Premier Book Group
For an interest in current fiction and non-fiction.   This book club began in 1999 and has a strong core
of readers who enjoy discussing a variety of books.
7:00 pm in the Library - Limited Copies available at the Information Desk!
Call 447-1690 x5 for more information.

March 1
 The Echo Maker
by Richard Powers
   On a winter night on a remote Nebraska road, 27-year-old Mark Schluter flips his truck in a near-fatal accident. His older sister Karin, his only near kin, returns reluctantly to their hometown to nurse Mark back from a traumatic head injury. But when he emerges from a protracted coma, Mark believes that this woman–who looks, acts, and sounds just like his sister–is really an identical impostor. Shattered by her brother's refusal to recognize her, Karin contacts the cognitive neurologist Gerald Weber, famous for his case histories describing the infinitely bizarre worlds of brain disorder. Weber recognizes Mark as a rare case of Capgras Syndrome, a doubling delusion, and eagerly investigates. What he discovers in Mark slowly undermines even his own sense of being. Meanwhile, Mark, armed only with a note left by an anonymous witness, attempts to learn what happened the night of his inexplicable accident. The truth of that evening will change the lives of all three beyond recognition. Set against the Platte River's massive spring migrations–one of the greatest spectacles in nature–The Echo Maker is a gripping mystery that explores the improvised human self and the even more precarious brain that splits us from and joins us to the rest of creation. The Echo Maker is the winner of the 2006 National Book Award for Fiction.

April 5
 Half Broke Horses
by Jeannette Walls
   Lily survived tornadoes, droughts, floods, the Great Depression, and the most heartbreaking personal tragedy. She bristled at prejudice of all kinds -- against women, Native Americans, and anyone else who didn't fit the mold. "Half Broke Horses" is Laura Ingalls Wilder for adults, as riveting and dramatic as Isak Dinesen's "Out of Africa" or Beryl Markham's "West with the Night." It will transfix readers everywhere.

May 3
 Plainsong
by Kent Haruf
   Holt, Colorado, is the kind of small town where everyone knows everyone's business before that business even happens. Tom Guthrie is a high school teacher whose wife can't--or won't--get out of bed; the McPherons are two bachelor brothers who know little about the world beyond their farm gate; Victoria Roubideaux is a pregnant 17-year-old with no place to turn. Their lives parallel each other in much the same way any small-town lives would--until Maggie Jones, another teacher, makes them intersect. Even as she tries to draw Guthrie out of his black cloud, she sends Victoria to live with the two elderly McPheron brothers, who know far more about cattle than about teenage girls. In this book the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and "Plainsong" manages to capture nothing less than an entire world--fencing pliers, calf-pullers, and all.

Mystery Book Group
Do you love Mysteries?   Wish you could compare "whodunit" notes?
Here's your chance!
7:00 pm the last Wednesday of the month.
Limited Copies available at the Information Desk!
Call 447-1690 x5 for more information.

February 29
 The Drowning Pool
by Ross MacDonald
    When a millionaire matriarch is found floating face-down in the family pool, the prime suspects are her good-for-nothing son and his seductive teenage daughter. In The Drowning Pool, Lew Archer takes this case in the L.A. suburbs and encounters a moral wasteland of corporate greed and family hatred--and sufficient motive for a dozen murders.

March 28
 False Mermaid
by Erin Hart
    American pathologist Nora Gavin fled to Ireland three years ago, hoping that distance from home would bring her peace. Though she threw herself into the study of bog bodies and the mysteries of their circumstances, she was ultimately led back to the one mystery she was unable to solve: the murder of her sister, Tríona. Nora can't move forward until she goes back—back to her home, to the scene of the crime, to the source of her nightmares and her deepest regrets.

April 25
 The Poacher's Son
by Paul Doiron
    Doiron's debut crime novel is set on the coast and in the North Woods of Maine, the home of rookie game warden Mike Bowditch. As tensions rise across the state with the impending sale of huge tracts of paper-company forest land to an out-of-state developer, Mike receives a strange message from his father, left on the same night the paper company rep and a state trooper are shot and killed after a heated town meeting. Doiron, editor-in-chief of Down State magazine, is well acquainted with the current political and cultural tensions that crisscross Maine, and his local knowledge drives this fast-paced and twisty narrative.

May 30
 Rhetoric of Death
by Judith Rock
    Paris, 1686: When The Bishop of Marseilles discovers that his young cousin Charles du Luc, former soldier and half-fledged Jesuit, has been helping heretics escape the king's dragoons, the bishop sends him far away-to Paris, where Charles is assigned to assist in teaching rhetoric and directing dance at the prestigious college of Louis le Grand. Charles quickly embraces his new life and responsibilities. But on his first day, the school's star dancer disappears from rehearsal, and the next day another student is run down in the street. When the dancer's body is found under the worst possible circumstances, Charles is determined to find the killer in spite of being ordered to leave the investigation.

 

The Great Books
Discussion Group
If You Cherish a Masterpiece this group is for you.
The World's Best Literature, One Book at a Time.
7:00 pm on the first Wednesday of the month.
For more information, please contact Suzanne at 447-1690 ext. 130.

 

March 7
  Silent Spring
by Rachel Carson
   Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was first published in three serialized excerpts in the New Yorker in June of 1962. The book appeared in September of that year and the outcry that followed its publication forced the banning of DDT and spurred revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Carson's passionate concern for the future of our planet reverberated powerfully throughout the world, and her eloquent book was instrumental in launching the environmental movement. It is without question one of the landmark books of the twentieth century.

April 4
  Les Miserables (Volume I-"Fantine" ONLY)
by Victor Hugo
   A favorite of readers for nearly 150 years, this stirring tale of crime, punishment, justice, and redemption pulses with life. Featuring such unforgettable characters as the quintessential prisoner of conscience Jean Valjean, the relentless police detective Javert, and the tragic prostitute Fantine and her innocent daughter, Cosette, Hugo's epic novel sweeps readers from the French provinces to the back alleys of Paris, and from the battlefield of Waterloo to the bloody ramparts of Paris during the uprising of 1832.

May 2
  Lolita
by Vladimir Nabokov
   Awe and exhiliration--along with heartbreak and mordant wit--abound in Lolita, Nabokov's most famous and controversial novel, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America. Most of all, it is a meditation on love--love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.

June 6
  Sons and Lovers
by D.H. Lawrence
   Paul Morel is a young artist, and the second son of Gertrude Morel. When Paul falls in love with a local girl, Miriam, his mother disapproves, and Paul is forced to choose between them. "Sons and Lovers" is an intense examination of family, class, and love, set in a small mining town in the early 1900's.

 

Daytimers Book Group
Join us to sample the best of British Commonwealth fiction
as we read novels by WORLD FICTION award winning authors.
3:00 pm in the Library
Limited Copies available at the Information Desk!
Call 447-1690 x5 for more information.

February 16
  The Gathering
by Anne Enright
   An intimate canvas and a moving, evocative portrait of a large Irish family haunted by the past. The nine surviving children of the Hegarty clan are gathering in Dublin for the wake of their wayward brother, Liam, drowned in the sea. His sister, Veronica, collects the body and keeps the dead man company, guarding the secret she shares with him—something that happened in their grandmother's house in the winter of 1968.

March 15
  The Matter With Morris
by David Bergen
   When Morris Schutt, a prominent newspaper columnist, surveys his life over the past year, he sees disaster everywhere. His son has just been killed in Afghanistan, and his newspaper has put him on indefinite leave; his psychiatrist wife, Lucille, seems headed for the door; he is strongly attracted to Ursula, the wife of a dairy farmer from Minnesota; and his daughter appears to be having an affair with one of her professors. What is a thinking man to do but turn to Cicero and Plato and Socrates in search of the truth? Or better still, to call one of those discreet "dating services" in search of happiness? But happiness, as Morris discovers, is not that easy to find.

April 19
  Sunset Oasis
by Bahaa Tahar
   When Mahmoud, a disgraced Egyptian officer, is posted to the remote desert town of Siwa, his Irish wife insists on accompanying him, to pursue the secrets of Alexander the Great. Neither is prepared for the stultifying heat, the hostility of the townspeople, or the astonishing and disturbing events that befall them in the dreamlike other-worldliness of the Sunset Oasis.

May 17
  The Sense of an Ending
by Julian Barnes
   This intense new novel follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he has never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance, one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. Tony Webster thought he'd left all this behind as he built a life for himself, and by now his marriage and family and career have fallen into an amicable divorce and retirement. But he is then presented with a mysterious legacy that obliges him to reconsider a variety of things he thought he'd understood all along, and to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.

Best In The West
Book Discussion Group
Read the best fiction west of the Mississippi!
7:00 pm in the Library Mezzanine Meeting Room
Free and open to all this group meets the 4th Thursday each month.
Limited Copies available at the Information Desk!
Call 447-1690 x5 for more information

 

February 23
  The Monkey Wrench Gang
by Edward Abbey
   Ex-Green Beret George Hayduke has returned from war to find his beloved southwestern desert threatened by industrial development. Joining with Bronx exile and feminist saboteur Bonnie Abzug, wilderness guide and outcast Mormon Seldom Seen Smith, and libertarian billboard torcher Doc Sarvis, M.D., Hayduke is ready to fight the power—taking on the strip miners, clear-cutters, and the highway, dam, and bridge builders who are threatening the natural habitat.

March 22
  LA Confidential
by James Ellroy
   L.A. Confidential is epic "noir", a crime novel of astonishing detail and scope written by the bestselling author of The Black Dahlia. A horrific mass murder invades the lives of victims and victimizers on both sides of the law. And three lawmen are caught in a deadly spiral, a nightmare that tests loyalty and courage, and offers no mercy, grants no survivors.

April 26
  What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
by Raymond Carver
   In his second collection of stories, as in his first, Carver's characters are peripheral people--people without education, insight or prospects, people too unimaginative to even give up. Carver celebrates these men and women.

May 17
  The Big Sleep
by Raymond Chandler
   When a dying millionaire hires Philip Marlowe to handle the blackmailer of one of his two troublesome daughters, Marlowe finds himself involved with more than extortion. Kidnapping, pornography, seduction, and murder are just a few of the complications he gets caught up in.

Middle School Book Club
A book club for middle school students (grades 6-8) will meet for
snacks and discussion of some of the best in young adult literature.
7:00 pm in the Mezzanine Meeting Room
We will meet the first Tuesday of each month.
A limited number of copies will be available at the library Information Desk by the first of each month.

February 7
  Rot & Ruin
by Jonathan Maberry
    In the zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic America where Benny Imura lives, every teenager must find a job by the time they turn fifteen or get their rations cut in half. Benny doesn't want to apprentice as a zombie hunter with his boring older brother Tom, but he has no choice. He expects a tedious job whacking zoms for cash, but what he gets is a vocation that will teach him what it means to be human.

March 6
  A Brief History of Montmaray
by Michelle Cooper
    Sophie Fitzosborne lives in a crumbling castle in the tiny island kingdom of Montmaray with her eccentric and impoverished royal family. When she receives a journal for her sixteenth birthday, Sophie decides to chronicle day-to-day life on the island. But this is 1936, and the news that trickles in from the mainland reveals a world on the brink of war. The politics of Europe seem far away from their remote island—until two German officers land a boat on Montmaray. And then suddenly politics become very personal indeed.

April 3
  The House of the Scorpion
by Nancy Farmer
    A

High School Book Club
A book club for older teens (grades 9-12) will meet for snacks and
discussion of some of the best in young adult and adult literature..
7:00 pm in the Mezzanine Meeting Room
We will meet the last Monday of each month.
A limited number of copies will be available at the library Information Desk by the first of each month.

Older teens (grades 9-12)
Interested in forming a monthly book club please contact Pad at 447-1690 x132. Thank you!

Teen Book Club at EHB
A book club for middle school students (grades 6-8) will meet for snacks and discussion of
some of the best in young adult literature.
3:30 pm at the East Helena Branch
We will meet the third Tuesday of each month.

February 14
  Number the Stars
by Lois Lowry
    Ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen and her best friend Ellen Rosen often think of life before the war. It's now 1943 and their life in Copenhagen is filled with school, food shortages, and the Nazi soldiers marching through town. When the Jews of Denmark are "relocated," Ellen moves in with the Johansens and pretends to be one of the family. Soon Annemarie is asked to go on a dangerous mission to save Ellen's life.

March 20
  A Wrinkle in Time
by Madeleine L'Engle
    It was a dark and stormy night; Meg Murry, her small brother Charles Wallace, and her mother had come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack when they were upset by the arrival of a most disturbing stranger.

    "Wild nights are my glory," the unearthly stranger told them. "I just got caught in a downdraft and blown off course. Let me sit down for a moment, and then I'll be on my way. Speaking of ways, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract."

    A tesseract (in case the reader doesn't know) is a wrinkle in time.

April 17
  The Alchemyst
by Michael Scott
    "[A] riveting fantasy. While there is plenty here to send readers rushing to their encyclopedias . . . those who read the book at face value will simply be caught up in the enthralling story. A fabulous read."
—School Library Journal, Starred

"Scott offers a classic fantasy . . . that will put readers on the edge of their seats as they rush to the final page. . . . [An] exhilarating fantasy."
—Booklist

"The juxtaposition of our reality with magic and myth is riveting."
—Kirkus Reviews

Cuentos y Conversaciones
Calling all fluent Spanish readers!
The Lewis & Clark Library is proud to offer a Spanish book club to the public.
The books are in Spanish, the discussion will be bilingual in Spanish and English.
Stories are available at the Information Desk.
All meetings will take place at the Lewis & Clark Library's
Small Meeting Room, on the first Wednesday at 7:00 p.m.
Call 447-1690 ext. 5 for more information.

March7
  La culpa de los Tlaxcaltecas
de Elena Garro
    NACIDA en Mexico en 1916, Elena Garro fue una de las voces mas criticas en favor de cambio social en los circulos literarios mexicanos. Los temas de la marginalización de mujeres y el racismo recurren en sus obras, y tambien es conocida por su critica del gobierno mexicano. Este cuento contiene una combinacion de comentario social y lo real maravilloso.

April 4
  La Biblioteca de Babel
de Jorge Luis Borges
    LA BIBLIOTECA de Babel es un cuento del escritor argentino Jorge Luis Borges. Borges, ademas de ser escritor, era filosofo, y se demuestra en esta obra. La biblioteca parece ser infinita a la vista de un ser humano común, y sirve como una gran metafora, pero metafora para que es la decision para el lector.