Between the Covers Winter 2020

“Interior with a Woman Reading” by Carl Holsøe A Winter Evening for Bookclubs Tuesday, February 11th, 2020

Page 1 Between the Covers – Bookclub Night Winter 2020 Boulder’s Bookclub Bestsellers Girl, Woman, Other Killing Commendatore by Bernardine Evaristo by Haruki Murakami

Sparklingly witty and filled with When a portrait painter is emotion, centering voices we abandoned by his wife, he often see othered, and written secludes himself in the home in an innovative form that of a famous artist. One day, he borrows technique from discovers a previously unseen poetry, Girl, Woman, Other is a painting and unintentionally polyphonic and richly textured opens a circle of mysterious social novel that reminds us of circumstances, and he must all that connects, even in times undertake a perilous journey when we are encouraged into a netherworld that only to be split apart. F Murakami could conjure. F

The Dutch House Such a Fun Age by Ann Patchett by Kiley Reid

The Dutch House tells a richly I was delighted by the moving story that explores the charming characters and well- indelible bond between two intentioned awkwardness in siblings, the house of their Reid’s debut! She masterfully childhood, and a past that will handles complex human not let them go. Patchett digs interactions where right and deeply into questions of wrong are not clear-cut, and inheritance, love and everyone is trying to do what forgiveness, of how we want to they perceive to be the right see ourselves and of thing. who we really are. F H ~Genevieve F H

Exhalation Classic Krakauer by Ted Chiang by Jon Krakauer

Welcome to modern sci-fi. Ted Bringing together work Chiang’s nuanced portrayals originally published in such of concepts like parallel worlds, magazines as The New time travel, and artificial Yorker, Outside, and intelligence will encourage you Smithsonian, and spanning an to consider these popular topics extraordinary range of subjects in a new light. The titular story and locations, these ten is particularly original, even gripping essays show why Jon breathtaking. Krakauer is considered a ~Trevor standard-bearer of modern F H NF Paperback avail. 6/30 journalism.

The Body Good and Mad by Bill Bryson by Rebecca Traister

Bill Bryson guides us through Traister tracks the history of the human body — how it female anger as political fuel. functions, its remarkable ability She deconstructs society’s to heal itself, and the ways it condemnation of female can fail. Full of extraordinary emotion and the impact of and irresistible Bryson-esque their resulting repercussions. anecdotes, The Body will lead Good and Mad offers a glimpse you to a deeper understanding into the galvanizing force of of the miracle that is life in women’s collective anger, general and you in which, when harnessed, particular. NF H can change history. NF Page 2 Between the Covers – Bookclub Night Winter 2020 Upcoming Events for Bookclubs

Janelle Shane TaraShea Nesbit February 19th, 7:30pm, $5 March 16th, 7:30pm, $5

How smart is AI really, and Beheld tells the story of a how does it solve problems? stranger’s arrival in the You Look Like a Thing and I fledgling colony of Plymouth, Love You is a smart, often Massachusetts — and a crime hilarious introduction to the that shakes the divided most interesting science of community to its core. It is also our time, and shows how an intimate portrait of love, these programs learn, fail, motherhood, and friendship and adapt — and how they that asks: Whose stories get reflect the best and told? worst of humanity. NF H On Shelves 3/17 F H

Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor Margaret Andersen March 30th, 7:30pm, $23.96 April 7th, 7:30pm, $5

Tickets at The reality of racial inequality FinkCranorBBS.eventbrite.com and injustice is glaring, and we In the town of Night Vale, a need a starting point that can faceless old woman secretly take us inside the lives in everyone’s home, but conversations and debates. no one knows where she came Getting Smart about Race from. Her history will be examines race from all angles revealed in The Faceless Old and leaves us with a positive Woman Who Secretly Lives in outlook on why the American Your Home. conversation needs to On Shelves 3/24 F H get serious about race. NF H

Ingrid Newkirk John Scalzi April 14th at 7:30pm, $5 April 16th at 7:30pm, $5

In the last few decades, a In The Last Emperox, the wealth of new information has collapse of the interstellar emerged about how intelligent pathway between the planets and aware animals are. has accelerated. Emperox Animalkind is a fascinating Grayland II has wrested control study of why our fellow living of her empire from those who beings deserve respect, and deny the reality of this collapse. moreover, the steps readers Will Grayland become the can take to put this new savior of her civilization or the understanding into last emperox? action. NF H On Shelves 4/14 F H

Rick McIntyre Stephen Graham Jones th st April 29 , 7:30pm, $5 May 21 at 7:30pm, $5

Yellowstone National Park was Blending horror and a dramatic once home to an abundance of narrative with sharp social wild wolves — but park rangers commentary, The Only Good killed the last of their kind in Indians follows four American the 1920s. The Rise of Wolf 8 Indian men after a disturbing tells the astonishing true story event from their youth puts of one of the first wolves to them in a struggle for their roam Yellowstone in more than lives. It is a novel of revenge, 60 years, and it will transform cultural identity, and the cost of our view of wolves breaking from tradition. forever. NF H On Shelves 5/19 F H Page 3 Between the Covers – Bookclub Night Winter 2020 Our Booksellers Recommend... The Ruin of Kings A Boy and His Dog at the End by Jenn Lyons of the World by C.A. Fletcher I started The Ruin of Kings on a long flight, and I didn't even This story had my heart notice the 8 hours, because I pounding nonstop. Fletcher's was so involved in the writing fast tracks your story. Epic and complex world attachment to Griz, the main building, dynamic and character, and each moment of terrifying characters, political his struggle in this well- intrigue and blood feuds that imagined post-apocalyptic have lasted centuries … Very, world wrenches your heart into very satisfying! your gut. ~Liesl F ~Lara F

There Once Lived A Woman Who Small Great Things Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby by Jodi Picoult by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya In this book, Picoult looks at Ghosts from WWII, a journey to racism and challenges the the afterlife, cabbage patch reader’s knowledge and babies, and the vodka fueled understanding of both sides of miracles of holy men are a few the spectrum. Small Great of the oddities among many Things gives fair treatment to that populate these scary fairy both sides; while sometimes tales. Much like the characters, infuriating, it’s also great I felt lost, yet entranced, by the because it truly lets us readers strange circumstances. make our own judgments. ~Nathaniel F ~Katie F

One Day in December Mouthful of Birds by Josie Silver by Samanta Schweblin

One wintery day in London, In this surrealistic collection of Laurie spots Jack at a bus stop stories, brides are abandoned and feels an instant connection at a highway rest stop, a with him. A year later, she teenage girl only eats live birds, meets her best friend's new and a murdered wife’s body is boyfriend...and it's Jack. What considered high art. Schweblin follows next is a decade long examines the intersection of tale of friendship, heartbreak, violence, gender and art in and love that will warm your these dreamlike tales that heart. constantly surprise us. ~Catrin F . ~Arsen F

The Ninth House The Whisper Network by Leigh Bardugo by Chandler Baker

Alex Stern is admitted to Yale in This book taps into all the order to help prevent ghosts frustrations women face in from interfering with the rituals their personal and professional performed by campus secret lives, and turns them into one societies, but things quickly go hell of an empowerment wrong when the person who is fantasy. It addresses the power supposed to train her goes dynamic between white women missing. Ninth House features a and women of color, and how great cast of characters and a we can all help each other out. wonderfully flawed ~Lara protagonist. ~Hannah F H Paperback avail. 6/9 F H Page 4 Between the Covers – Bookclub Night Winter 2020 Our Booksellers Recommend... Deep Creek Wild Words by Pam Houston by Nicole Gulotta

Deep Creek is Pam Houston’s Wild Words is about the memoir of life on her ranch in seasons in a writer’s life, the Colorado high country. through ups and downs, and Lucky to escape her violent is so accurate and heartfelt childhood, Houston found a that at one point I sat up and place where she can be with said, “She’s describing me!” herself and her animals. This book is about honoring However, that quiet has led to each season in the writing the realization that there is no life, and looking at how to haven from the dangers of move forward. climate change. ~Arsen NF ~Breanna NF

Barracoon Revolution in Rojava by Zora Neale Hurston by Michael Knapp, Ercan Ayboga, & Anja Flach Hurston provides commentary

alongside a vivid portrait of I was reading this, feeling so Cudjo Lewis, a man devastated much hope for the future of by slavery, but no longer Rojava, when Turkey started enslaved. She writes in Cudjo’s their recent strike on the region. own words, immortalizing his Want the story behind the sound dialect, and develops a kinship bites? The authors admit to a with him that results in a rare pro-revolutionary bias, but instance where trauma is there's still a wealth of handled with care and information to give you a empathy. ~Lara NF start. ~Nick NF

The Education of an Idealist In the Dream House by Samantha Power by Carmen Maria Machado

This memoir offers a Carmen Maria Machado's fascinating look at Samantha memoir unpacking her past Power’s life. From immigrant, to abusive relationship is riveting. war correspondent, to working She recounts what happened for Senator and President to "you", putting her past self Obama, Power shares her at arm's length and making the wisdom, insights, and regrets in reader complicit in the this fascinating book. She is experience. My heart aches proof that one person can from the experience, but I feel make a difference. washed clean. ~Olivia NF H ~Genevieve NF H

Lord of All the Dead On the Plain of Snakes by Javier Cercas by Paul Theroux

Cercas seeks to discover the At 76 years old, Theroux drives story behind the death of his to the border with Mexico and great-uncle Manuel during the after crisscrossing along the Spanish Civil War. Idolized by entire length heads deep into the author’s mother, Manuel the interior. He meets locals, died fighting for Franco’s gathers stories, dines with fascists. Cercas begins an other writers, and meets a obsessive journey to find revolutionary hero. Theroux answers and forgive his dead once again makes me want to relative. go out on the open ~Harry NF H road. ~Brad NF H Page 5 Between the Covers – Bookclub Night Winter 2020 Tom’s Recommendations

Tom Benton is a Sales Representative for Penguin Random

House

America Is Not the Heart Lights All Night Long by Elaine Castillo by Lydia Fitzpatrick

America Is Not the Ilya arrives in Louisiana Heart is a sprawling, from his native Russia soulful debut about for a year in America as three generations of an exchange student. women struggling to But Ilya is consumed by balance the promise of the fate of his older brother Vladimir, the the American dream and the unshakeable magnetic rebel to Ilya's America Is Not the Heart grip of history. With grit dutiful wunderkind, and tenderness, here is back in their tiny Lights All Night Long a family saga; an origin Russian hometown. story; a romance; a Lights All Night Long is a Go Ask Fannie narrative of people who spellbinding story of the leave one home to fierce bond between Whiskey When We're Dry grasp at another. brothers. F F

Go Ask Fannie Whiskey When We’re Dry by Elisabeth Hyde by John Larison

Murray Blaire invites his This is an intense thrill- three grown children to ride of a read, filled with his New Hampshire farm badass women, lots of for a few days. But he gunfights, and the doesn't expect his beautiful scenery of the youngest, Lizzie, to turn west. Jess is a girl alone up cradling a damaged in the wild west, until edition of the Fannie she decides that the Farmer cookbook full of best way to make her half-obscured notes fortune is to pretend to written in its pages that be a man while she provide clues to their looks for her outlaw mother's ambitions and brother. It helps that the mysterious choices she's a sharp shooter. she once made. F ~Stephanie F Page 6 Between the Covers – Bookclub Night Winter 2020 Tom’s Recommendations

Tom Benton is a Sales Representative for Penguin Random

House

Fever Dream

Fever Dream Flights Flights by Samantha Schweblin by Olga Tokarczuk Tin Man

This novella tells us what Through brilliantly What You Have Heard Is True happened to Amanda, imagined characters and how she ended up in this stories, interwoven with hospital bed, dying. haunting, playful, and Sometimes the story revelatory meditations, feels so real, possible, Flights explores what it ordinary. And at other means to be a traveler, a times, you feel like wanderer, a body in you’re slipping away, motion not only through just like the main space but through time. character. It’s haunting, Flights interweaves hallucinatory, and reflections on travel with compelling. By the end I exploration of the human was questioning my body, broaching life, death, motion, and reality. F F ~Andrea migration.

Tin Man What You Have Heard Is by Sarah Winman True by Carolyn Forché

Tin Man is a meditation This is a devastating and on love, grief, and hope. lyrical memoir about a This is a book that's not young woman's brave so much about the plot choice to engage with as it is about small horror in order to help details and carefully others. Written by one of crafted images to paint the most gifted poets of a portrait of a her generation, this is relationship between the story of a woman's two men in Oxford in the radical act of empathy, 70s and 80s. Sarah and her fateful Winman opens up a encounter with an character with just a few intriguing man who well-placed words. changes the course of ~Stephanie F her life. NF Page 7 Between the Covers – Bookclub Night Winter 2020 Rob’s Recommendations

Sea Monsters by Chloe Aridjis Rob Pine is a Sales One autumn afternoon Representative for in Mexico City, seventeen-year-old Luisa Ingram Publisher boards a bus to the Pacific coast with Tom, a Services boy she barely knows. As she wanders the

shoreline and visits the local bar, Luisa begins to disappear into the lives of strangers on Zipolite. Meanwhile, her father has set out to find his missing daughter.

Slave Old Man The Parisian by Patrick Chamoiseau by Isabella Hammad

Slave Old Man is a The Parisian illuminates gripping, profoundly a pivotal period of unsettling story of an Palestinian history elderly slave's daring through the journey and escape into the wild from romances of one young a plantation in man, from his studies in Martinique, with his France during World master and a fearsome War I to his return to hound on his heels. This Palestine at the dawn of novel is an adventure for its battle for all time, one that independence. Lush and fearlessly portrays the immersive, and demonic cruelties of the devastating in its slave trade and its power, The Parisian is a human costs in vivid tour de force from a F F prose. dazzling new voice.

Just After the Wave The Snow Collectors by Sandrine Collette by Tina May Hall

A small boat, alone on Haunted by the loss of the furious ocean. A her parents and sister at family stranded on an sea, Henna cloisters island, battered by herself in a Northeastern waves on all sides. A village where the snow decision which looms, never stops. When she unavoidable, on the discovers the body of a horizon. Just After the young woman at the Wave is a remarkable edge of the forest, she's story of destruction, plunged into the mystery resilience, love, and the of a centuries-old letter invisible but powerful regarding the Franklin links that bind a family expedition, which together. disappeared into the ice in 1845. F F Page 8 Between the Covers – Bookclub Night Winter 2020 Rob’s Recommendations Pigs by Johanna Stoberock Rob Pine is a Sales Four children live on an Representative for island that serves as the repository for all the Ingram Publisher world's garbage. Trash arrives, and the children Services feed it to a herd of insatiable pigs. But when a barrel washes ashore with a boy inside, the children must decide whether he is more of the world's detritus, meant to be fed to the pigs, or whether he is one of them. F

Vera Violet The Far Field by Melissa Anne Peterson by Madhuri Vijay

Vera Violet recounts the Shalini is a sheltered dark story of a rough and naïve young woman group of teenagers who loses her mother growing up in a twisted during a time of Pacific Northwest immense vulnerability. logging town. Exploring The only way she can themes of poverty, cope with this loss is by violence, and setting out on a journey environmental to find a lost figure from degradation as played her childhood whose last out in the young lives of known whereabouts are a group of close-knit in a remote Himalayan friends, Vera Violet is a village in the politically brilliant and explosive turbulent Kashmir. ~Kendra debut. F F

Writers & Lovers The Crying Book by Lily King by Heather Christle

Writers & Lovers follows Heather Christle has just Casey in the last days of lost a friend to suicide a long youth, a time and now must reckon when every element of with her own depression her life comes to a crisis. and the birth of her first Written with King's child. As she faces her trademark humor, heart, grief and impending and intelligence, Writers parenthood, she decides & Lovers explores the to research the act of terrifying and crying. The Crying exhilarating leap Book is a tribute to the between the end of one fascinating strangeness phase of life and the of tears and the beginning of another. unexpected resilience of NF joy. On shelves 3/3 F H NF Page 9 Between the Covers – Bookclub Night Winter 2020 Stephanie’s Recommendations

The Bird King Stephanie has by G. Willow Wilson been with The Bird King is set at Boulder Book the end of Muslim rule Store since 2006. in Granada with a She has worked magical mapmaker, a in almost every concubine with the department in heart of a queen, an evil the store, and Spanish nun and a terrifying, charismatic she currently sets Jinn. This tale of up events. She transformation reads runs the like a fairy tale with a bookstore’s morality plays’ take on fiction book club, how power is used for From Our destruction or as a Shelves. redemptive flame F for freedom.

Empress The Light Years by Ruby Lal by Chris Rush

Empress tells the This is one of those captivating story of the memoirs that's easy to rise and reign of Empress forget that it's not Nur Jahan, the favored fiction. Rush grew up wife of the Emperor who during the 60s and 70s, was so esteemed by her discovering a love for husband for her wisdom art, other boys, and just that he had her rule by about every drug you his side and (often) in his can imagine. He stead! This is a brilliantly shows how the fascinating look into the innocent pursuit of drugs life of an amazing woman in the 60s evolves into whom I had previously the addictions of the never heard of. 70s. Paperback avail. NF H Paperback avail. NF H 4/28 3/17

Dreadful Young Ladies In the House in the by Kelly Barnhill Dark of the Woods

What a magnificent story by Laird Hunt

collection! This is Hunt captures the definitely for fans of Neil feeling and language Gaiman and Kelly Link. of colonial New These stories are England so perfectly enchanting and bizarre, in this bewitching tale, and range from beautiful you’ll feel like you’re to downright creepy. reading text written in "The Unlicensed the 1600s. If you're Magician" in particular is looking for something a masterpiece, with spooky but you wonderful characters gravitate more and a compelling plot. towards literary We read this for our staff fiction, this book is for bookclub and just F you. F loved it! Page 10 Between the Covers – Bookclub Night Winter 2020 Julia’s Recommendations

Night Theater by Vikram Paralkar Julia comes to us from Boston, where A surgeon in a remote she mastered in clinic is struggling to Library Sciences and overcome ennui when a worked at an art teacher and his family museum until she come to the clinic with moved to Boulder an unusual request — and joined the BBS they have been killed, team in 2016. She is but if the surgeon can the master of window repair their wounds by displays and print dawn, they have a new marketing, and she chance at life. This is an reads and intriguing story of fate, recommends books morality, and truth told of all kinds. over the course of one literally life- F changing night.

Bunny Station Eleven by Mona Awad by Emily St. John Mandel

Eerie, unsettling, and Station Eleven is a story darkly funny, Bunny about the end of the follows Samantha, a world, but don’t let that struggling MFA student deter you, it is who simultaneously incredibly hopeful! loathes and is drawn to Jumping back and forth the saccharine-sweet in time, before the flu girls in her writing pandemic and twenty seminar. Awad touches years after, the story on issues of art, follows a troupe of loneliness, friendship, Shakespearian academia, and obsession performers and before Bunny careens to musicians who cross the its startling conclusion. Midwest, keeping a Paperback avail. sliver of art (and F H F 6/9 hope) alive.

Pet The Collected by Akwaeke Emezi Schizophrenias

How do you convince a by Esmé Weijun Wang

society that believes it Wang chronicles her own has eradicated all diagnosis of monsters that one walks schizoaffective disorder, among them? Pet is a giving us a look at a very moving and thoughtful misunderstood condition. look at how society This is a moving look at listens (or doesn’t listen) mental illness from the to the concerns of viewpoint of the children, written in a diagnosed rather than beautiful, lyrical style the one doing the that envelops the reader diagnosing, with lessons in the words. Read it, on how to treat others and pass it on to a teen dealing with diagnoses reader! laden with stigma. F H NF Page 11 Between the Covers – Bookclub Night Winter 2020

Bookclub Resources Here are some great resources for bookclubs, complete with tips, recommendations, and discussion questions. Please note that some of these sites link to chain stores — If you find something you like, remember that we can order it for your bookclub at a discount. Support the community where your bookclub lives!

LitLovers: www.litlovers.com Book Club Girl: www.bookclubgirl.com Oprah's Bookclub: www.oprah.com/app/books.html Jewish Book Council: www.jewishbookcouncil.org/bookclub/ Reese’s Book Club: hello-sunshine.com/book-club Reading Group Choices: www.readinggroupchoices.com Mother/Daughter Bookclub: www.motherdaughterbookclub.com BookBrowse: www.bookbrowse.com/bookclubs/ IndieBound for Reading Groups: www.indiebound.org/reading-group-indie-next-list Read It Forward: www.readitforward.com

Here are some great guides from the publishers: Macmillan: us.macmillan.com/reading-group-gold W.W. Norton: books.wwnorton.com/books/reading-guides-list.aspx?tid=3288 Penguin Random House: penguinrandomhouse.com/book-clubs/ Simon & Schuster: simonandschuster.com/bookclubs HarperCollins: https://www.harpercollins.com/bookclub/ Knopf Doubleday: knopfdoubleday.com/reading-group-center/ Penguin Classics: penguin.com/static/pages/classics/readingguides.php Bloomsbury: bloomsbury.com/us/communities/reading-group-guides/

A key to the symbols in this guide: F — Fiction NF — Non-Fiction H — Hardcover P — Poetry G — Graphic Novel

Local Authors: The following are local authors who may be interested in visiting your bookclub. The contact these authors through their websites.

Elisabeth Hyde, BK Loren, Eleanor Brown, Gail Storey, Kayann Short, Katherine Harmon Courage, Jonathan Waldman, Scott Carney, Sarah Elizabeth Schantz, Richard Martin, Laura Pritchett, Waylon Lewis, Stephen Graham Jones, Paul Thomas Murphy, Bob Litwin, Katherine Marlowe, Susan Casey, Nuanprang Snitbhan, Michael Brownlee, Scott G. Bruce, Paul Levitt, Peter Heller, Leonard David, Jeffrey Bennett, John Gierach, Erik Weihenmayer, David Hicks, Eugene Buchanan, Lennard Zinn, Marc Bekoff, Andrew Schelling, Jon Bassoff, Philip Fernbach, Silvia Pettem, Douglas Light, Ramona Ausubel, Scott Jurek, David Haskell, Karen Auvinen, Anne Waldman, Jeanne Winer, Diana Byington, Marcia Douglas, Heather Hansen, Elizabeth Fox, Catlyn Ladd, Dominique Christina, Ed Shapiro, Laura Weaver, Ellen Mains, L. Hunter Lovins, Christine Caldwell, Greg Hill, Janelle Shane, Julie Baldwin, Kristie Betts Letter, Sandra Dallas Good luck & happy reading! Page 12