Let there be Pebble: a middle-handicapper's year in America's garden of golf by Zachary Michael Jack

On Sunset Boulevard: the life and times of Billy Wilder by Ed Sikov

Sam Spiegel by Natasha Fraser Cavassoni

April is National Poetry Month, if you haven’t already, maybe it’s time your group considered reading and discussing poetry. Choose a poet and let members select 2 or 3 poems from the poet’s collected worksto read. Members can discuss their reactions to the poems or maybe to poetry as a whole.

The complete poems by Walt Whitman ; edited with an introduction and notes by Francis Murphy

How to read a poem: and fall in love with poetry by Edward Hirsch

The language of flowers: a novel by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Winterdance: the fine madness of running the Iditarod by Gary Paulsen

My name is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira

1984: a novel by George Orwell ; with an afterword by Erich Fromm

1861: the Civil War awakening by Adam Goodheart

Blood, bones, & butter: the inadvertent education of a reluctant chef by Gabrielle Hamilton

Blue nights by Joan Didion

Then Again by Diane Keaton

1861: the Civil War Awakening by Adam Goodheart

Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President by Ron Suskind

Fortunate Sons: the 120 Chinese Boys who came to America, Went to School, and Revolutionized an Ancient Civilization by Liel Lei

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War. The first shots were fired on April 12, 1861 at Fort Sumter in South Carolina's Charleston Harbor. Confederate forces let by Brig. General P.G.T. Beauregard demanded the surrender of the fort and opened fire when the Union commander, Maj. Robert Anderson, refused. He was forced to evacuate the next day, however, and this battle became the first engagement of the war. It raged on for four more years until Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulyssses S. Grant on April 9, 1865 at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia.

Shelton Johnson, author of Gloryland will discuss his book on Thursday, April 14 at Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library, Gallery-Room 100 (use Diag entrance) at 913 S. University Ave., Ann Arbor, MI. Public parking is available in the structure at 650 S. Forest, just south of S. University.

Gloryland is the fictional memoir of a buffalo soldier — a black U.S. cavalryman and the son of slaves — who finds true freedom when he is posted to patrol the newly created Yosemite National Park in 1903.

"In war, there are no unwounded soldiers." -José Narosky.
Some of these mystery stories take place in a time of war, some in its aftermath. No one is unscathed…

Blood Alone by James R. Benn

Bitterroot by James Lee Burke

Thirteenth Night: a Medieval Mystery by Alan Gordon

March by Geraldine Brooks. From Louisa May Alcotts beloved classic Little Women, Geraldine Brooks has taken the character of the absent father, March, who has gone off to war, leaving his wife and daughters to make do in mean times. In her telling, March emerges as an idealistic chaplain in the little known backwaters of a war that will test his faith in himself and in the Union cause as he learns that his side, too, is capable of acts of barbarism and racism. As he recovers from a near mortal illness, he must reassemble his shattered mind and body and find a way to reconnect with a wife and daughters who have no idea of the ordeals he has been through. Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction (2006). Beginning August 26, you can pick up a copy of MARCH at the Adult Reference Desk.