11th Annual Ladies' Soirée
Book of the Month – September 2010
How to Cool the Planet: Geoengineering and the Audacious Quest to Fix Earth’s Climate by Jeff Goodell
In Goodell ‘s balanced, thought-provoking book he asks, “If we begin to engineer the climate, whose hand will be on the thermostat?” “His provocative account achieves a fine balance between the inventor’s enthusiasm and scientist’s skepticism,” says Publishers Weekly.
Book of the Month – August 2010
The Lake Shore Limited by Sue Miller
Four characters in Miller’s latest are bound together by the events of 9/11. The novel moves from the woods of Vermont to the streets of Boston as the lives of Billy, Leslie, Rafe and Sam intersect. Miller has a “Chekhovian understanding of missed connections, lost opportunities, and closely held memories that mutate slowly over time,” The New York Times.
Book of the Month – July 2010
The Best of It: New and Selected Poems by Kay Ryan
In this collection by Ryan, the current Poet Laureate of the United States, readers will find both earlier work as well as many new poems . This retrospective is powerful to longtime followers and to those who may not read much poetry.
Book of the Month – June 2010
That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo
This Pulitzer Prize-winning author writes a novel of deep introspection with a middle-aged man confronting his parents and their failed marriage, his own troubled one, his daughter’s new life and, finally, what it was he thought he wanted and what in fact he has. Russo will be at the Library on June 27.
Book of the Month – May 2010
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Doctors took her cells without asking. Those cells never died. They launched a medical revolution and a multimillion-dollar industry. More than 20 years later, her children found out. “Skloot tells a rich, resonant tale of modern science, the wonders it can perform and how easily it can exploit society’s most vulnerable people,” Publishers Weekly.
Book of the Month – April 2010
Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
This masterpiece, written by Cather in 1927, tells the story of a missionary priest and his work of faith in the wilderness of the Southwest in the second half of the 19th century. Father Latour must contend with an unforgiving landscape, rebellious priests, and his own loneliness. “A very rare piece of literature, “ The New York Times.
Book of the Month – March 2010
Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink
Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does. He examines the three elements of true motivation – autonomy, mastery, and purpose – and offers techniques for putting these into action. “Important reading for frustrated…business leaders struggling to connect with stressed-out workers,” Kirkus Reviews.
Book of the Month – February 2010
New York: The Novel by Edward Rutherfurd
From the city’s founding to the present day, Rutherfurd’s epic novel is told through the interwoven tales of families rich and poor, black and white, native-born and immigrant – a cast of fictional and true characters whose fates rise and fall with the city’s fortunes. “He delivers magnificently,” says The Washington Post.
Book of the Month – January 2010
Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays by Zadie Smith
Kirkus Reviews states, “Rarely does a book that seems to promise so little deliver so much.” Smith casts an acute eye over material both personal and cultural in this collection. Whether writing of Katharine Hepburn, Kafka, Liberia or Middlemarch she brings a practitioner’s care to the art of criticism.
