Book Club Recommendations

Wednesday, November 5, 2008 – 10:25 pm

Many book clubs will be choosing their 2009 list this month and next.  Here are some suggestions that are different from the usual.

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell
Iris Lockhart’s life is further complicated when she learns her great-aunt Esme, whom she never knew existed, is being released from a mental hospital after 61 years.

My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki
Told concurrently by Jane Takagi-Little, a Japanese-American documentary filmmaker, andAkiko Ueno, the wife of Jane’s boss (in Japan), this quick read about the American meat industry is serious and well written.

Away by Amy Bloom
When Lillian Leyb’s family is destroyed in a Russian pogrom, she comes to America alone and embarks on an odyssey that takes her from the world of the Yiddish theater in New York, to Seattle’s Jazz District, and up to Alaska toward Siberia.

Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O’Nan
Managing a failed seafood restaurant in a run-down mall, Manny DeLeon coordinates a final shift of mutinous staff members, an effort that is complicated by his love for a waitress, a pregnant girlfriend, and an elusive holiday gift.

The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean
In a novel that moves back and forth between the Soviet Union during WW II and modern-day America, Marina, an elderly Russian woman, recalls images of her youth during the height of the siege of Leningrad.