2012 Official Book Selections

The books we have selected to read and discuss are in blue.

All book descriptions are from Amazon.com

January

New Book Selection: The Living End by Robert Leleux
Backlist Book Selection: A Place Called Wiregrass by Michael Morris
Bonus Book Selections: Changing Shoes by Tina Sloan
Auntie Mame: an irreverent escape by Patrick Dennis
The Homecoming of Samuel Lake by Jenny Wingfield

February

New Book Selection: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Backlist Book Selection: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Bonus Book Selections: State of Wonder by Ann Patchett 

Then Again by Diane Keaton

March

New Book Selection: Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
Backlist Book Selection: Maisie Dobbs: A Maisie Dobbs Novel by Jacqueline Winspear
Bonus Book Selections: The bungalow by Sarah Jio

Lost in Shangri-La: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II by Mitchel Zuckoff
The Garner Files by James Garner

April

New Book Selection: The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson
Backlist Book Selection: Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
Bonus Book Selections: Holy ghost Girl by
You Believers: An Novel by Jane Bradley 

Prayers for Strangers by River Jordan

May

New Book Selection: The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Backlist Book Selection: Love is a Wild Assault by Elise Kirkland
Bonus Book Selections: Love on the Big Screen by Bill Torgerson 

How to be an American Housewife by Margaret Dilloway 

Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West by Dorothy Wickenden

June 

New Book Selection: Faith Bass Darling's Last Garage Sale by Lynda Rutledge

Backlist Book Selection:  Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
Bonus Book Selections: My Story, My Song by Lucimarian Roberts as told to Missy Buchanan with reflections by Robin Roberts
Making Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Pie by Beth M. Howard
Come Back Love by Peter Golden

July 

New Book Selection: The Orchid House by Lucinda Riley

Backlist Book SelectionL Sugar Cage by Connie May Fowler
Bonus Book Selections -The Iguana Tree: A Novel by Michel Stone
Thunder and Rain by Charles Martin
The Buddha in the Attic: A Novel by Julie Otsuka

August 

New Book Selection: The Book of Lost Fragrances by M.J. Rose

Backlist Book Selection: One Foot in Eden by Ron Rash
Bonus Book Selections: The Cove by Ron Rash
Helen Keller in Love by Rosie Sultan
Mother of Pearl by Kellie Coates Gilbert
The Buddha in the Attic: A Novel by Julie Otsuka

September

New Book Selection:  The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns by Margaret Dilloway
Backlist Book Selection:  Tennessee Williams Plays 1937-1955 (Library of America)

Bonus Book Selections:

Mother of Pearl by Kellie Coates Gilbert
Shelter from the Texas Heat by Bobbi Kornbilit

Runaway Girl: Escaping Life on the Streets, One Helping Hand at a Time 

RunAway: One Woman's Story of Resilience by Jeanhee Kang
The Guest Book by Marybeth Whelan

When Macy Dillon was five years old her father encouraged her to draw a picture in the guestbook of a Carolina beach house. The next year, Macy returned to discover a drawing by an unidentified little boy on the facing page. Over the next eleven years the children continue to exchange drawings ... until tragedy ends visits to the beach house altogether. During her final trip to Sunset, Macy asks her anonymous friend to draw her one last picture and tells him where to hide the guest book in hopes that one day she will return to find it---and him. Twenty-five years after that first picture, Macy is back at Sunset Beach---this time toting a broken family and a hurting heart. One night, alone by the ocean, Macy asks God to help her find the boy she never forgot, the one whose beautiful pictures touched something deep inside of her. Will she ever find him? And if she does, will the guestbook unite them or merely be the relic of a lost childhood?

In the Garden with Billy: Lessons about Life, Love and Tomatoes by Renea WinchesterBeyond Molasses Creek by Nicole Seitz

October

New Book Selection: Man in the Blue Moon by Michael Morris

“He’s a gambler at best. A con artist at worst,” her aunt had said of the handlebar-mustached man who snatched Ella Wallace away from her dreams of studying art in France. Eighteen years later, that man has disappeared, leaving Ella alone and struggling to support her three sons. While the world is embroiled in World War I, Ella fights her own personal battle to keep the mystical Florida land that has been in her family for generations from the hands of an unscrupulous banker. When a mysterious man arrives at Ella’s door in an unconventional way, he convinces her he can help her avoid foreclosure, and a tenuous trust begins. But as the fight for Ella’s land intensifies, it becomes evident that things are not as they appear. Hypocrisy and murder soon shake the coastal town of Apalachicola and jeopardize Ella’s family.Backlist Book Selection: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Bonus Book Selections:
The Gilded Age: A novel by Claire McMillan
The Lighthouse Road by Peter Geye
The World Without You: A Novel by Joshua Henkins
The River Witch by Kimberly Brock
Cemetery Ridge by Kirby McCord
Ghost on Black Mountain by Ann Hite

November

New Book Selection: Tumbleweeds by Leila Meacham
Backlist Book Selection:  The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty.

Bonus Book Selections:
The Book Lover by Maryann McFadden
Even Tough Girls Wear Tutus: Inside the World of a Woman Born in a Prison by Deborah Jiang Stein
How I Came to sparkle Again by Kaya McLaren
Burrows: A Red River Mystery by Reavis Z. Wortham

Lyndon B. Johnson is President,Beatlemaniais in overdrive and gasoline costs 30 cents a gallonwhen Ned Parker retires as constable in Center Springs, Texas. But his plan to live a quiet life as a cotton farmer is torpedoed. A phone call leads Ned to a body in the Red River and into the urgent investigation headed by his nephew, the newly elected constable Cody Parker. Together they work to head off a multi-state killing spree that sets northeast Texas on fire. As the weeks pass, Ned's grandchildren, ten-year-old Top and his tomboy cousin Pepper, struggle with personal issues resulting from their traumatic experiences at the Rock Hole only months before. They now find themselves in the middle of a nightmare for which no one can prepare. Cody and Deputy John Washington, the law south of the tracks, follow a lead from their small community to the long abandoned Cotton Exchange warehouse in Chisum. Stunned, they find the Exchange packed full of the town's cast off garbage and riddled with booby-trapped passageways and dark burrows. Despite Ned's warnings, Cody enters the building and finds himself relying on his recent military experiences to save both himself and Big John. Unfortunately, the trail doesn't end there and the killing spree continues...

Sour Lake, or The Beast by Bruce McCandless III

December

New Book Selection: The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty

Backlist Book Selection: Storyville: A Novel by Lois Battle
Bonus Book Selections:
Shattered by Kathryn Casey
A Silence of Mockingbirds:  The Memoir of a Murder by karen Spears Zacharias
Calling Invisible Women by Jeanne Ray

A delightfully funny novel packing a clever punch, from the author of the New York Times bestselling Julie and Romeo    A mom in her early fifties, Clover knows she no longer turns heads the way she used to, and she's only really missed when dinner isn't on the table on time. Then Clover wakes up one morning to discover she's invisible--truly invisible. She panics, but when her husband and son sit down to dinner, nothing is amiss. Even though she's been with her husband, Arthur, since college, her condition goes unnoticed. Her friend Gilda immediately observes that Clover is invisible, which relieves Clover immensely--she's not losing her mind after all!--but she is crushed by the realization that neither her husband nor her children ever truly look at her.  She was invisible even before she knew she was invisible.   Clover discovers that there are other women like her, women of a certain age who seem to have disappeared.  As she uses her invisibility to get to know her family and her town better, Clover leads the way in helping invisible women become recognized and appreciated no matter what their role.  Smart and hilarious, with indomitable female characters, Calling Invisible Women will appeal to anyone who has ever felt invisible.
Praise for Jeanne Ray’s novels:"A captivating comic romp...Wise, winsome, and refreshingly optimistic." --People"A comic gem of a love story...completely entertaining." --The Denver Post"At last, someone has written a love story for and about grown-ups! A smart, sexy celebration of the timeless nature of romance." --A. Manette Ansay"A little jewel of a book." --The Philadelphia Inquirer"Love and desire will not be denied in this lighthearted inversion of a classic story. Filled with the delicate sweetness of fresh flowers and new love, Julie and Romeo is a smart, funny, touching book. Where has Jeanne Ray been hiding all these years?" --Alison McGhee, author of Shadow Baby"A charming, smart love story with interesting characters and great laughs." -- The Christian Science Monitor

Coming Up For Air by Patti Callahan Henry

JANUARY 2013

New Book Selection:Miss Dreamsville and the collier County Women's Literary Society: A novel by Amy Hearth
Backlist Book Selection: A Piece of Mine Stories by J. California Cooper

Bonus Book Selections:
Eating Sexy Raw: 130 Recipes, Tools and Tips to Make You Feel Gorgeous and Satisfied by Carol Alt
Horseshoe:  A Novel in Stories by William J. Torgerson
Let the people In:  The life and the time of Ann Richards by Jan Reid
Burn Down the Ground:  A memoir by Kambri Crews
Happily Every Madder:  Misadventures of a Mad Fat Girl by Stephanie McAfee
Diamond Ruby:  A Novel by Joseph E. Wallace
Go Down Looking by Jim h. Ainsworth

A Rare Titanic family:  The Caldwells Story of Survival by Julie Hedgepeth Williams

Of the families that boarded the unsinkable Titanic in 1912, only a fourth stayed together during the sinking and arrived safely in New York. Albert and Sylvia Caldwell and their 10-month-old son, Alden, were one of those rare Titanic families. Author Julie Williams draws on first-person accounts from her great-Uncle Albert and extensive research to tell the fascinating story of the young family who were saved by a combination of luck, pluck, Albert's outgoing nature, Sylvia's illness, and Alden's helplessness. Their detailed story of the short life of the Titanic and their lucky rescue aboard the ill-starred Lifeboat 13 has never been fully told in Titanic literature. A Rare Titanic Family includes a photo taken of them on deck an unusual surviving souvenir sent to them after the disaster. But the trip on the Titanic was only one part of a bigger nightmare for the Caldwells.
Albert and Sylvia, idealistic young Presbyterian missionaries from the American Midwest, had set out to Bangkok, Siam, on the very day of their wedding in 1909, eager to serve God and see the world. But things went awry. In the end, they fled Bangkok in a desperate journey around the world to save Sylvia's health. Fellow missionaries, however, believed that the couple had plotted to renege on their contract and contrive an excuse to go home early, at great financial loss to the church. The trip around the world thus developed into a grim game of cat and mouse, with the Caldwells as the prey. Not even the loss of the Titanic ended the hunt. A Rare Titanic Family follows the true-life plot twists in a biographical account of a family that survived the Titanic but could never escape the shadow the ship cast over them.