Old Bridge Public Library General Book Discussion Group

--Upcoming Discussion Schedule--

**REMINDER**: With the new electronic catalog (<http://librarycatalog.lmxac.org/>, which will redirect you to <http://librarycatalog.lmxac.org/uhtbin/cgisirsi.exe/x/x/0/49/>), you can request your own inter-library loans.  So even if the other libraries don't respond to the Old Bridge Library's request for copies, you can order a copy for yourself.

Be reminded that this information is on-line for easy access.    It is at
<http://www.geocities.com/markleeper/ob_discussion_gen.html>.

The science fiction reading discussion group has a similar site at <http://www.geocities.com/markleeper/ob_discussion_sf.html>.
 

While the library usually requests copies of discussion books, this does not always work, and they usually don't show up until a couple of weeks before the meeting.  The best way to assure yourself a copy early enough is to request an interlibrary loan either on-line or at the library, and this will get you the book much faster.  There is no charge for requesting a book.

 
05/21--THE RED TENT by Anita Diamant
    pages: 333
    copies in LMxAC catalog: lots in Old Bridge (summer reading list)
    suggested by: Dawn
"The red tent is the place where women gathered during their cycles of birthing, menses, and even illness. Like the conversations and mysteries held within this feminine tent, this sweeping piece of fiction offers an insider's look at the daily life of a biblical sorority of mothers and wives and their one and only daughter, Dinah. Told in the voice of Jacob's daughter Dinah (who only received a glimpse of recognition in the Book of Genesis), we are privy to the fascinating feminine characters who bled within the red tent. In a confiding and poetic voice, Dinah whispers stories of her four mothers, Rachel, Leah, Zilpah, and Bilhah--all wives to Jacob, and each one embodying unique feminine traits. As she reveals these sensual and emotionally charged stories we learn of birthing miracles, slaves, artisans, household gods, and sisterhood secrets. Eventually Dinah delves into her own saga of betrayals, grief, and a call to midwifery."  [amazon.com]
 

06/18--TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY by John Steinbeck
    pages: 246
    copies in LMxAC catalog: lots/1
    suggested by: Evelyn
"John Steinbeck, sensing it was time to rediscover America, decided to set out on a three month odyssey with his French poodle Charley. A tornado in his first week nearly stopped him in his tracks. Steinbeck soon discovered the art of perfect scrounging: sending Charley off, he would follow to retrieve him only to find him buried in some delicious meal. Steinbeck would feign immediate petulance and retrieval, only to receive (of course) a huge welcome from Charley's latest friends. This evocative account of travelling in America is very enjoyable."  [Kirkus UK]
 

07/16--cancelled

 
08/17--THE MEDICAL DETECTIVES by Berton Roueche
    pages: 432(*)
    copies in LMxAC catalog: 3(?)
    suggested by: Mark
(*) Contains twenty-five pieces.  I will figure out which are most available in other volumes the library has and tag those.
"Berton Rouche wrote for the New Yorker magazine for many years, and received numerous awards for his 'Annals of Medicine' department. His tales (and these are that, 30-page articles) of epidemiology chronicle the discovery of diseases new and old, and the scientist-detectives who track these diseases down and find their sources and their cures.  You do not have to be a scientist to appreciate these accounts: being a real-life mystery buff will do. Rouche, now deceased, wrote with an intelligence and clarity that should be the model for--and envy of--all writers.  'The Medical Detectives' includes some of my favorite tales--I've been reading and re-reading Rouche for a long time: 'Eleven Blue Men,' the discovery on the sidewalks of New York of eleven men who were bright blue; 'The Huckleby Hogs,' one of the first-ever journalistic accounts of the hazards of mercury poisoning; 'Aspirin,' about the history, benefits and, yes, the dangers of aspirin.'
 
09/17--?
 

10/15--stories by Edgar Allan Poe
    suggested by: Evelyn
    Murders in the Rue Morgue 44
    The Gold Bug 45
    The Purloined Letter 25
    The Masque of the Red Death 8
    Hop-Frog 12
    A Predicament (under 4000 words)
    The Philosophy of Composition (under 5000 words)
 

11/19--THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams
    (joint with SF group)
    pages: 216
    copies in LMxAC catalog: lots in Old Bridge (summer reading list)
    suggested by: Dawn
"Join Douglas Adams's hapless hero Arthur Dent as he travels the galaxy with his intrepid pal Ford Prefect, getting into horrible messes and generally wreaking hilarious havoc. Dent is grabbed from Earth moments before a cosmic construction team obliterates the planet to build a freeway. You'll never read funnier science fiction; Adams is a master of intelligent satire, barbed wit, and comedic dialogue. The Hitchhiker's Guide is rich in comedic detail and thought-provoking situations and stands up to multiple reads. Required reading for science fiction fans, this book (and its follow-ups) is also sure to please fans of Monty Python, Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, and British sitcoms." [amazon.com]

 

 

[Unless otherwise noted, quotes are from amazon.com]
 
Pending for some time in the future are the following
    (numbers are copies in LMxAC/copies in Old Bridge):
something by Calvin Trillin (pending go/no-go from Arlene)
--CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND by Chuck Barris (256pp, 7/1)
    (pending go/no-go from Dawn)
--THE POWER AND THE GLORY by Graham Greene (240pp, 23/3)
--THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY by Patricia Highsmith (19/0) (suspense)
--I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS by Maya Angelou (lots/3)
    (autobiography)
--THE VIRGIN SUICIDES by Jeffrey Eugenides (249pp, 19/1) (mystery)
something by Saul Bellow
something by Isabel Allende
long (narrative?) poem
 

===================================================================================
From Charlie Harris" <xchar@att.net>
Subject: past books, Old Bridge Original Book Club

Here's the list of Old Bridge Original Book Club books, starting
with the first meeting that I (& you) attended.  Maybe
there are some from 10 or 15 years ago that we could revisit.
 
 =================  '90  ================
02/21--Canticle for Leibowitz, A (Walter M. Miller, Jr.)
03/21--Guns of August, The (Barbara Tuchman)
04/18--Once & Future King, The (T. E. White)
06/20--White Mischief (James Fox)
07/11--Joseph Andrews (Henry Fielding)
07/23--Hour of the Star (Clarice Lispector)
08/15--Riding the Iron Rooster (Paul Theroux)
09/12--Brat Farrar (Josephine Tey)
10/17--Oscar Wilde (Louis Kronenberger)
11/13--Flowers in the Attic (V. C. Andrews)
12/19--On Acting (Laurence Olivier)
 =================  '91  ================
01/23--Bank Shot (Donald Westlake)
02/21--Enemy of the People, An (Henrik Ibsen)
03/13--Cuckoo's Egg (Clifford Stoll)
04/17--Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro)
05/16--Dragon's Egg (Robert L. Forward)
06/20--Bauhaus to Our House (Tom Wolfe)
07/18--Mayor of Casterbridge, The (Thomas Hardy)
08/15--Dances with Wolves (Michael Blake)
09/24--Uncivil Liberties (Calvin Trillin)
10/17--Plague, The (Albert Camus)
11/19--Lysistrata (Aristophanes)
12/17--Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck)
 =================  '92  ================
01/21--Mr. Wakefield's Crusade (Bernice Rubens)
02/20--Handmaid's Tale, The (Margaret Atwood)
03/17--Dave Barry Slept Here (Dave Barry)
04/23--Babbitt (Sinclair Lewis)
05/14--Devices & Desires (P. D. James)
06/23--Freedom Road (Howard Fast)
09/24--Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
10/20--Tempest, The (movie)
10/22--Tempest, The (William Shakespeare
11/17--Firm, The (John Grisham)
 =================  '93  ================
01/19--Thousand Acres, A (Jane Smiley)
02/18--Lost Lady, A (Willa Cather)
03/30--Gold Bug, The (Edgar Allan Poe)
04/22--Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)
06/03--Thief of Time, The (Tony Hillerman)
07/15--I Sent a Letter to My Love (Bernice Rubens)
08/09--Return of Martin Guerre, The (Natalie Davis)
08/26--Prayer for Owen Meany, A (John Irving)
09/23--Spring Moon (Bette Bao Lord)
10/28--Heart of Darkness, The (Joseph Conrad)
11/18--Age of Innocence, The (Henry James)
12/16--Bean Trees, The (Barbara Kingsolver)
 =================  '94  ================
02/15--Pale View of Hills, A (Kazuo Ishiguro)
03/31--Connections (James Burke)
04/28--Uncle Vanya (Anton Chekhov)
05/26--Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The (Agatha Christie)
06/30--Catcher in the Rye, The (J. D. Salinger)
07/21--Study in Scarlet, A (Arthur Conan Doyle)
08/25--Duchess of Malfi, The (John Webster)
09/22--Grendel (John Gardner)
10/20--Picture of Dorian Gray, The (Oscar Wilde)
11/17--Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)
12/20--Like Water for Chocolate (Laura Esquivel)
 =================  '95  ================
01/26--Persuasion (Jane Austen)
02/23--More Than Human (Arthur C. Clarke)
03/23--Wind, Sand and Stars (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
04/24--Adventures of Huckleberry Funn, The (Mark Twain)
05/25--Friday Night Lights (H. G. Bissinger)
06/22--Shipping News, The (Annie Proulx)
07/20--Measure for Measure (William Shakespeare)
08/24--Men and the Girls (Joanna Trollope)
09/21--Black Velvet Gown, The (Catherine Cookson)
10/26--Canterbury Tales, The (Geoffrey Chaucer)
11/21--People of the Abyss, The (Jack London)
12/28--Saint Joan (George Bernard Shaw)
 =================  '96  ================
01/25--Anna Karenina 1-4 (Leo Tolstoy)
02/29--Anna Karenina 5-8 (Leo Tolstoy)
04/11--Warden, The (Anthony Trollope)
04/25--Culture (Robert Hughes)
05/23--Bull from the Sea, The (Mary Renault)
06/27--Jane Eyre (Emily Bronte)
07/25--Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston)
08/22--Father, The (August Strindberg)
09/26--Hunchback of Notre Dame, The (Victor Hugo)
10/24--And the Band Played On (Randy Shilts)
11/21--And the Band Played On (Randy Shilts)
12/19--Good Earth, The (Pearl S. Buck)
 =================  '97  ================
01/23--Beloved (Toni Morrison)
02/20--Billy Budd (Herman Melville)
03/20--Mother Courage (Bertold Brecgt)
04/24--Blood Wedding (Federico Garcia Lorca)
05/22--Walden (Henry Thoreau)
06/26--Pearl, The (John Steinbeck)
07/24--City of Gold (Len Deighton)
08/21--Crime of the Century (Gregory Algren)
09/25--Pale Fire (Vladimir Nabokov)
10/23--Of Love and Shadows (Isabel Allende)
11/20--To the Lighthouse (Virginia Woolf)
12/18--Bend in the River, A (V. S. Naipaul)
 =================  '98  ================
01/22--Ragtime (E. L. Doctorow)
03/26--Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (Roddy Doyle)
04/23--Crossing to Safety (Wallace Earle Stegner)
05/21--Hobbit, The (J. R. R. Tolkien)
06/25--Story of English, The (Robert McCrum)
07/23--Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy)
08/27--Dubliners (James Joyce)
09/24--Tender Is the Night (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
10/22--Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (John Berendt)
11/19--Martin Dressler (Steven Millhauser)
12/17--Web and the Rock, The (Thomas Wolfe)
 =================  '99  ================
02/25--Losing Battles (Eudora Welty)
03/25--Animal Dreams (Barbara Kingsolver)
04/29--Martian Chronicles, the (Ray Bradbury)
05/27--Clan of the Cave Bear, the (Jean Auel)
06/24--Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
07/29--Under Milk Wood (Dylan Thomas)
08/26--Strange Pilgrims (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
09/30--Snow Falling on Cedars (David Guterson)
10/28--Nurture Assumption, The (Judith Harris)
11/18--Liar's Club, The (Mary Karr)
 =================  '00  ================
01/26--No Ordinary Time (Doris Kearns Goodwin)
02/17--Bachelor Girls (Wendy Wasserstein)
03/23--Elmer Gantry (Sinclair Lewis)
04/27--American Tragedy, An (Theodore Dreiser)
05/25--Professor and the Madman, The (Simon Winchester)
06/22--Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (Rebecca Wells)
07/20--Sotah (Naomi Ragen)
08/24--Stones from the River (Ursula Hegi)
09/21--Merchant of Venice, The (William Shakespeare)
10/26--To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
11/30--Red Badge of Courage, The (Stephen Crane)
12/28--Streetcar Named Desire, A (Tennessee Williams)
 =================  '01  ================
01/18--Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
02/15--As I Lay Dying (William Faulkner)
03/22--House of Mirth (Edith Wharton)
04/19--Twelfth Night (William Shakespeare)
05/24--Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman (Richard Feynman)
06/21--Republic, The (Plato)
07/19--Color of Water, The (James McBride)
08/23--Conspiracy of Paper, A (David Liss)
09/20--Lincoln's Dreams (Connie Willis)
10/18--Writing a Woman's Life (Carolyn G. Heilbrun)
11/29--No Word from Winifred (Amanda Cross)
12/20--Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (J. K. Rowling)
 =================  '02  ================
01/17--Odyssey, The (Homer)
02/21--Deputy, The (Rolf Hochhuth)
03/21--Guns, Germs, & Steel (Jared Diamond)
04/25--Waiting (Ha Jin)
05/23--Maltese Falcon, The (Dashiell Hammett)
06/27--Lolita (Vladmir Nabokov)
07/25--Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce)
or Portrait of a Lady (Henry James)
08/22--Double Helix (James L. Watson)
09/26--Day of the Locust (Nathanael West)
10/24--Bridge of San Luis Rey, The (Thorton Wilder)
11/21--Great Gatsby, The (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
12/19--Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes)
 =================  '03  ================
01/16--Club Dumas, The (Arturo Perez-Reverte)
02/20--Tipping Point, The (Malcolm Gladwell)
03/20--Rocket Boys (Homer Hickam)
04/17--Perelandra (C. S. Lewis)
05/15--Little House on the Prairie (Laura Ingalls Wilder)
06/19--Surprised by Joy (C. S. Lewis)
07/17--Aspern Papers, The (Henry James)
08/21--Bel Canto (Ann Patchett)
09/18--[canceled]
10/16--Dead Souls (Nikolai Gogol)
11/20--Girl with a Pearl Earring (Tracy Chevalier)
12/18--Seabiscuit (Laura Hillenbrand)
 =================  '04  ================
01/15--[canceled]
02/19--Killer Angels, The (Michael Shaara)
03/18--[postponed]
04/15--Sun Also Rises, The (Ernest Hemingway)
05/20--Lord Jim (Joseph Conrad)
06/17--End of the Affair, The (Graham Greene)
07/29--A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
08/19--Sweet Thursday (John Steinbeck)
09/30--The Awakening (Kate Chopin)
10/21--The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
11/18--The Eyre Affair (Jasper Fforde)
12/16--The Trial (Franz Kafka)
 =================  '05  ================
01/20--The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde)
02/17--Cannery Row (John Steinbeck)
03/17--The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (Oliver Sacks)
04/21--The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (Alexander McCall Smith)
05/19--Don Juan in Hell (George Bernard Shaw)
06/16--Men of Mathematics (Eric Temple Bell) (selections)
07/21--Maus (Art Spiegelmann)
08/18--Poems (Emily Dickinson)
09/15--Secret Father by James Carroll
10/20--Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
11/17--Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore
12/15--The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
 =================  '06  ================
01/19--Ecclesiastes/Job
02/16--Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption (Stephen King)
03/16--Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe)
04/20--cancelled
05/18--I, Claudius (Robert Graves)
06/15--The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Mark Haddon)
07/20--Hadji Murad (Leo Tolstoy)
08/17--Tears of the Giraffe (Alexander McCall Smith)
09/21--The Shadow Divers (Robert Kurson)
10/19--Northanger Abbey (Jane Austen)
11/16--The Woman and the Ape (Peter Hoeg)
12/21--Where Are the ChiLdren? (Mary Higgins Clark)
 =================  '07  ================
01/18--On the Road (Jack Kerouac)
02/15--Kim (Rudyard Kipling)
03/15--The Color Purple (Alice Walker)
04/19--The Dante Club (Matthew Pearl)
05/17--House of Sand and Fog (Andre Dubus III)
06/21--Eyewitness to History (John Carey)
07/19--(skipped)
08/16--Ragtime (E. L. Doctorow)
09/20--Richard III (Richard Shakespeare)
10/18--The Daughter of Time (Josephine Tey)
11/15--King & Joker (Peter Dickinson) (joint)
12/20--Year of Wonders (Geraldine Brooks)
 =================  '08  ================
01/17--The Innocents Abroad (Mark Twain)