Bootstrapper: from broke to badass on a northern Michigan farm by Mardi Jo Link — January 8

The talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith — February 12

Orphan train by Christina Baker Kline — March 12

The end of night: searching for natural darkness in an age of artificial light by Paul Bogard — April 9

The all-girl filling station's last reunion: a novel by Fannie Flagg — May 14

The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith — Like a hero in a latter-day Henry James novel, Tom Ripley is sent to Italy with a commission to coax a prodigal young American back to his wealthy father. But Ripley finds himself so fond of Dickie Greenleaf that he wants to be like him--exactly like him.  Suave, agreeable, and utterly amoral, Ripley stops at nothing--certainly not only one murder--to accomplish his goal.  Turning the mystery form inside out, Highsmith shows the terrifying abilities afforded to a man unhindered by the concept of evil.

Bootstrapper: from broke to badass on a northern Michigan farm by Mardi Jo Link — It's the summer of 2005, and Mardi Jo Link's dream of living the simple life has unraveled into debt and heartbreak. She and her husband of nineteen years have just called it quits, leaving her with serious cash-flow problems and a looming divorce. Link makes a seemingly impossible resolution: to hang on to her century-old farmhouse in northern Michigan and continue to raise her three boys on well water and wood chopping and dirt. Armed with an unfailing sense of humor and three resolute accomplices, Link confronts blizzards and foxes, learns about Zen divorce and the best way to butcher a hog, dominates a zucchini-growing contest and wins a year's supply of local bread, masters the art of bargain cooking, wrangles rampaging poultry, and withstands any blow to her pride in order to preserve the life she wants.

The Rosie project by Graeme Simsion — Don Tillman, a brilliant yet socially challenged professor of genetics, designs the Wife Project: a sixteen-page survey to find his perfect partner. Don quickly disqualifies Rosie Jarman as a candidate, but agrees help Rosie on her own quest: identifying her biological father. When an unlikely relationship develops as they collaborate on the Father Project, Don is forced to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie-and the realization that, despite your best scientific efforts, you don't find love, it finds you.

The antidote: happiness for people who can't stand positive thinking by Oliver Burkeman — Burkeman introduces us to a group of people who share a surprising way of thinking about life. Whether experimental psychologists, terrorism experts, Buddhists, hardheaded business consultants, Greek philosophers, or modern-day gurus, they argue that it's our constant effort to be happy that is making us miserable. Their alternative path to happiness and success involves embracing failure, pessimism, and uncertainty--the very things we spend our lives trying to avoid.

1984: a novel by George Orwell ; with an afterword by Erich Fromm — Written in 1948, George Orwell's classic novel created a chilling future where Big Brother and the Thought Police monitored every move. And while the year 1984 has come and gone, Orwell's haunting vision of the world remains timeless.

For more insight on this work, take a look at these interviews with Cory Doctorow or Christopher Hitchens.

The housekeeper and the professor by Yoko Ogawa ; translated by Stephen Snyder — A beautiful story about family, memory, and math. Yes, math. Ever since a traumatic head injury, a brilliant math professor has had only eighty minutes of short-term memory.  The housekeeper hired to care for the Professor returns to her job every morning to find that the Professor has forgotten her. Though he cannot create new memories, the Professor's mind is alive with elegant equations from his past. And the numbers, in all of their articulate order, reveal a new and poetic world to both the Housekeeper and her young son.

The round house by Louise Erdrich — In the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to reveal what happened, either to the police or to her husband, Bazil, and thirteen-year-old son, Joe. Joe tries to heal his mother, but she will not leave her bed and slips into an abyss of solitude. While his father, who is a tribal judge, tries to wrest justice from a situation that defies his efforts, Joe sets out with his trusted friends, Cappy, Zack, and Angus, to get some answers of his own. Their quest takes them first to the Round House, a sacred space and place of worship for the Ojibwe. And this is only the beginning.

The dog stars [kit] by Peter Heller — Hig survived the flu that killed everyone he knows. He lives in the hangar of an abandoned airport with his dog, his only neighbor a gun-toting misanthrope. In his 1956 Cessna, Hig flies the perimeter of the airfield or sneaks off to the mountains to fish and to pretend that things are the way they used to be. But when a random transmission beams through his radio, the voice ignites a hope that a better life--something like his old life--exists beyond the airport. Knowing he will not have fuel to fly home, he follows the trail of the static-broken voice on the radio.

The dog stars by Peter Heller — Hig survived the flu that killed everyone he knows. He lives in the hangar of an abandoned airport with his dog, his only neighbor a gun-toting misanthrope. In his 1956 Cessna, Hig flies the perimeter of the airfield or sneaks off to the mountains to fish and to pretend that things are the way they used to be. But when a random transmission beams through his radio, the voice ignites a hope that a better life--something like his old life--exists beyond the airport. Knowing he will not have fuel to fly home, he follows the trail of the static-broken voice on the radio.

Before you know kindness: a novel by Chris Bohjalian — On a balmy July night in New Hampshire a shot rings out, and a man falls to the ground, terribly wounded. The hurt man is Spencer McCullough an animal rights  advocate. The shot that hit him was fired–accidentally?–by his adolescent daughter Charlotte at what she thought was a deer in the distance. Bohjalian uses his trademark emotional heft to create a literate page-turner is suspenseful, wryly funny, and humane.

Defending Jacob: a novel by William Landay — Andy Barber has been an Assistant District Attorney in his suburban Massachusetts county for more than 20 years. He is respected in his community and happy at home with his wife, Laurie, and son, Jacob. But after a shocking crime shatters their New England town, Andy is blindsided by what happens next: His 14-year-old son is charged with the murder of a fellow student.

Every year CPL's Lunch and a Book Club picks our favorite reads of the year. These are our favorite reads for 2013. Feel free to join us! We meet on the second Thursday of every month at noon in CPL's Community Room.

Fiction

And the mountains echoed by Khaled Hosseini

Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor

The aviator's wife: a novel by Melanie Benjamin

The birth house: a novel by Ami Mckay

The cutting season: a novel by Attica Locke

Defending Jacob: a novel by William Landay

The fault in our stars by John Green

On Thursday January 9 at noon, we will be discussing:

Quiet: the power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking by Susan Cain — At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. People who prefer listening to speaking, reading to partying; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over brainstorming in teams. Although often labeled "quiet," it is to introverts that we owe many of the great contributions to society--from van Gogh's Sunflowers to the invention of the personal computer. Passionately argued, impressively researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet shows how dramatically we undervalue introverts, and how much we lose in doing so.

The Paris wife [kit]: a novel by Paula McLain — Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness-until she meets Ernest Hemingway. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in the fabled Lost Generation. Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill prepared for the hard-drinking and fast-living life of Jazz Age Paris. Surrounded by beautiful women and competing egos, Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history, pouring all the richness and intensity of his life with Hadley and their circle of friends into the novel that will become The Sun Also Rises. Hadley, meanwhile, strives to hold on to her sense of self as the demands of life with Ernest grow costly and her roles as wife, friend, and muse become more challenging

Lunch and a Book meets the second Thursday of the month from 12:00-1:00PM.  No registration required, participation encouraged.

Quiet: the power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking by Susan Cain — January 9th

Defending Jacob: a novel by William Landay — February 13th

Before you know kindness: a novel by Chris Bohjalian — March 13th

The dog stars by Peter Heller — April 10th

The round house by Louise Erdrich — May 8th

On Thursday November 14 at noon, we will be discussing:

The Paris wife: a novel by Paula McLain — Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness-until she meets Ernest Hemingway. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in the fabled Lost Generation. Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill prepared for the hard-drinking and fast-living life of Jazz Age Paris. Surrounded by beautiful women and competing egos, Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history, pouring all the richness and intensity of his life with Hadley and their circle of friends into the novel that will become The Sun Also Rises. Hadley, meanwhile, strives to hold on to her sense of self as the demands of life with Ernest grow costly and her roles as wife, friend, and muse become more challenging.

On Thursday October 10 at noon, we will be discussing the Everyone's Reading 2013 selection:

The secrets of happy families: improve your mornings, rethink family dinner, fight smarter, go out and play, and much more by Bruce Feiler — Squeezed between caring for aging parents and raising his children, bestselling author and New York Times family columnist Bruce Feiler set out on a three-year journey to find the smartest solutions and the most cutting-edge research about families. Instead of the usual family "experts," he sought out the most creative minds--from Silicon Valley to the Green Berets--and asked them what team-building exercises and problem-solving techniques they use with their families. A timely, counterintuitive book that answers the questions countless parents are asking: How do we manage the chaos of our lives? How do we teach our kids values? How do we make our family happier?