Old
Bridge Public
Library General Book Discussion Group
--Upcoming
Discussion Schedule--
**REMINDER**: With the new electronic catalog (<http://librarycatalog.lmxac.org/>,
which will redirect you to <http://librarycatalog.lmxac.org/uhtbin/cgisirsi.exe/x/x/0/49/>),
you can request your own inter-library loans. So even if the
other
libraries don't respond to the Old Bridge Library's request for copies,
you can
order a copy for yourself.
Be reminded that this information is on-line for easy access.
It
is at
<http://leepers.us/ob_discussion_gen.html>.
The science fiction reading discussion group has a similar site at
<http://leepers.us/ob_discussion_sf.html>.
While the library usually requests copies of discussion books, this
does not
always work, and they usually don't show up until a couple of weeks
before the
meeting. The best way to assure yourself a copy early enough
is to
request an interlibrary loan either on-line or at the library, and this
will get
you the book much faster. There is no charge for requesting a
book.
We are at least temporarily going bi-monthly.
To connect to the library catalog, go to <http://librarycatalog.lmxac.org/uhtbin/cgisirsi/x/x/0/49/>
While the library usually requests copies of discussion books, this does not always work, and they usually don't show up until a couple of weeks before the meeting. The best way to assure yourself a copy early enough is to request an interlibrary loan either on-line or at the library, and this will get you the book much faster. There is no charge for requesting a book.
Meetings are the third
Thursday of every even-numbered month, except December (when they are
canceled). If the dates don't match up, please let me know!
The schedule:
06/21/12--THE SWEET HEREAFTER by Russell Banks
pages: 257
copies in LMxAC catalog: 9 (1 in OB)
in-print format and price: trade paperback/$13.99
"In THE SWEET HEREAFTER, Russell Banks tells a story that begins with a school bus accident. Using four different narrators, Banks creates a small-town morality play that addresses one of life's most agonizing questions: when the worst thing happens, who do you blame?" [-amazon]
08/19/12--THE ASTONISHING HYPOTHESIS by Francis Crick
pages: 317
copies in LMxAC catalog: 6 (0 in OB)
in-print format and price: trade paperback/$16
"Traditionally, the human soul is regarded as a nonphysical concept that can only be examined by psychiatrists and theologists. In his new book, THE ASTONISHING HYPOTHESIS, Nobel Laureate Francis Crick boldly straddles the line between science and spirituality by examining the soul from the standpoint of a modern scientist, basing the soul's existence and function on an in-depth examination of how the human brain 'sees'." [-amazon]
10/18/12--THE KALAHARI TYPING SCHOOL FOR MEN by Alexander McCall Smith,
pages: 192
copies in LMxAC catalog: 29 (2 in OB)
in-print format and price: trade paperback/$14
Fourth book in the 'No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency' series; we have read the first three.
12/20/12--DEATH OF A SALESMAN by Arthur Miller
pages: 142
copies in LMxAC catalog: lots (7 in OB)
in-print format and price: mass market paperback/$6.99
"The tragedy of a typical American--a salesman who at the age of sixty-three is faced with what he cannot face; defeat and disillusionment." [-amazon]
Previous selections:
================= '90 ================
02/21--Canticle for Leibowitz, A (Walter M. Miller, Jr.)
03/21--Guns of August, The (Barbara Tuchman)
04/18--Once & Future King, The (T. E. White)
06/20--White Mischief (James Fox)
07/11--Joseph Andrews (Henry Fielding)
07/23--Hour of the Star (Clarice Lispector)
08/15--Riding the Iron Rooster (Paul Theroux)
09/12--Brat Farrar (Josephine Tey)
10/17--Oscar Wilde (Louis Kronenberger)
11/13--Flowers in the Attic (V. C. Andrews)
12/19--On Acting (Laurence Olivier)
================= '91 ================
01/23--Bank Shot (Donald Westlake)
02/21--Enemy of the People, An (Henrik Ibsen)
03/13--Cuckoo's Egg (Clifford Stoll)
04/17--Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro)
05/16--Dragon's Egg (Robert L. Forward)
06/20--Bauhaus to Our House (Tom Wolfe)
07/18--Mayor of Casterbridge, The (Thomas Hardy)
08/15--Dances with Wolves (Michael Blake)
09/24--Uncivil Liberties (Calvin Trillin)
10/17--Plague, The (Albert Camus)
11/19--Lysistrata (Aristophanes)
12/17--Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck)
================= '92 ================
01/21--Mr. Wakefield's Crusade (Bernice Rubens)
02/20--Handmaid's Tale, The (Margaret Atwood)
03/17--Dave Barry Slept Here (Dave Barry)
04/23--Babbitt (Sinclair Lewis)
05/14--Devices & Desires (P. D. James)
06/23--Freedom Road (Howard Fast)
09/24--Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
10/20--Tempest, The (movie)
10/22--Tempest, The (William Shakespeare
11/17--Firm, The (John Grisham)
================= '93 ================
01/19--Thousand Acres, A (Jane Smiley)
02/18--Lost Lady, A (Willa Cather)
03/30--Gold Bug, The (Edgar Allan Poe)
04/22--Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)
06/03--Thief of Time, The (Tony Hillerman)
07/15--I Sent a Letter to My Love (Bernice Rubens)
08/09--Return of Martin Guerre, The (Natalie Davis)
08/26--Prayer for Owen Meany, A (John Irving)
09/23--Spring Moon (Bette Bao Lord)
10/28--Heart of Darkness, The (Joseph Conrad)
11/18--Age of Innocence, The (Edith Wharton)
12/16--Bean Trees, The (Barbara Kingsolver)
================= '94 ================
02/15--Pale View of Hills, A (Kazuo Ishiguro)
03/31--Connections (James Burke)
04/28--Uncle Vanya (Anton Chekhov)
05/26--Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The (Agatha Christie)
06/30--Catcher in the Rye, The (J. D. Salinger)
07/21--Study in Scarlet, A (Arthur Conan Doyle)
08/25--Duchess of Malfi, The (John Webster)
09/22--Grendel (John Gardner)
10/20--Picture of Dorian Gray, The (Oscar Wilde)
11/17--Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)
12/20--Like Water for Chocolate (Laura Esquivel)
================= '95 ================
01/26--Persuasion (Jane Austen)
02/23--More Than Human (Arthur C. Clarke)
03/23--Wind, Sand and Stars (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
04/24--Adventures of Huckleberry Funn, The (Mark Twain)
05/25--Friday Night Lights (H. G. Bissinger)
06/22--Shipping News, The (Annie Proulx)
07/20--Measure for Measure (William Shakespeare)
08/24--Men and the Girls (Joanna Trollope)
09/21--Black Velvet Gown, The (Catherine Cookson)
10/26--Canterbury Tales, The (Geoffrey Chaucer)
11/21--People of the Abyss, The (Jack London)
12/28--Saint Joan (George Bernard Shaw)
================= '96 ================
01/25--Anna Karenina 1-4 (Leo Tolstoy)
02/29--Anna Karenina 5-8 (Leo Tolstoy)
04/11--Warden, The (Anthony Trollope)
04/25--Culture (Robert Hughes)
05/23--Bull from the Sea, The (Mary Renault)
06/27--Jane Eyre (Emily Bronte)
07/25--Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston)
08/22--Father, The (August Strindberg)
09/26--Hunchback of Notre Dame, The (Victor Hugo)
10/24--And the Band Played On (Randy Shilts)
11/21--And the Band Played On (Randy Shilts)
12/19--Good Earth, The (Pearl S. Buck)
================= '97 ================
01/23--Beloved (Toni Morrison)
02/20--Billy Budd (Herman Melville)
03/20--Mother Courage (Bertold Brecht)
04/24--Blood Wedding (Federico Garcia Lorca)
05/22--Walden (Henry Thoreau)
06/26--Pearl, The (John Steinbeck)
07/24--City of Gold (Len Deighton)
08/21--Crime of the Century (Gregory Algren)
09/25--Pale Fire (Vladimir Nabokov)
10/23--Of Love and Shadows (Isabel Allende)
11/20--To the Lighthouse (Virginia Woolf)
12/18--Bend in the River, A (V. S. Naipaul)
================= '98 ================
01/22--Ragtime (E. L. Doctorow)
03/26--Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (Roddy Doyle)
04/23--Crossing to Safety (Wallace Earle Stegner)
05/21--Hobbit, The (J. R. R. Tolkien)
06/25--Story of English, The (Robert McCrum)
07/23--Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy)
08/27--Dubliners (James Joyce)
09/24--Tender Is the Night (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
10/22--Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (John Berendt)
11/19--Martin Dressler (Steven Millhauser)
12/17--Web and the Rock, The (Thomas Wolfe)
================= '99 ================
02/25--Losing Battles (Eudora Welty)
03/25--Animal Dreams (Barbara Kingsolver)
04/29--Martian Chronicles, the (Ray Bradbury)
05/27--Clan of the Cave Bear, the (Jean Auel)
06/24--Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
07/29--Under Milk Wood (Dylan Thomas)
08/26--Strange Pilgrims (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
09/30--Snow Falling on Cedars (David Guterson)
10/28--Nurture Assumption, The (Judith Harris)
11/18--Liar's Club, The (Mary Karr)
================= '00 ================
01/26--No Ordinary Time (Doris Kearns Goodwin)
02/17--Bachelor Girls (Wendy Wasserstein)
03/23--Elmer Gantry (Sinclair Lewis)
04/27--American Tragedy, An (Theodore Dreiser)
05/25--Professor and the Madman, The (Simon Winchester)
06/22--Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (Rebecca Wells)
07/20--Sotah (Naomi Ragen)
08/24--Stones from the River (Ursula Hegi)
09/21--Merchant of Venice, The (William Shakespeare)
10/26--To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
11/30--Red Badge of Courage, The (Stephen Crane)
12/28--Streetcar Named Desire, A (Tennessee Williams)
================= '01 ================
01/18--Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
02/15--As I Lay Dying (William Faulkner)
03/22--House of Mirth (Edith Wharton)
04/19--Twelfth Night (William Shakespeare)
05/24--Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman (Richard Feynman)
06/21--Republic, The (Plato)
07/19--Color of Water, The (James McBride)
08/23--Conspiracy of Paper, A (David Liss)
09/20--Lincoln's Dreams (Connie Willis)
10/18--Writing a Woman's Life (Carolyn G. Heilbrun)
11/29--No Word from Winifred (Amanda Cross)
12/20--Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (J. K. Rowling)
================= '02 ================
01/17--Odyssey, The (Homer)
02/21--Deputy, The (Rolf Hochhuth)
03/21--Guns, Germs, & Steel (Jared Diamond)
04/25--Waiting (Ha Jin)
05/23--Maltese Falcon, The (Dashiell Hammett)
06/27--Lolita (Vladmir Nabokov)
07/25--Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce)
or Portrait of a Lady (Henry James)
08/22--Double Helix (James L. Watson)
09/26--Day of the Locust (Nathanael West)
10/24--Bridge of San Luis Rey, The (Thorton Wilder)
11/21--Great Gatsby, The (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
12/19--Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes)
================= '03 ================
01/16--Club Dumas, The (Arturo Perez-Reverte)
02/20--Tipping Point, The (Malcolm Gladwell)
03/20--Rocket Boys (Homer Hickam)
04/17--Perelandra (C. S. Lewis)
05/15--Little House on the Prairie (Laura Ingalls Wilder)
06/19--Surprised by Joy (C. S. Lewis)
07/17--Aspern Papers, The (Henry James)
08/21--Bel Canto (Ann Patchett)
09/18--[canceled]
10/16--Dead Souls (Nikolai Gogol)
11/20--Girl with a Pearl Earring (Tracy Chevalier)
12/18--Seabiscuit (Laura Hillenbrand)
================= '04 ================
01/15--[canceled]
02/19--Killer Angels, The (Michael Shaara)
03/18--[postponed]
04/15--Sun Also Rises, The (Ernest Hemingway)
05/20--Lord Jim (Joseph Conrad)
06/17--End of the Affair, The (Graham Greene)
07/29--Tree Grows in Brooklyn, A (Betty Smith)
08/19--Sweet Thursday (John Steinbeck)
09/30--Awakening, The (Kate Chopin)
10/21--Alchemist, The (Paulo Coelho)
11/18--Eyre Affair, The (Jasper Fforde)
12/16--Trial, The (Franz Kafka)
================= '05 ================
01/20--Picture of Dorian Gray, The (Oscar Wilde)
02/17--Cannery Row (John Steinbeck)
03/17--Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, The (Oliver Sacks)
04/21--No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, The (Alexander McCall Smith)
05/19--Don Juan in Hell (George Bernard Shaw)
06/16--Men of Mathematics (Eric Temple Bell) (selections)
07/21--Maus (Art Spiegelmann)
08/18--Poems (Emily Dickinson)
09/15--Secret Father (James Carroll)
10/20--Devil in a Blue Dress (Walter Mosley)
11/17--Bring the Jubilee (Ward Moore)
12/15--Crying of Lot 49, The (Thomas Pynchon)
================= '06 ================
01/19--Ecclesiastes/Job
02/16--Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption (Stephen King)
03/16--Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe)
04/20--cancelled
05/18--I, Claudius (Robert Graves)
06/15--The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Mark Haddon)
07/20--Hadji Murad (Leo Tolstoy)
08/17--Tears of the Giraffe (Alexander McCall Smith)
09/21--The Shadow Divers (Robert Kurson)
10/19--Northanger Abbey (Jane Austen)
11/16--The Woman and the Ape (Peter H›eg)
12/21--Where Are the Children? (Mary Higgins Clark)
================= '07 ================
01/18--On the Road (Jack Kerouac)
02/15--Kim (Rudyard Kipling)
03/15--The Color Purple (Alice Walker)
04/19--The Dante Club (Matthew Pearl)
05/17--House of Sand and Fog (Andre Dubus III)
06/21--Eyewitness to History (John Carey)
07/19--(skipped)
08/16--Ragtime (E. L. Doctorow)
09/20--Richard III (Richard Shakespeare)
10/18--The Daughter of Time (Josephine Tey)
11/15--King & Joker (Peter Dickinson) (joint)
12/20--Year of Wonders (Geraldine Brooks)
================= '08 ================
01/17--The Innocents Abroad (Mark Twain)
02/21--The Painted Veil (W. Somerset Maugham)
03/20--Side Effects (Woody Allen)
04/17--The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
05/15--Plainsong (Kent Haruf)
06/19--The Turn of the Screw (Henry James)
07/17--Tuva or Bust!: Richard Feynman's Last Journey (Ralph Leighton)
08/21--Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt (Anne Rice)
09/18--The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
10/16--The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing (Melissa Banks)
11/20--Fatherland (Robert Harris) (joint with SF group)
12/18--A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens)
================= '09 ================
01/15--ORLANDO by Virgina Woolf
02/19--THE WISDOM OF CROWDS by James Surowiecki
03/19--MORALITY FOR BEAUTIFUL GIRLS by Alexander McCall Smith
04/16--THE LAST CHINESE CHEF by Nicole Mones
05/21--THE RED TENT by Anita Diamant
06/18--TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY by John Steinbeck
07/16--cancelled
08/17--THE MEDICAL DETECTIVES by Berton Roueche
09/17--THE OX-BOW INCIDENT by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
10/15--stories by Edgar Allan Poe
11/19--THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams
12/17--HOLIDAYS ON ICE by David Sedaris
================= '10 ================
01/21--STONER by John Edward Williams
02/18--THE MARCH OF FOLLY by Barbara Tuchman
03/18--JOURNEY THROUGH GENIUS by William Dunham
04/15--THE BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE WRITING 2001 editor Timothy Ferris
05/20--cancelled
06/17--THE BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE WRITING 2001 editor Timothy Ferris
08/19--THE SURVIVAL OF THE SICKEST by Sharon Moalem and Jonathan Price
10/21--EVER SINCE DARWIN by Stephen Jay Gould
12/17--GENOME by Matt Ridley
================= '11 ================
02/17--WANDERING LANDS AND ANIMALS ny Edwin Colbert
04/21--STIFF
06/17--THE BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE WRITING 2009 editor Elizabeth Kolbert