Book Discussion Group Books for 2010-2011

*To order books please contact me by clicking on my email address on the right side of this page or phone me at (520) 398-9650.

Here are the book discussion group selections for this year. All books carry a 15% discount for group members if I have your list on file. Shipping is free for orders over $25.  (Prices on this page reflect book group price)

 

 

Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age  by Susan Jacobi  $23.76

In a narrative that combines the intensely personal with social, economic, and historical analysis, Jacoby turns an unsparing eye on the marketers of longevity–pharmaceutical companies, lifestyle gurus, and scientific businessmen who suggest that there will soon be a “cure” for the “disease” of aging.  (available in paperback February 2012)

 

 

A Field Guide to Getting Lost  by Rebecca Solnit  $12.75

Written as a series of autobiographical essays, this volume draws on emblematic moments and relationships in Solnit’s life to explore issues of uncertainty, trust, loss, memory, desire, and place.

 

 

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier  $12.75

When Mary Anning uncovers an unusual fossilized skeleton near her English coast home, she sets the community on edge. Mary soon finds a champion in prickly Elizabeth Philpot. Their relationship strikes a delicate balance between fierce loyalty, mutual appreciation, and barely suppressed envy.

 

 

All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West $13.59

Having surrendered seven decades of her life to the exemplary, if often hollow fulfillment of her marriage, to the expectations of her statesman husband and the demands of her children, Lady Slane finally, in her widowhood, defies her family. She dismisses the wishes and plans of her six pompous sons and daughters for her future, and instead retires to a tiny house in Hampstead, where she chooses to live independently and free from her past.

 

 

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks  by Rebecca Skloot  $13.60

Acclaimed author Skloot brilliantly weaves together the story of Henrietta Lacks–a woman whose cells have been unwittingly used for scientific research since the 1950s–with the birth of bioethics, and the dark history of experimentation on African Americans.

 

 

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand  by Helen Simonson  $12.75

Edgecombe St. Mary, a small village in the English countryside, is filled with rolling hills, thatched cottages, and contains a cast of characters both hilariously original and as familiar as the members of readers’ own families. Their interactions are both hilarious and heartbreaking.

 

 

The Madonnas of Leningrad  by Debra Dean  $11.89

In this sublime debut novel, set amid the horrors of the siege of Leningrad in World War II, a gifted writer explores the power of memory to save . . . and betray.

 

 

Broken Colors  by Michele Zackheim  $12.71

Sophie Marks’ path to artistic and personal fulfillment takes her from World War II England to postwar Paris and the Italian countryside. She leaves Europe in 1967 and spends the next two decades in the American Southwest. Acclaimed at last as an artist, she returns to England to confront the hidden memories of her childhood and test the possibilities of a renewed love, a passion ripened by maturity.