You have received the following set:

• Canvas carrying bag
• Notebook with instructions, reviews, biographical information about the author and discussion questions (if available).
• Ten paperback copies of the book. 

Loan Period:

1. Each set can be borrowed for 6 weeks.
2. The sets cannot be renewed.
3. There are no fines levied, but please return the sets on time, so another  book group can check out these materials.
4. Book Groupie sets can be returned to any branch of the Omaha Public       Library, but they MUST be returned to a staff desk, and NOT through a book drop. 

For more information contact Sherry at 444-4828

OPL's Book Groupies List - 2010

Behind the scenes at the museum by Kate Atkinson

From the moment Ruby Lennox announces her own conception (‘I exist!’), it is clear that she is a narrator who will leave no stone unturned in her account of family life above a pet shop in England. Not content simply to describe her own circumstances, Ruby investigates the lives of the women in family both past and present, from her great-grandmother's affair with a French photographer to her mother's unfulfilled dreams of Hollywood glamour. Hurtling in and out of both World Wars, economic downfalls, the onset of the permissive '60's, and up to the present day, Ruby paints a rich and vivid portrait of heartbreak and happiness, and from it draws a rare understanding of the shared secrets, hopes and failures that unite every family.

Memory keeper’s daughter by Kim Edwards
What would happen if you lost your child and she grew up without you? In 1964, when a blizzard forces Dr. David Henry to deliver his own twins, he immediately recognizes that one of them has Down syndrome and makes a split-second decision that will haunt all their lives forever. He asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution and to keep her birth a secret. Instead, she disappears into another city to raise the child as her own. Compulsively readable and deeply moving, this is an astonishing tale of redemptive love.

The painted drum by Louise Erdrich
When Faye Travers is called upon to appraise the estate of a family in her small New Hampshire town, she isn't surprised to discover a forgotten cache of valuable Native American artifacts. After all, the family descends from an Indian agent who worked on the North Dakota Ojibwa reservation that is home to her mother's family. However, she stops dead in her tracks when she finds in the collection a rare drum - a powerful yet delicate object, made from a massive moose skin stretched across a hollow of cedar, ornamented with symbols she doesn't recognize and dressed in red tassels and a beaded belt and skirt - especially since, without touching the instrument, she hears it sound. From Faye's discovery, the drum's passage is traced both backward and forward in time, from the reservation on the northern plains to New Hampshire and back. Through the voice of Bernard Shaawano, an Ojibwa, we hear how his grandfather fashioned the drum after years of mourning his young daughter's death, and how it changes the lives of those whose paths its crosses.

The girls who went away by Ann Fessler

Side effects: a New Orleans love story by Patty Friedmann
N.O. Drugstore is located at the improbable intersection of South Claiborne Avenue and South Carrollton Avenue in New Orleans. Its idiosyncratic clientele draws as much from mostly poor-black Pigeontown as it does from the mostly rich-white University section. And no one knows this better than the three people who man the pharmacy on even days of the month. As different in style and temperament as their customers, Luciana Jambon, Lennon Israel, and Vendetta Greene are the protagonists of this story. Told in third person from their alternating points of view, Side Effects plays out their respective family feuds, usually somewhere between the Seasonal Specials and the Depends aisles. Corralled as they are with one another twelve hours a day, romance and splendid friendship blossom among Luciana, Lennon, and Vendetta, because it’s really only a low counter that separates them from everyone else.

Murder on a bad hair day by Anne George (mystery)
It's hard to believe practical, petite ex-schoolteacher Patricia Anne and amiable, ample-bodied, and outrageous Mary Alice are sisters, yet sibling rivalry has survived decades of good-natured disagreement about everything from husbands to hair color. No sooner do the Southern sisters discover a common interest in some local art, when they're arguing the artistic merits of some well-coiffured heads at a gallery opening. A few hours later, one of those pretty ladies ends up dead, with not a hair out of place. The other shows up on Patricia Anne's doorstep dazed, disheveled, and telling a wild tale of a narrow escape from some deadly cuts. Now the sisters are once again combing for clues to catch a killer with a bizarre style in art and murder.

Water for elephants by Sara Gruen
Though he may not speak of them, the memories still dwell inside Jacob Jankowski's ninety-something-year-old mind. Memories of himself as a young man, tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Memories of a world filled with freaks and clowns, with wonder and pain and anger and passion; a world with its own narrow, irrational rules, its own way of life, and its own way of death. The world of the circus: to Jacob it was both salvation and a living hell. Jacob was there because his luck had run out: orphaned and penniless, he had no direction until he landed on this locomotive ‘ship of fools.’ It was the early part of the Great Depression, and everyone in this third-rate circus was lucky to have any job at all. Marlena, the star of the equestrian act, was there because she fell in love with the wrong man, a handsome circus boss with a wide mean streak. And Rosie the elephant was there because she was the great gray hope, the new act that was going to be the salvation of the circus; the only problem was, Rosie didn't have an act, in fact, she couldn't even follow instructions. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and ultimately, it was their only hope for survival.

Left to tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza
Immaculee Ilibagiza grew up in a country she loved, surrounded by a family she cherished. But in 1994 her idyllic world was ripped apart as Rwanda descended into a bloody genocide. Immaculee’s family was brutally murdered during a killing spree that lasted three months and claimed the lives of nearly a million Rwandans. Incredibly, Immaculee survived the slaughter. For 91 days, she and seven other women huddled silently together in the cramped bathroom of a local pastor while hundreds of machete-wielding killers hunted for them. It was during those endless hours of unspeakable terror that Immaculee discovered the power of prayer, eventually shedding her fear of death and forging a profound and lasting relationship with God. She emerged from her bathroom hideout having discovered the meaning of truly unconditional love, a love so strong she was able seek out and forgive her family’s killers.

Blue shoe by Anne Lamott
Mattie Ryder thinks that life cannot get any more complicated. She is newly divorced and living with her two children in her childhood home, which is infested with rats and too many unanswered questions from her past. While the rat problem can be cured with an exterminator, coming to terms with her past will require Mattie to unravel her family secrets and learn some painful truths, especially about her father. The clues to his life are contained in a plastic bag that was recovered from the glove box of his old car. Inside are a paint key from a can of blue paint and a tiny blue rubber shoe. As Mattie comes to know it, the story of her father's world shocks her, but it also explains her mother's erratic behavior and distance while she was growing up. What she learns will help Mattie come to peace with her own life as she finds love with a man with whom she can have an intimate and honest relationship, and accepts the emotional baggage that she carries as a part of herself instead of a burden.

Then she found me by Elinor Lipman
April Epner teaches high school Latin, wears flannel jumpers, and is used to having her evenings free. Bernice Graverman brandishes designer labels, favors toad-sized earrings, and hosts her own tacky TV talk show: Bernice G! But behind the glitz and glam, Bernice has followed the life of the daughter she gave up for adoption thirty-six years ago. Now that she's got her act together, she's aiming to be a mom like she always knew she could. And she's hurtling straight for April's quiet little life.

The tender bar by J.R. Moehringer
The author grew up listening for a voice: It was the sound of his missing father, a disc jockey who disappeared before J.R. spoke his first words. As a boy, J.R. would press his ear to a clock radio, straining to hear in that resonant voice the secrets of masculinity, and the keys to his own identity. J.R.’s mother was his world, his anchor, but he needed something else, something more, something he couldn’t name. So he turned to the bar on the corner, a grand old New York saloon that was a sanctuary for all types of men: cops and poets, actors and lawyers, gamblers and stumblebums. The flamboyant characters along the bar-including J.R.’s Uncle Charlie, a Humphrey Bogart look-alike; Colt, a Yogi Bear sound-alike; Joey D, a soft-hearted brawler; and Cager, a war hero who raised handicapping horses to an art, taught J.R., tended him, and provided a kind of fatherhood by committee. When the time came for J.R. to leave home, the bar became a way station, from his entrance to Yale, where he floundered as a scholarship student way out of his element; to his introduction to tragic romance with a woman way out of his league; to his stint as a copy boy at the New York Times, where he was a faulty cog in a vast machine way out of his control. Through it all, the bar offered shelter from failure, from rejection, and eventually from reality, until at last the bar turned J.R. away.

Missing mom by Joyce Carol Oates
Nikki Eaton, single, thirty-one, sexually liberated, and economically self-supporting, has never particularly thought of herself as a daughter. Yet, following the unexpected loss of her mother, she undergoes a remarkable transformation during a tumultuous year that brings stunning horror, sorrow, illumination, wisdom, and even - from an unexpected source - a nurturing love.

Perfect match by Jodi Picoult
In the course of her everyday work, career-driven assistant district attorney Nina Frost prosecutes child molesters and works determinedly to ensure that a legal system with too many loopholes keeps these criminals behind bars. But when her own five-year-old son, Nathaniel, is traumatized by a sexual assault, Nina and her husband, Caleb, a quiet and methodical stone mason, are shattered, ripped apart by an enraging sense of helplessness in the face of a futile justice system that Nina knows all too well. In a heartbeat, Nina's absolute truths and convictions are turned upside down, and she hurtles toward a plan to exact her own justice for her son, no matter the consequence, whatever the sacrifice.

Love song to the plains by Mari Sandoz
This is a lyric salute to the earth and sky and people who made the history of the Great Plains by the region's incomparable historian, Mari Sandoz. It is a story of men and women of many hues: courageous, violent, indomitable, foolish and their legends, failures, and achievements: of explorers and fur trappers and missionaries; of soldiers and army posts and Indian fighting; of California-bound emigrants who stopped off to become settlers; and, of cattlemen and bad men, boomers and land speculators, and their feuds and rivalries. Above all, this is a portrait of the true Plainsman, the man or woman who can stand to have the horizon far off and every day, every year, a gamble.

Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey (mystery)
In this tale of mystery and suspense, a stranger enters the inner sanctum of the Ashby family posing as Patrick Ashby, the heir to the family's sizable fortune. The stranger, Brat Farrar,  has been carefully coached on Patrick's mannerisms, appearance, and every significant detail of Patrick's early life, up to his thirteenth year when he disappeared and was thought to have drowned himself. It seems as if Brat is going to pull off this most incredible deception until old secrets emerge that jeopardize the imposter's plan and his life.

Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

This is a story of another time and place. It's the legendary saga of King Arthur and his companions at Camelot, their battles, love, and devotion, told this time from the perspective of the women involved. Viviane is ‘The Lady of the Lake,’ the magical priestess of the Isle of Avalon, a special mist-shrouded place which becomes more difficult to reach as people turn away from its nature- and Goddess-oriented religion. Viviane's quest is to find a king who will be loyal to Avalon as well as to Christianity. This king will be Arthur. Gwenhwyfar, Arthur's Queen, is an overly pious, fearful woman who successfully sways her husband into betraying his allegiance to Avalon. Set against her is Morgaine of the Fairies, Arthur's sister, love, and enemy - and the most powerfully believable person in the book - who manipulates the characters like threads in a tapestry to achieve her tragic and heroic goals.

Waltzing at the Piggly Wiggly by Robert Dalby

The Piggly Wiggly has been the hub of the community of Second Creek, Mississippi, but now it may be forced to shut down. Determined to keep her favorite market open, Laurie Lepanto enlists the help of her fellow ‘Nitwitts.’ They are influential widows who love to socialize and remain true to their beloved store. With the help of handsome widower and former ballroom dancer Powell Hampton, they have the ladies of Second Creek fox-trotting back into the market. It has become the town's most festive event: waltzing at the Piggly Wiggly (while someone else takes care of the shopping). But it's Laurie who is thrown for a whirl when the dancing sparks an unpredictable romance. It may be the best deal she's ever gotten at the Piggly Wiggly.

The Cleanup by Sean Doolittle

Matthew Worth is a mess.  Somewhere between a good cop and a bad screw-up, he botched a marriage and a career.  His fellow officers think he’s a joke.  His commanders are tired of cutting him breaks.  Even his wife left him for a flashy homicide detective.  Busted to night patrol at a robbery-prone Omaha supermarket, Worth is doing time, wearing his uniform and asking shoppers if they want paper or plastic.  If that isn’t enough, he suspects he might be falling for Gwen, the shy checkout girl who may be an even bigger mess than he is.  It couldn’t get any worse.  Until it does.  When Gwen comes to him one night scared and desperate for help, Worth discovers just how far he’s willing to go to protect and serve.  The next thing he knows, he’s driving a stolen car with a corpse in the trunk, a pistol in the glove box, and no way to turn back.  Everything he doesn’t know cold get them killed.  And things haven’t even begun to get messy yet.

Red Queen by Margaret Drabble

Barbara Halliwell, on a grant at Oxford, receives an unexpected package-a memoir by a Korean crown princess, written more than two hundred years ago. A highly appropriate gift for her impending trip to Seoul. But from whom? The story she avidly reads on the plane turns out to be one of great intrigue as well as tragedy. The Crown Princess Hyegyong recounts in extraordinary detail the ways of the Korean court and confesses the family dramas that left her childless and her husband dead by his own hand. Perhaps it is the loss of a child that resonates so deeply with Barbara, but she has little time to think of such things, she has just arrived in Korea. She meets a certain Dr. Oo, and to her surprise and delight he offers to guide her to some of the haunts of the crown princess. As she explores the inner sanctums and the royal courts, Barbara begins to feel a strong affinity for everything related to the princess and her mysterious life. After a brief, intense, and ill-fated love affair, she returns to London. Is she ensnared by the events of the past week, of the past two hundred years, or will she pick up her life where she left it?

The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan

The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Timothy Egan's critically acclaimed account rescues this iconic chapter of American history from the shadows in a tour de force of historical reportage. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Brilliantly capturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, Egan does equal justice to the human characters who become his heroes.

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Dorothea, a young girl, decides to marry an aged academic, Casaubon, against the advice of her friends and family.  Casaubon dies and Dorothea marries his nephew, Will.  Set in a small town, Middlemarch, the novel traces the arrival of a young doctor, Lydgate, and the start of his practice.  Rosamund, a woman who has spent her life in Middlemarch, marries Lydgate, and the two are taken in by the corrupt banker Bulstrode.  Fred Vincey waits to inherit money from his rich neighbor.  When this fails, he drifts towards joining the clergy and finally marries Mary Garth.  The novel is concerned with the fabric of Victorian society in the 1800s and about how various human passions: heroism, egotism, love, and lust interrelate within this society.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

‘I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver’s license...records my first name simply as Cal.’ So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction.

Prairyerth by William Least Heat Moon

Heat Moon (real name William Trogdon - he adopted his father's Osage name) proves that, even though more people live in suburban areas than rural ones, they still love to read about the country. Heat Moon elects to stay in one county, Chase County, in central Kansas. The county is the geographical center of the contiguous United States. PrairyErth, a title out of a fantasy novel is a geological term for the grassland soil found in the area. Heat Moon has cross-hatched the county and given a chapter to each square. The book is filled not only with observations, but most importantly, impressions. As unchanging as is the land in Chase County, Heat Moon has unearthed a myriad of different inhabitants. Many who arrived on the prairie were disappointed that it wasn't forested and tried to change it. Most, though, tried to live with it, to learn from it. Heat Moon tries to let the county into not only his consciousness, but his physical body, as when he puts a few limestone rocks into his glass of water and drinks it down. Heat Moon says the idea of white ‘progress’ has caused the development of disrespect for PrairyErth, and he pleads for the inhabitants to return to an increased reverence for it.

Clue for the Puzzle Lady by Parnell Hill (mystery)

Cruciverbalists, rejoice! Pick up a pencil and get ready to solve a puzzling murder and an actual crossword puzzle in this sparkling debut of a unique amateur detective: Miss Cora Felton, an eccentric old lady with a syndicated puzzle column, an irresistible urge to poke into unsettling events, and a niece who's determined to keep her out of trouble. When the body of an unknown teenage girl turns up in the cemetery in the quiet town of Bakerhaven, Police Chief Dale Harper finds himself investigating his first homicide. A baffling clue leads him to consult Bakerhaven's resident puzzle expert - his first big mistake. Soon Cora's meddling, mischief-making behavior drives Chief Harper to distraction and inspires many cross words from her long-suffering niece, Sherry. But when another body turns up in a murder that hits much closer to home, Cora must find a killer before she winds up in a wooden box three feet across and six down.

Stranger House by Reginald Hill

The tiny village of Illthwaite in Cumbria, England, seems to be the kind of place where nothing much has happened for the last few centuries. But the two young strangers who arrive there on the same dank autumn day soon find out that appearances are deceptive. Samantha Flood and Miguel Madero have absolutely nothing in common -- except a burning desire to find out more about possible connections between Illthwaite and their families. Their way forward is beset by deceit, obstruction, mystery, violence, and love as they struggle to discover who they really are. This is a novel full of suspense, romance, history, and an exploration of the sometimes twisted side of the human psyche.

I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb

Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins Dominick and Thomas are physical mirror images who grow into separate yet connected entities. From childhood, Dominick, fights for both separation and wholeness—and ultimately self-protection—in a house of fear and mystery. To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his past but the dark secrets he has locked deep within himself and the sins of his ancestors—a quest that will lead him beyond the confines of his blue-collar New England town to the volcanic foothills of Sicily's Mount Etna.

Killing Mister Watson by Peter Matthiessen

Set at the turn of the century, this masterfully researched novel is based on the life of Edgar J. Watson, a renegade businessman and man of legend in Chokoloskee, Florida. Matthiessen tells a gripping story of frontier life in the Everglades, weaving historic news accounts and plenty of natural history into his fictional tale. The book is dedicated to the pioneer families of southwest Florida.

The Lost Boy by David Pelzer

Imagine a young boy who has never had a loving home.  His only possessions are the old, torn clothes he carries in a paper bag.  The only world he knows is one of isolation and fear.  Although others have rescued this boy from his abusive alcoholic mother, his real hurt is just beginning – he has no place to call home.  In the long-awaited sequel to A Child Called ‘I,’ the author answers questions and reveals new adventures of his life as an adolescent.  Now considered an F-Child (Foster Child), he is moved in and out of five different homes.  He suffers shame and experiences resentment from those who feel that all foster kids are trouble and unworthy of being loved just because they are not part of a ‘real’ family.  Tears, laughter, devastation and hope create the journey of this lost boy who searches desperately for just one thing – the love of a family.

The Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard (mystery)

Small Plains, Kansas, January 23, 1987: In the midst of a deadly blizzard, eighteen-year-old Rex Shellenberger makes a shocking discovery: the naked, frozen body of a teenage girl. It is a moment that will forever change his life and the lives of everyone around him. The mysterious dead girl, the ‘Virgin of Small Plains,' inspires local reverence. In the two decades following her death, strange miracles visit those who faithfully tend to her grave. Slowly, word of the legend spreads. But what really happened in that snow-covered field? Why did young Mitch Newquist disappear the day after the body was found, leaving behind his distraught girlfriend, Abby Reynolds? Why do the town’s three most powerful men, Dr. Quentin Reynolds, former sheriff Nathan Shellenberger, and Judge, Tom Newquist, all seem to be hiding the details of that night? Seventeen years later, when Mitch suddenly returns to Small Plains, simmering tensions come to a head, ghosts that had long slumbered whisper anew, and the secrets that some wish would stay buried rise again from the grave of the Virgin. Abby is now determined to uncover exactly what happened so many years ago to tear their lives apart. Three families and three friends, their worlds inexorably altered in the course of one night, must confront the ever-unfolding consequences. This is a story about the loss of faith, trust, and innocence and the possibility of redemption.

Measure of a Man by Sidney Poitier

In this luminous memoir, a true American icon looks back on his celebrated life and career.  His body of work is arguable the most morally significant in cinematic history, and the power and influence of that work are indicative of the character of the man behind the many storied roles.  Here, Sidney Poitier explores these elements of character and personal values to take his own measure - as a man, as a husband, and father, and as an actor. Poitier was uncompromising as he pursued a personal and public life that would honor his upbringing and the invaluable legacy of his parents. Committed to the notion that what one does for a living articulates who one is, Poitier played only forceful and affecting characters who said something positive, useful, and lasting about the human condition. Poitier explores the nature of sacrifice and commitment, pride and humility, rage and forgiveness, and paying the price for artistic integrity. What emerges is a picture of a man seeking truth, passion, and balance in the face of limits--his own and the world's.

The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

The Wide Sargasso Sea takes its theme from the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. The book details the life of Antoinette Mason (known in Jane Eyre as Bertha), a West Indian who marries an unnamed man in Jamaica and returns with him to his home in England. Locked in a loveless marriage and settled in an inhospitable climate, Antoinette goes mad and is frequently violent. Her husband confines her to the attic of his house at Thornfield. Only he and Grace Poole, the attendant he has hired to care for her, know of Antoinette's existence. The reader gradually learns that Antoinette's unnamed husband is Mr. Rochester, later to become the beloved of Jane Eyre. Much of the action of the novel takes place in the West Indies. The first and third sections are narrated by Antoinette, the middle section by her husband.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

This is the story of Jurgis Rudus, a young immigrant who came to the New World to find a better life.  Instead, he is confronted with the horrors of the Chicago slaughterhouses, barbarous working conditions, crushing poverty, disease and despair.  When it was first published in 1906, The Jungle exposed the inhumane conditions of Chicago’s stockyards and the laborer’s struggle against industry and wage slavery.  It was an immediate bestseller and led to new regulations that forever changed workers’ rights and the meatpacking industry.

The Turk and my mother by Mary Helen Stefaniak

When Josef Iljasic leaves for America in the spring of 1914, his wife Agnes believes that he will return to their village in Austro-Hungary. Instead, the Great War rises up between them, a wall six years thick. But Agnes and her mother-in-law, known to all as Staramajka, don't feel stranded in the Old Country. As far as they’re concerned, Staramajka’s sons are the ones who are missing: Josef in Milwaukee, an enemy alien now, and his younger brother Marko, a soldier on the Russian front, soon missing in action and bound for Siberia. In the village, the women thank heaven for the Turk, a prisoner quartered in Staramajka’s barn, who helps with heavy tasks. Eighty years later, in Milwaukee, Staramajka’s elderly grandson George admits, ‘It’s hard for me to picture my mother in love,’ but that doesn’t stop him from telling the story of his mother and the Turk. Forbidden passion follows the family on both sides of the ocean. By the surprising end, five buried love stories have come to light. In a novel that traverses the century and moves from Siberia to Milwaukee with the turn of a phrase, the past has its own life inside the present. Stories vanquish family secrets, reminding us that we have to remember before we forgive and forget.

The Little Friend by Donna Tartt

In a small Mississippi town, Harriet Cleve Dusfresnes grows up in the shadow of her brother, who—when she was only a baby—was found hanging dead from a black-tupelo tree in their yard. His killer was never identified, nor has his family, in the years since, recovered from the tragedy. For Harriet, who has grown up largely unsupervised, in a world of her own imagination, her brother is a link to a glorious past she has only heard stories about or glimpsed in photograph albums. Fiercely determined, precocious far beyond her twelve years, and steeped in the adventurous literature of Stevenson, Kipling, and Conan Doyle, she resolves, one summer, to solve the murder and exact her revenge. Harriet’s sole ally in this quest, her friend Hely, is devoted to her, but what they soon encounter has nothing to do with child’s play: it is dark, adult, and all too menacing. In this revelation of familial longing and sorrow, the author explores crime and punishment, as well as the hidden complications and consequences that hinder the pursuit of truth and justice. A novel of breathtaking ambition and power, it is rich in moral paradox, insights into human frailty, and storytelling brilliance.

The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler

Macon Leary hates traveling and writes guide books for those businessmen who feel the same.  The ‘Accidental Tourist’ series tells them how to travel in such a way that they will feel that they have never left home.  Macon however, finds himself unable to provide a guidebook for his soul – he fails to save his marriage and cannot come to terms with the random, senseless death of his son.  His answer is to retreat into a downward spiral of complex rituals and habits that threaten to take over his life.  Two random incidents leave Macon with a broken leg and a need to get his dog trained and become a potential turning point in his life.  The question is whether Macon’s retreat into the comfortable and habit and conformity has gone too far to allow him to grab the moment and take his life down another unknown route.