Warm weather means outdoor pastimes for many of us. If you like to read, this time of year means you’re heading to a porch or patio with a good book. Lorain Public Library System’s director of marketing Jennifer Black put out a call to their book club members for a few of their favorites. Enjoy!
The NINTH HOUR
By Alice McDermott
Dark and intense, The Ninth Hour begins with a suicide in 1920s Catholic Brooklyn. This sad incident begins a chain of events that ultimately deal with the meaning of grief and dignity, love and loss, as well as the meaning of faith. With dense, well-realized characters, this novel is not to be missed.
BITTER ORANGE
By Claire Fuller
Bitter Orange is a seductive novel that explores desperation and longing. With deft psychological portraiture, the novel recalls the fractured, damaged summer that one woman experienced in the English countryside in 1969. With evocative writing and a haunting plot-line, Bitter Orange is a perfect read for those who like their novels in the vein of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca.
HARRY TRUMAN’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE
By Matthew Algeo
When Harry Truman left the White House in January 1953, he picked up a new Chrysler New Yorker and enjoyed a 2,500-mile road trip from his Missouri home to the East Coast and back. It was the last time a U.S. president or ex-president traveled without the Secret Service, and Truman’s hopes to travel privately unraveled almost immediately. The book offers a delightful glimpse into a vanished America, before interstate highways and chain restaurants.
LILAC GIRLS
By Martha Hall Kelly
World War II unfolds very differently for three women in this touching and inspiring tale of three women in the United States and Europe. An American socialite in New York City, a Polish teenager who is captured while working for The Resistance, and a German doctor who is assigned to a concentration camp all cross paths in unexpected ways as they are forced to deal with wartime conditions beyond their control.
SKINNY DIP
By Carl Hiaasen
For lighthearted mysteries with zany mayhem and hilarious dialog, Hiaasen is hard to beat. When a marine biologist who doctors water samples for a fee discovers his wife has gotten wise to his schemes, he decides to kill her. But the plucky woman refuses to stay dead. Lovers of the environment will enjoy Hiaasen’s descriptions of Florida’s Everglades, and lovers of funny, fast-paced books will devour this one.
