December & January: Pachinko
 
Hello readers!
 
Last week, our book club met to discuss "Across That Bridge" by John Lewis. We all agreed that it was a truly moving book. It was beautifully written, easy to digest and understand, and he wrote it in such a way that it pulled us all into his world of the simple and pure qualities of life: kindness, love, and truth. It was a short and delightful book to read. 
 
Up next: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. Many of you have already read this one, or heard of it before, and are excited that we are reading this. Since it's a longer saga, and it's the holiday season after a very rough and eventful year, I decided to skip our December meeting to have more time to read the book. Then, we'll meet on Tuesday, January 19, 2021, at 6:30 PM to discuss the novel. 
 
We have copies available at the library. Just ask a staff member, and they'll grab one for you and put your information on a sign-out sheet.
 
I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season! Thank you for another great year of reading together. 
 
Happy Thanksgiving,
 
Grace Song
Librarian
gsong@losgatosca.gov
 
 

Upcoming Book Club Picks:
January
Pachinko
by Min Jin Lee

In early 1900s Korea, prized daughter Sunja finds herself pregnant and alone, bringing shame on her family until a young tubercular minister offers to marry her and bring her to Japan, in the saga of one family bound together as their faith and identity are called into question. Reading-group guide available. By a national best-selling author.
Tentative list for the next year - subject to change
February
At home : a short history of private life
by Bill Bryson

A hardcover rerelease now with more than 200 color illustrations. Traces the history gleaned by the author from his home in a Victorian England parsonage, documenting how the various rooms where he lives reflect key developments in areas ranging from cooking and hygiene to design and trade. By the award-winning author of A Short History of Nearly Everything.
March
The vanishing half
by Brit Bennett

Separated by their embrace of different racial identities, two mixed-race identical twins reevaluate their choices as one raises a black daughter in their southern hometown while the other passes for white with a husband who is unaware of her heritage.
April
A biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg 

We haven't decided on a specific book yet - but I assume there will be new titles coming out in the next few months so that we can choose one for next April.
 
May
The trouble with goats and sheep : a novel
by Joanna Cannon

In 1976 England, 10-year-olds Grace and Tilly, after their neighbor Mrs. Creasy goes missing, decide to take matters into their own hands and find her and bring her home, going door to door in search of clues and soon discovering that everyone on the Avenue has something to hide. A first novel.
June
The hidden life of trees : what they feel, how they communicate : discoveries from a secret world
by Peter Wohlleben

Draws on up-to-date research and engaging forester stories to reveal how trees nurture each other and communicate, outlining the life cycles of "tree families" that support mutual growth, share nutrients and contribute to a resilient ecosystem. Illustrations.
July
The book woman of Troublesome Creek : a novel
by Kim Michele Richardson

During Kentucky’s Great Depression, Pack Horse Library Project member Cussy Mary Carter, a young outcast, delivers books to the hillfolk of Troublesome Creek, hoping to spread learning in these desperate times, but not everyone is keen on her or the Library Project. Original.
August
My Family and Other Animals
by Gerald Durrell

Worn down by the miserable English weather, Gerry's family takes the unusual step - for a 1930s British family - of moving somewhere hotter. Treated to sunshine of Greece with its array of flora and fauna, young Gerald is in a budding naturalist's utopia, with the added bonus of being able to observe the unusual creatures known as his relatives.
September
The Bluest Eye
by Toni Morrison

A new edition of the first novel by the Nobel Prize-winning author relates the story of Pecola Breedlove, an eleven-year-old Black girl growing up in an America that values blue-eyed blondes, and the tragedy that results because of her longing to be accepted. Reprint.
October
The Ohlone way : Indian life in the San Francisco-Monterey Bay area
by Malcolm Margolin

Describes the culture of Native American inhabitants in the California Bay Area prior to the arrival of Europeans, offering insight into the daily lives, culture and rituals of the Ohlone while tracing their experiences under Spanish, Mexican and American regimes. By the author of The Way We Lived.
November
Weather
by Jenny Offill

"Lizzie Benson slid into her job as a librarian without a traditional degree. But this gives her a vantage point from which to practice her other calling: she is a fake shrink. For years she has tended to her God-haunted mother and her recovering addict brother. They have both stabilized for the moment, but Lizzie has little chance to spend her new free time with husband and son before her old mentor, Sylvia Liller, makes a proposal. She's become famous for her prescient podcast, Hell and High Water, andwants to hire Lizzie to answer the mail she receives: from left-wingers worried about climate change and right-wingers worried about the decline of western civilization. As Lizzie dives into this polarized world, she begins to wonder what it means to keep tending your own garden once you've seen the flames beyond its walls. When her brother becomes a father and Sylvia a recluse, Lizzie is forced to address the limits of her own experience--but still she tries to save everyone, using everything she's learned about empathy and despair, conscience and collusion, from her years of wandering the library stacks . . . And all the while the voices of the city keep floating in--funny, disturbing, and increasingly mad"
Los Gatos Library
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Los Gatos, California 95030
(408) 354-6891

www.library.losgatosca.gov