Hilderbrand. We will meet on Wednesday, April 10, 2013, 6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m., at Martha Merrell's/Cuddles. Chris Unger and Ann Sawyer will lead the discussion. Thanks, Ann and Chris!

Book Description

The Island: A Novel, Elin Hilderbrand (2010); Fiction; 401 pages; 4.1 out of 5 stars on Amazon.com; 15 copies in the CAFÉ library system and available for 15% off at Martha Merrell's/Cuddles.                                                                                                                                                                

Birdie Cousins has thrown herself into the details of her daughter Chess's lavish wedding, from the floating dance floor in her Connecticut back yard to the color of the cocktail napkins. Like any mother of a bride-to-be, she is weathering the storms of excitement and chaos, tears and joy. But Birdie, a woman who prides herself on preparing for every possibility, could never have predicted the late-night phone call from Chess, abruptly announcing that she's cancelled her engagement. 

It's only the first hint of what will be a summer of upheavals and revelations. Before the dust has even begun to settle, far worse news arrives, sending Chess into a tailspin of despair. Reluctantly taking a break from the first new romance she's embarked on since the recent end of her 30-year marriage, Birdie circles the wagons and enlists the help of her younger daughter Tate and her own sister India. Soon all four are headed for beautiful, rustic Tuckernuck Island, off the coast of Nantucket, where their family has summered for generations. No phones, no television, no grocery store - a place without distractions where they can escape their troubles.

But throw sisters, daughters, ex-lovers, and long-kept secrets onto a remote island, and what might sound like a peaceful getaway becomes much more. Before summer has ended, dramatic truths are uncovered, old loves are rekindled, and new loves make themselves known. It's a summertime story only Elin Hilderbrand can tell, filled with the heartache, laughter, and surprises that have made her page-turning, bestselling novels as much a part of summer as a long afternoon on a sunny beach.

http://www.amazon.com/Island-Novel-Elin-Hilderbrand/dp/B005CDTX6C/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318988695&sr=1-1

About the Author

Elin Hilderbrand lives on Nantucket with her husband and their three young children. She grew up in Collegeville, PA, and traveled extensively before settling on Nantucket, which has been the setting for her eight previous novels. Hilderbrand is a graduate of JohnsHopkins University and the graduate fiction workshop at the University of Iowa.

May you enjoy this 2:27 minute video featuring Elin Hilderbrand as she introduces her book:

Elin Hilderbrand's facebook page is at: https://www.facebook.com/ElinHilderbrand

The Hachette Book Group has discussion questions at: http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/_b2c/media/assets/titles/d40469c4-0cc8-49d0-bad0-73a065750053/ARG_9780316043878.pdf

Looking forward!

Reading My Father: A Memoir by Alexandra Styron

Our next book is Reading My Father: A Memoir by Alexandra Styron, (2011, 285 pages; 4.2 out of 5 stars on Amazon.com.)

We will meet on Wednesday, March 13, 2013, 6:30 p.m. - 8: 00 p.m. at Martha Merrell's/Cuddles. Ed Vojtik will lead the discussion. Thanks, Ed!

Book Description:

Release date: April 19, 2011

PART MEMOIR AND PART ELEGY, READING MY FATHER IS THE STORY OF A DAUGHTER COMING TO KNOW HER FATHER AT LAST— A GIANT AMONG TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICAN NOVELISTS AND A MAN WHOSE DEVASTATING DEPRESSION DARKENED THE FAMILY LANDSCAPE. In Reading My Father, William Styron’s youngest child explores the life of a fascinating and difficult man whose own memoir, Darkness Visible, so searingly chronicled his battle with major depression. Alexandra Styron’s parents—the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Sophie’s Choice and his political activist wife, Rose—were, for half a century, leading players on the world’s cultural stage. Alexandra was raised under both the halo of her father’s brilliance and the long shadow of his troubled mind.
A drinker, a carouser, and above all “a high priest at the altar of fiction,” Styron helped define the concept of The Big Male Writer that gave so much of twentieth-century American fiction a muscular, glamorous aura. In constant pursuit of The Great Novel, he and his work were the dominant force in his family’s life, his turbulent moods the weather in their ecosystem.
From Styron’s Tidewater, Virginia, youth and precocious literary debut to the triumphs of his best-known books and on through his spiral into depression, Reading My Father portrays the epic sweep of an American artist’s life, offering a ringside seat on a great literary generation’s friendships and their dramas. It is also a tale of filial love, beautifully written, with humor, compassion, and grace.  

Alexandra Styron's website is at:  http://www.alexandrastyron.com/

For discussion questions and an author interview, please see:  http://books.simonandschuster.com/Reading-My-Father/Alexandra-Styron/9781416591795/reading_group_guide

There is a 2.51 minute You Tube video featuring Alexandra Styron at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbE-4MRkpes

If you want to plan ahead, our future books are:

Wednesday, April 10, 2013, 6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m., at Martha Merrell's/Cuddles: The Island: A Novel by Elin Hilderbrand. Chris Unger and Ann Sawyer will lead the discussion.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013, 6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m., at Martha Merrell's/Cuddles:
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk: A Novel by Ben Fountain. Charlene Sivyer will lead the discussion.

Thanks to Karen Vaklyes for editing this blog!

Looking forward!

Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time by Mark Adams

Our next book for discussion is: Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time by Mark Adams. We will meet on Wednesday, February 13, 2013, 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. at Martha Merrell’s/Cuddles.

Here is information about the book: Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time, Mark Adams (2011); Nonfiction; 352 pages; 4.6/5 stars on Amazon.com; one copy at WPL; 10 copies in Café system; available in paperback. 
       
Book Description:  What happens when an unadventurous adventure writer tries to re-create the original expedition to Machu Picchu? In 1911, Hiram Bingham III climbed into the Andes Mountains of Peru and “discovered” Machu Picchu. While history has recast Bingham as a villain who stole both priceless artifacts and credit for finding the great archeological site, Mark Adams set out to retrace the explorer’s perilous path in search of the truth—except he’d written about adventure far more than he’d actually lived it. In fact, he’d never even slept in a tent. Turn Right at Machu Picchu is Adams’ fascinating and funny account of his journey through some of the world’s most majestic, historic, and remote landscapes guided only by a hard-as-nails Australian survivalist and one nagging question: Just what was Machu Picchu?  http://www.amazon.com/Turn-Right-Machu-Picchu-Rediscovering/dp/0452297982/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1341712653&sr=1-1&keywords=turn+right+at+machu+picchu+rediscovering+the+lost+city+one+step+at+a+time

Mark Adams' website that includes his biography is at: http://markadamsbooks.com/index.htm 

Mark Adams' book trailer can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6c5m_wl6Rc

May you enjoy this NPR interview with Mark Adams: http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=138603939&m=138653350

Thanks to Karen for editing this e-newsletter!

Looking forward!