January 14 The Godfather by Mario Puzo; Discussion led by Stephanie Williams The story of Don Vito Corleone, the head of a New York Mafia family, inspired some of the most successful movies ever. It is in Mario Puzo's The Godfather that Corleone first appears. As Corleone's desperate struggle to control the Mafia underworld unfolds, so does the story of his family. The novel is full of exquisitely detailed characters who, despite leading unconven - tional lifestyles within a notorious crime family, experience the triumphs and failures of the human condition. Filled with the requisite valor, love, and rancor of a great epic, The Godfa - ther is the definitive gangster novel that sold 12 million copies and was on the bestseller list for 67 weeks. Originally published in 1969. -- from Amazon.com February 11 The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas; Discussion led by Silvia Arellano Falsely accused of treason, the young sailor Edmond Dantes is arrested on his wedding day and imprisoned in the island fortress of the Chateau d'If. Having endured years of incarcera - tion, he stages a daring and dramatic escape and sets out to discover the fabulous treasure of Monte Cristo, and to catch up with his enemies. A novel of enormous tension and excitement, The Count of Monte Cristo is also a tale of obsession and revenge. Believing himself to be an 'Angel of Providence', Dantes pursues his vengeance to the bitter end, only then realizing that he himself is a victim of fate. Originally published in the 1840s, this is one of the great thrillers of all time. -- from goodreads.com March 10 The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker ; Discussion led by Cindy Buttermore

In an upstate New York backwater, Truly, massive from birth, has a bleak existence with her depressed father and her china-doll–like sister, Serena Jane. Truly grows at an astonishing rate—her girth the result of a pituitary gland problem. After her father dies when Truly is 12, she is sloughed off to the Dyersons, a hapless farming family. Her outsize kindness surfaces as she befriends the Dyersons' outcast daughter, Amelia, and later takes care of Serena Jane's hus - band and son after Serena Jane leaves them. Haunting the margins of Truly's story is that of Tabitha Dyerson, a rumored witch whose secrets afford a breathtaking role reversal for Truly. This story has all the earmarks of a hit—infectious and lovable narrator, a dash of magic, an impressive sweep and a heartrend - ing but not treacly family drama. -- from Publisher's Weekly

April 14 Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson; Discussion led by Julie Baird

Every day Christine wakes up not knowing where she is. Her memories disappear every time she falls asleep. Her husband, Ben, is obligated to explain their life together on a daily basis-- all the result of a mysterious accident that made Christine an amnesiac. With the encourage - ment of her doctor, Christine starts a journal to help jog her memory every day. One morning, she opens it and sees that she's written three unexpected and terrifying words: "Don't trust Ben." Suddenly everything her husband has told her falls under suspicion. What kind of acci - dent caused her condition? Who can she trust? Why is Ben lying to her? And, for the reader: Can Christine’s story be trusted? At the heart of S. J. Watson's Before I Go To Sleep is the petrifying question: How can anyone function when they can't even trust themselves? Suspenseful from start to finish, the strength of Watson's writ - ing allows Before I Go to Sleep to transcend the basic premise and present profound questions about memory and identity. One of the best debut literary thrillers in recent years. -- from Amazon.com May 12 Fooled By Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Taleb; Discussion led by Rex Halterman Taleb is an expert on financial derivatives who has made a name in investing circles as a volu - ble critic of popular theories and conventional wisdom. He is fluent in seven languages and a reader of classical literature, an avocation that readily manifests itself in this meandering dis - course on the roles of probability, luck, and risk in the markets and in life. Taleb examines how and why the attempt to determine cause and effect is continually hampered by random occur - rences and our emotional responses to them. He freely shares his ideas and opinions, finding insights in the funeral of Jackie Onassis, B. F. Skinner's experiments on pigeons, Solon's warning, Karl Popper's work, George Soros, Darwinism, the O. J. Simpson trial, Pascal's wager, the collapse of Long Term Capital Management, the trading floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, birthdays, taxicabs, and especially the works of ancient Greek philosophers. -- from Booklist June 9 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot; Discussion led by Carol Cox From a single, abbreviated life grew a seemingly immortal line of cells that made some of the most crucial innovations in modern science possible. From that same life Rebecca Skloot has fashioned a fascinating and moving story of medicine and family, of how life is sustained in laboratories and in memory. Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five, a poor African American migrant from the tobacco farms of Virginia, who died from a cruelly aggressive cancer at the age of 30 in 1951. A sample of her cancerous tissue, taken without her knowledge or consent, as was the custom then, turned out to provide one of the holy grails of mid-century biology: human cells that could survive in the lab. Known as HeLa cells, their potency gave scientists a building block for countless breakthroughs, beginning with the cure for polio. Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution-- and her cells' strange survival--left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion. This rich and haunting story asks the questions, Who owns our bodies? And who carries our memories? -- from Amazon.com July 14 Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Reliance and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand; Discussion led byBob Drummond Hillenbrand's heart-wrenching new book is a page-turner. Its hero, Louie Zamperini, is a lover of life whose will to live is cruelly tested when he becomes an Army Air Corps bombardier in 1941. In May 1943 his B-24 crashed into the Pacific. After a record-breaking 47 days adrift on a shark-encircled life raft he was captured by the Japanese. In the "theater of cruelty" of the Japanese POW camps, Louie landed in the cruelest of all under the control of a brutal sadist who never killed his victims outright--his pleasure came from their slow torment. By war's end, Louie was near death. Hillenbrand writes movingly of the thousands of postwar Pacific PTSD sufferers. With no help for their as yet unrecognized illness, "there was no one right way to peace; each man had to find his own path...." The book's final section is the story of how Louie found his path. This is a tale of heroism, cruelty, life, death, joy, suffering, remorselessness, and redemption. -- from Publisher's Weekly August 11 Planning Meeting for 2012/2013 Book Club

Bring a list of books you’d like to read and discuss with others. We choose next year’s reading list from suggestions made by group members.