Book Discussion

Noon Book Club – at Hopkinsville-Christian County Public Library

Join this once-a-month book club that meets at the Library on the first Monday of each month. The March book choice is Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance.

Copies available to check out at the front desk upon request.

Here’s a summary of this popular non-fiction book:

“From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, a powerful account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America’s white working class

Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J.D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.

The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J.D.’s grandparents were “dirt poor and in love,” and moved north from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually their grandchild (the author) would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of their success in achieving generational upward mobility.

But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that this is only the short, superficial version. Vance’s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother, struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, and were never able to fully escape the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. Vance piercingly shows how he himself still carries around the demons of their chaotic family history.

A deeply moving memoir with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.”

Adventure Book Club at Hopkinsville-Christian County Public Library

Join your friends at the Library for the Adventure Book Club! This once-a-month book club is for ages 9-14. At their first meeting, they’ll talk about Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. Copies are available to check out at the Library front desk.

Here is a summary of the book:

“Brian is on his way to Canada to visit his estranged father when the pilot of his small prop plane suffers a heart attack. Brian is forced to crash-land the plane in a lake–and finds himself stranded in the remote Canadian wilderness with only his clothing and the hatchet his mother gave him as a present before his departure.

Brian had been distraught over his parents’ impending divorce and the secret he carries about his mother, but now he is truly desolate and alone. Exhausted, terrified, and hungry, Brian struggles to find food and make a shelter for himself. He has no special knowledge of the woods, and he must find a new kind of awareness and patience as he meets each day’s challenges. Is the water safe to drink? Are the berries he finds poisonous?

Slowly, Brian learns to turn adversity to his advantage–an invading porcupine unexpectedly shows him how to make fire, a devastating tornado shows him how to retrieve supplies from the submerged airplane. Most of all, Brian leaves behind the self-pity he has felt about his predicament as he summons the courage to stay alive.

A story of survival and of transformation, this riveting book has sparked many a reader’s interest in venturing into the wild.”

Saturday Book Chat at Hopkinsville-Christian County Public Library

Join this engaging and fun book discussion group at the Library! They’ll be chatting about The One by John Marrs at the February meeting.

Copies are available to check out at the front desk upon request.

Here’s a summary of this fascinating story:

“How far would you go to find The One?

A simple DNA test is all it takes. Just a quick mouth swab and soon you’ll be matched with your perfect partner—the one you’re genetically made for.

That’s the promise made by Match Your DNA. A decade ago, the company announced that they had found the gene that pairs each of us with our soul mate. Since then, millions of people around the world have been matched. But the discovery has its downsides: test results have led to the breakup of countless relationships and upended the traditional ideas of dating, romance and love.

Now five very different people have received the notification that they’ve been “Matched.” They’re each about to meet their one true love. But “happily ever after” isn’t guaranteed for everyone. Because even soul mates have secrets. And some are more shocking than others…

A word-of-mouth hit in the United Kingdom, The One is a fascinating novel that shows how even the simplest discoveries can have complicated consequences.”

Books After Dark: Christian – at Hopkinsville-Christian County Public Library

Books After Dark is a new after-hours book discussion at the Library. The theme will rotate each month. In February, they’ll be talking about the Christian romance The Dating Charade by Melissa Ferguson. The author will be joining the discussion via Skype!

Copies of the book are available to check out at the Library front desk.

Book Signing with Steve Gorman

Steve Gorman of the The Black Crowes will be at Hopkinsville-Christian County Public Library to sign and sell copies of his memoir “Hard to Handle: The Life and Death of The Black Crowes.” This memoir is the first account of the band’s story.

Below is the publisher’s press release about Gorman’s fascinating book:
“With hits like “Hard to Handle,” “She Talks to Angels,” and “Remedy,” The Black Crowes topped the charts and reigned supreme over the radio waves for more than two decades. They were on the cover of Rolling Stone, MTV played their videos 24/7, and Generation X re-discovered the power of classic rock and blues by digging into multi-platinum classics like Shake Your Money Maker and The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion.

However, stardom proved fleeting for The Black Crowes, and their success slowly dwindled as the band members got caught up in the rock star world and lost sight of their musical ambition. Despite the drinking, drugs, and incessant fighting between Chris and Rich Robinson (two of the angriest brothers in rock and roll), the band continued to tour. On any given night, they could be the best band you ever saw—or the most combative. Then, one last rift in 2013 proved too insurmountable to overcome. After that, the Black Crowes would fly no more.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Steve Gorman is a founding member of The Black Crowes as well as his current band, Trigger Hippy. He has created and hosted two nationally syndicated radio shows. Hard to Handle is his first book. He lives in Nashville with his wife and two kids. Steven Hyden is the author of Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me and Twilight of the Gods. His work has also appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Washington Post, Billboard, Rolling Stone, Grantland, The. A.V. Club, Uproxx, and The Ringer.”

Books After Dark: Mystery/Thriller – at Hopkinsville-Christian County Public Library

Books After Dark is a new after-hours book discussion at the Library. The theme will rotate each month. For the first meeting in January, they’ll be talking about The Snowman by Jo Nesbø.

Copies are available to check out at the Library front desk.

Here’s the summary for this thrilling story:

“Internationally acclaimed crime writer Jo Nesbø’s antihero police investigator, Harry Hole, is back: in a bone-chilling thriller that will take Hole to the brink of insanity.

Oslo in November. The first snow of the season has fallen. A boy named Jonas wakes in the night to find his mother gone. Out his window, in the cold moonlight, he sees the snowman that inexplicably appeared in the yard earlier in the day. Around its neck is his mother’s pink scarf.

Hole suspects a link between a menacing letter he’s received and the disappearance of Jonas’s mother – and of perhaps a dozen other women, all of whom went missing on the day of a first snowfall. As his investigation deepens, something else emerges: he is becoming a pawn in an increasingly terrifying game whose rules are devised – and constantly revised – by the killer.

Fiercely suspenseful, its characters brilliantly realized, its atmosphere permeated with evil, The Snowman is the electrifying work of one of the best crime writers of our time.”

Saturday Book Chat at Hopkinsville-Christian County Public Library

Join this engaging and fun book discussion group at the Library! They’ll be chatting about The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender at the January meeting.

Copies are available to check out at the Library front desk upon request.

Here’s a summary of this fascinating story:

“The wondrous Aimee Bender conjures the lush and moving story of a girl whose magical gift is really a devastating curse.

On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein, a girl at the periphery of schoolyard games and her distracted parents’ attention, bites into her mother’s homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother’s emotions in the cake. She discovers this gift to her horror, for her mother—her cheerful, good-with-crafts, can-do mother—tastes of despair and desperation. Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes a peril and a threat to Rose.

The curse her gift has bestowed is the secret knowledge all families keep hidden—her mother’s life outside the home, her father’s detachment, her brother’s clash with the world. Yet as Rose grows up she learns to harness her gift and becomes aware that there are secrets even her taste buds cannot discern.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is a luminous tale about the enormous difficulty of loving someone fully when you know too much about them. It is heartbreaking and funny, wise and sad, and confirms Aimee Bender’s place as “a writer who makes you grateful for the very existence of language” (San Francisco Chronicle).”

Saturday Book Chat at Hopkinsville-Christian County Public Library

Join this engaging and fun book discussion group at the Library! They’ll be chatting about The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel at the December meeting. Light refreshments provided. Copies of the book are available to check out at the Library front desk upon request.

Here’s a summary of this fascinating story:

“Many people dream of escaping modern life, but most will never act on it. This is the remarkable true story of a man who lived alone in the woods of Maine for 27 years, making this dream a reality–not out of anger at the world, but simply because he preferred to live on his own.

In 1986, a shy and intelligent twenty-year-old named Christopher Knight left his home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, and disappeared into the forest. He would not have a conversation with another human being until nearly three decades later, when he was arrested for stealing food. Living in a tent even through brutal winters, he had survived by his wits and courage, developing ingenious ways to store edibles and water, and to avoid freezing to death. He broke into nearby cottages for food, clothing, reading material, and other provisions, taking only what he needed but terrifying a community never able to solve the mysterious burglaries. Based on extensive interviews with Knight himself, this is a vividly detailed account of his secluded life–why did he leave? what did he learn?–as well as the challenges he has faced since returning to the world. It is a gripping story of survival that asks fundamental questions about solitude, community, and what makes a good life, and a deeply moving portrait of a man who was determined to live his own way, and succeeded.”