Library again hosts ‘Sonoma Reads’

The Sonoma Valley Library hosts “Sonoma Reads!” book discussions for 2015. The group meets monthly at 2 p.m., on Thursdays in the Library’s Forum Room,.|

The Sonoma Valley Library hosts “Sonoma Reads!” book discussions for 2015.

The group meets monthly at 2 p.m., on Thursdays in the Library’s Forum Room,. All discussions are free, open to the public and do not require registration.

The book selections include both fiction and non-fiction titles chosen by a committee of librarians from throughout Sonoma County. Participant Wendy Byrd said, “Discussing a book makes reading more pleasurable and interesting. Hearing diverse points of view and reactions to the book is fun.”

The books are available for check-out from the library a month in advance. Contact Lisa Musgrove at 996-5217 or lmusgrove@sonoma.lib.ca.us, for more information. Or online at sonomalibrary.org/good-read/book-groups/sonoma-reads-book-discussion-group This program is supported by the Sonoma County Library Foundation.

The books include:

• Thursday, Jan. 22: “The End of Your Life Book Club” by Will Schwalbe. This is the inspiring true story of a son and his mother, who start a “book club” that brings them together as her life comes to a close. Over the next two years, Will and Mary Anne carry on conversations that are both wide-ranging and deeply personal, prompted by an eclectic array of books and a shared passion for reading. Their list jumps from classic to popular, from poetry to mysteries, from fantastic to spiritual.

• Thursday, Feb. 26: “Confessions of a Sociopath” by M.E. Thomas. “Confessions of a Sociopath” takes readers on a journey into the mind of a sociopath, revealing what makes the tick and what that means for the rest of humanity. Written from the point of view of a diagnosed sociopath, it unveils these men and women who are “hiding in plain sight” for the very first time. The book is part confessional memoir, part primer for the wary. It demystifies sociopathic behavior and provide readers with greater insight on how to respond or react to protect themselves, live among sociopaths without becoming victims, and even beat sociopaths at their own game, through a bit of empathetic cunning and manipulation.

• Thursday, March 26: “Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Book Store” by Robin Sloan. A gleeful and exhilarating tale of global conspiracy, complex code-breaking, high-tech data visualization, young love, rollicking adventure, and the secret to eternal life – mostly set in a hole-in-the-wall San Francisco bookstore. With irresistible brio and dazzling intelligence, Robin Sloan has crafted a literary adventure story for the twenty-first century, evoking both the fairy-tale charm of Haruki Murakami and the enthusiastic novel-of-ideas wizardry of Neal Stephenson or a young Umberto Eco, but with a unique and feisty sensibility that’s rare to the world of literary fiction.

• Thursday, April 23: “Dear Life: Stories by Alice Munro.” A brilliant new collection of stories from one of the most acclaimed and beloved writers of our time. Alice Munro’s peerless ability to give us the essence of a life in often brief but always spacious and timeless stories is once again everywhere apparent in this brilliant new collection. In story after story, she illumines the moment a life is forever altered by a chance encounter or an action not taken, or by a simple twist of fate that turns a person out of his or her accustomed path and into a new way of being or thinking. Suffused with Munro’s clarity of vision and her unparalleled gift for storytelling, these tales about departures and beginnings, accidents and dangers, and outgoings and homecomings both imagined and real, paint a radiant, indelible portrait of how strange, perilous, and extraordinary ordinary life can be.

• Thursday, May 21: “The Dinner” by Herman Koch. An internationally bestselling phenomenon: the darkly suspenseful, highly controversial tale of two families struggling to make the hardest decision of their lives – all over the course of one meal. Tautly written, incredibly gripping, and told by an unforgettable narrator, “The Dinner” promises to be the topic of countless dinner party debates. Skewering everything from parenting values to pretentious menus to political convictions, this novel reveals the dark side of genteel society and asks what each of us would do in the face of unimaginable tragedy.

• Thursday, June 25: “A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway.” The best American novel to emerge from World War I, “A Farewell to Arms” is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse. Hemingway’s frank portrayal of the love between Lt. Henry and Catherine Barkley, caught in the inexorable sweep of war, glows with an intensity unrivaled in modern literature, while his description of the German attack on Caporetto-of lines of fired men marching in the rain, hungry, weary, and demoralized-is one of the greatest moments in literary history.

• Thursday, July 23: “The Silver Linings Playbook,” by Matthew Quick. “The Silver Linings Playbook” is the riotous and poignant story of how one man regains his memory and comes to terms with the magnitude of his wife’s betrayal. During the years he spends in a neural health facility, Pat Peoples formulates a theory about silver linings: he believes his life is a movie produced by God, his mission is to become physically fit and emotionally supportive, and his happy ending will be the return of his estranged wife, Nikki. In this brilliantly written debut novel, Matthew Quick takes readers inside Pat’s mind, deftly showing them the world from his distorted yet endearing perspective. The result is a touching and funny story that helps us look at both depression and love in a wonderfully refreshing way.

• Thursday, Aug. 27: “Flamethrowers,” by Rachel Kushner. “The Flamethrowers” is the riveting story of a young artist and the worlds she encounters in New York and Rome in the mid-1970s-by turns underground, elite, and dangerous. The Flamethrowers is an intensely engaging exploration of the mystique of the feminine, the fake, the terrorist. At its center is Kushner’s brilliantly realized protagonist, a young woman on the verge. Thrilling and fearless, this is a major American novel from a writer of spectacular talent and imagination.

• Thursday, Sept. 24: “The Fault in our Stars” by John Green. Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten. Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, “The Fault in Our Stars” is award-winning-author John Green’s most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.

• Thursday, Oct. 22: “Sparta” by Roxana Robinson. Going from peace to war can make a young man into a warrior. Going from war to peace can destroy him. Conrad Farrell has no family military heritage, but as a classics major at Williams College, he has encountered the powerful appeal of the Marine Corps ethic. “Semper Fidelis” comes straight from the ancient world, from Sparta, where every citizen doubled as a full-time soldier. When Conrad graduates, he joins the Marines to continue a long tradition of honor, courage, and commitment. Sparta captures the nuances of the unique estrangement that modern soldiers face as they attempt to rejoin the society they’ve fought for. In Sparta, Robinson explores the life of a veteran in her best book yet.

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