Brown Bag Book Discussion Group
Meets the fourth Tuesday of the month at Noon at the Clubhouse Library
Books are available at the library's circulation desk.
The Bookbinder by Pip Williams
Tuesday, October 24 at Noon
It is 1914, and as the war draws the young men of Britain away to fight, women must keep the nation running. Two of those women are Peggy and Maude, twin sisters who live on a narrowboat in Oxford and work in the bindery at the university press. Ambitious, intelligent Peggy has been told for most of her life that her job is to bind the books, not read them-but as she folds and gathers pages, her mind wanders to the opposite side of Walton Street, where the female students of Oxford's Somerville College have a whole library at their fingertips. Maude, meanwhile, wants nothing more than what she has: to spend her days folding the pages of books in the company of the other bindery girls. She is extraordinary but vulnerable, and Peggy feels compelled to watch over her. Then refugees arrive from the war-torn cities of Belgium, sending ripples through the Oxford community and the sisters' lives. Peggy begins to see the possibility of another future where she can educate herself and use her intellect, not justher hands. But as war and illness reshape her world, her love for a Belgian soldier-and the responsibility that comes with it-threaten to hold her back.
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Tuesday, November 28 at Noon
The teenage son of an Appalachian single mother who dies when he is eleven uses his good looks, wit, and instincts to survive foster care, child labor, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel
Tuesday, December 26 at Noon
The true story of the world's most prolific art thief--a spellbinding portrait of obsession and flawed genius, from the bestselling author of The Stranger in the Woods. For centuries, works of art have been stolen in countless ways from all over the world, but no one has been quite as successful at it as the master thief Stephane Breitwieser. Carrying out more than two hundred heists over nearly ten years--in museums and cathedrals all over Europe--Breitwieser, along with his girlfriend who worked as his lookout, stole more than three hundred objects, until it all fell apart in spectacular fashion. In The Art Thief, Michael Finkel brings us into Breitwieser's strange and fascinating world. Unlike most thieves, he never stole for money, keeping all his treasures in a single room where he could admire them to his heart's content. Possessed of a remarkable athleticism and an innate ability to assess practically any security system, Breitwieser managed to pull off a breathtaking number of audacious thefts. Yet these strange talents bred a growing disregard for risk and an addict's need to score, leading Breitwieser to ignore his girlfriend's pleas to stop--until one final act of hubris brought everything crashing down. This is a riveting story of art, crime, and an insatiable hunger to possess beauty at any cost.
