June-July 2012 -

The Women 

by T.C. Boyle

Having brought to life eccentric cereal king John Harvey Kellogg in The Road to Wellville and sex researcher Alfred Kinsey in The Inner Circle, T.C. Boyle now turns his fictional sights on an even more colorful and outlandish character: Frank Lloyd Wright. Boyle's incomparable account of Wright's life is told through the experiences of the four women who loved him. There's the Montenegrin beauty Olgivanna Milanoff, the passionate Southern belle Maude Miriam Noel, the tragic Mamah Cheney, and his young first wife, Kitty Tobin. Blazing with his trademark wit and inventiveness, Boyle deftly captures these very different women and the creative life in all its complexity. (Book Description)

Discussion Meeting: Sometime in July, check back.
Location: TBD

Check this NPR web feature and podcast about this book:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101170584

May 2012 -

The Hummingbird's Daughter / La Hija de la Chuparrosa 

by Luis Alberto Urrea

Twenty years in the making, Urrea's epic novel recounts the true story of his great-aunt Teresita. In 1873, amid the political turbulence of General Porfirio Díaz's Mexican republic, Teresita is born to a fourteen-year-old Indian girl, "mounted and forgotten" by her white master. Don Tomàs Urrea later takes his illegitimate daughter into his home, where she learns to bathe every week and read "Las Hermanas Brontë." But Teresita also continues a folk education as a curandera, discovering healing powers and a mystical relationship with God. Indian pilgrims swarm to the Urrea ranch, where "St. Teresita," a mestiza Joan of Arc, kindles in them a powerful faith in God and a perilous hunger for revolution. The novel brings to life not only the deeply pious figure whom Díaz himself dubbed "the Most Dangerous Girl in Mexico" but also the blood-soaked landscape of pre-revolutionary Mexico. (The New Yorker) 

Leader/Host: Isabella
Discussion Meeting: June 3rd (11am) - Potluck!
Location: Bella's place 

Here is the author's page:

http://www.luisurrea.com/books/fiction/hummingbirds-daughter

and an article...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/03/books/review/03DERASMO.html?pagewanted=all

 

April 2012 -

Gold Boy, Emerald Girl 

by Yiyun Li 

“Li's collection well deserves a celebration with its sophistication and honesty, which often derive from a deep understanding of the history, culture and politics of China, and of their impact on ordinary people. . . . Yes, sorrows may arise during times of reflection, but it's impossible not to fall in love with the privacy and tranquility of the time and place.”
—San Francisco Chronicle Book Review, Cover Review

Leader/Host: Open
Discussion Meeting: Sun April 1st (1pm).

This was the title selected for One Book One Chicago this spring. Here is the library page for it that includes interviews, programs & events, timeline, etc):
http://www.chipublib.org/eventsprog/programs/oboc/12s_gold/oboc_12s_greeting.php