Downtowners Book Club

The Downtowners book club discusses a lively mix of fiction, nonfiction, classics, and genres.

When: Third Wednesday of each month, Noon
Where: Central Library, Courtney Turner Board Room
Contact: Kaite Stover, kaitestover@kclibrary.org or 816.701.3683

2010 Schedule

Wednesday, January 20
Mystic River by Dennis Lehane
Twenty-five years ago, Dave Boyle got into a car. When he came back four days later, he was different in a way that destroyed his friendship with Sean Devine and Jimmy Marcus. Now Sean's a cop, Jimmy's a store owner with a prison record and mob connections, and Dave's trying hard to keep his demons safely submerged. When Jimmy's daughter Katie is found murdered, each of the men must confront a past that none is eager to acknowledge.

Tuesday, February 16—NOTE NEW DATE!
The Farther Shore by Matthew Eck
In coastal Africa, a small unit of U.S. Army soldiers is separated from its command and left for dead. Josh and his battle buddies are forced to keep moving to escape the marauding gangs that rule the area, and after a series of terrifying, violent encounters, only a few of them survive. In this haunting, adrenaline-filled war novel, both natives and invaders are almost inhuman, reflecting the horror and strangeness of postmodern military engagements.
Author Matthew Eck will be joining us!

Wednesday, March 17
Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan
Set on the last day of business of a Connecticut Red Lobster, this touching novel tells the story of Manny DeLeon, a conscientious, committed restaurant manager any national chain would want to keep. Instead, corporate has notified Manny that his—and Manny does think of the restaurant as his—location is not meeting expectations and will close December 20. On top of that, he'll be assigned to a nearby Olive Garden and downgraded to assistant manager. On this last night, Manny is committed to a dream of perfection, but no one and nothing seems to share his vision: a blizzard batters the area, customers are sparse, employees don't show up and Manny has a tough time finding a Christmas gift for his girlfriend, Deena.

Wednesday, April 21
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
A modern classic story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, their eccentric and remote aunt. The family house is in the small Far West town of Fingerbone set on a glacial lake, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck, and their mother drove off a cliff to her death.

Wednesday, May 19
Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction by David Sheff
By the time Sheff knew of his son's condition, Nic was strung out on meth, the highly potent stimulant. While his son struggles to get clean, his second wife and two younger children are pulled helplessly into the drama. Sheff, as the parent of an addict, cycles through denial and acceptance and resistance and chronicles his son's downward spiral into addiction and the impact on him and his family.

Wednesday, June 16
Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
Kingsolver continues to take on timely issues, here focusing on the ecological damage caused by herbicides, ethical questions about raising tobacco, and the endangered condition of subsistence farming. Deanna Wolfe is a wildlife biologist observing a family of coyotes new to the Zebulon Valley. Eddie Bondo is the bounty hunter hired to eradicate the predatory animals. A crusty old farmer, Garnett Walker, squares off with a feisty senior, Nannie Rawley as he tries to bring back the American chestnut tree. Newlywed Lusa Maluf Landowski, finds herself the owner of a fertile farm and crushing debt after her husband's untimely death. A story as leisurely and rich as the Appalachian soil.

Wednesday, July 21
Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
A fictionalization of the life of Mamah Borthwick Cheney, best known as the woman who wrecked Frank Lloyd Wright's first marriage. Here is a portrayal of an independent, educated woman at odds with the restrictions of the early 20th century. Frank and Mamah's affair became the stuff of headlines when they left their families to live and travel together, going first to Germany, where Mamah found rewarding work doing scholarly translations of Swedish feminist Ellen Key's books. Frank and Mamah eventually settled in Wisconsin, where they were hounded by a scandal-hungry press with tragic repercussions.

Wednesday, August 18
Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife by Francine Prose
Prolific novelist and critic Prose (Reading Like a Writer), praises Anne Frank's fresh narrative voice, characterizations, sense of pacing and ear for dialogue. Prose calls her a literary genius whose diary was a consciously crafted work of literature rather than the spontaneous outpourings of a teenager, and offers evidence that Frank scrupulously revised her work shortly before her arrest and intended to publish it after the war.

Wednesday, September 15
Let the Great World Spin  by Colum McCann
It's August of 1974, a summer "hot and serious and full of death and betrayal," and Watergate and the Vietnam War make the world feel precarious. A stunned hush pauses the cacophonous universe of New York City as a man on a cable walks (repeatedly) between World Trade Center towers. This extraordinary, real-life feat by French funambulist Philippe Petit becomes the touchstone for stories that briefly submerge the reader in ten varied and intense lives—a street priest, heroin-addicted hookers, mothers mourning sons lost in war, young artists, a Park Avenue judge.

Wednesday, October 20
The Appointment  by Herta Muller
A young factory worker is summoned by government officials for sewing notes into the linings of men's suits bound for Italy. As she rides the tram to her interrogation, she is distracted by the events and people in her life living in a totalitarian regime. She misses her stop and finds herself on an unfamiliar street and what she discovers there makes her fear of the interrogation pale in comparison.

Wednesday, November 17
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
Renée Michel is the dumpy, nondescript, 54-year-old concierge of a small and exclusive Paris apartment building. Its handful of tenants include a celebrated restaurant critic, high government officials, members of the old nobility, and 12-year-old Paloma Josse, an intelligent and introspective child who has secretly decided to kill herself on her 13th birthday.

Wednesday, December 15
Readers' Roundup

Recent discussion in Off the Page