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Gilroy Library > Getting to Know Gilroy Library > Book Club

An image of a Mayan Quetzal bird design, symbolizing Gilroy's Hispanic heritage


Gilroy Library Book Club


See the Book Club titles chosen for this year or read about the book chosen for our next meeting below.

The Santa Clara County Library's selected Web Sites for Reading lists sites with reading and discussion tips for your favorite books.





Our next Book Club
meeting:

May 27, 2008
(Tuesday)
7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Gilroy Library
Community Room

Paula
By Isabel Allende


Author Isabel Allende



The Book Club:

The Gilroy Library Book Club meets in the Library's Community Room on the last Tuesday of every month, from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. New members are always welcome. A librarian facilitates the group but discussion is freewheeling and member-driven.

Books are selected by club members and purchased by Friends of the Gilroy Library for Book Club use. Books are available (a month at a time) at the Adult Reference Desk. Please feel free to join us for a lively discussion!

Contact:

For more information, please contact Sally Leete at (408) 842-8208.


2008 Book Club titles:

  • January  29    

The Distant Land of My Father by Bo Caldwell
Silicon Valley Reads 2008. Experiencing a seemingly idyllic childhood in pre-World War II Shanghai, Anna flees to California with her mother when the Japanese occupation begins, believing her charismatic millionaire father's connections will keep him safe.

  • February 26   

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
 An evocative story of friendship set against the backdrop of a nineteenth-century China in which women suffered from foot binding, isolation, and illiteracy follows an elderly woman and her companion as they communicate their hopes, dreams, joys, and tragedies through a unique secret language.

  • March 25     

The Palace of the Snow Queen: Winter Travels in Lapland by Barbara Sjoholm
In November of 2001, fueled by the aftermath of 9/11 and the break-up of a relationship, writer Barbara Sjoholm left the United States to spend a polar winter in Lapland. Sjoholm was interested in exploring her childhood fantasy of Lapland based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale, "The Snow Queen," and decided to research the budding phenomenon of winter tourism. The Palace of the Snow Queen is the result of Sjoholm’s travels in Lapland, starting with her visit to Kiruna, Sweden, to observe the construction of the Ice Hotel. Over the next three years, she spent each winter in the North, meeting ice artists and snow architects, reindeer herders, and Sami writers and activists.

Throughout The Palace of the Snow Queen, Sjoholm provides a deeply moving look at the people of Kiruna and the Sami’s struggle to maintain their grazing lands and migration routes in the face of tourism, while focusing on the various political and ideological changes occurring within this icy region. Ultimately, Sjoholm contemplates the tensions between contemporary tourism and traditional culture, and delivers a powerful travel narrative of this comparatively little-known region of Europe.

  • April 29          

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards
In a tale spanning twenty-five years, a doctor delivers his newborn twin daughter during a snowstorm and, rashly deciding to protect his wife from the baby's affliction with Down Syndrome, turns her over to a nurse, who secretly raises the child.

  • May 27          

Paula by Isabel Allende
Presents the story of Allende's ancestors and youth as it was written by her daughter's hospital bedside, reflecting the challenges and achievements of one family during a turbulent time in Chilean history.

  • June 24          

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.

 


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Last Updated: 6 May 2008 Catherine Denise Alexander

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