BOOK GROUP

The Book Group meets on the fourth TUESDAY of the month, usually at 4:00 pm in person at PCCF and/or via Zoom.  Please watch for emails and the “Upcoming Events” section of this website’s home page for the most current information..

September 30     There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shofak        Discussion leader:  Suzanne LaCount

There are Rivers in the Sky (2024) is a novel by Elif Shafak. Through the journey of a single drop of water across time, the book explores the stories of three people across countries and cultures: an Englishman born by the River Thames in the 19th century, a Yazidi girl who lives by the Tigris River in 2014, and a Turkish English hydrologist in England in 2018. The book explores themes of the cyclical and interconnected nature of life and water, the impact of ancient texts on modern lives, and cultural plunder in historical discovery and archaeological excavation. Shafak is a Turkish British writer whose books have earned numerous accolades and have been translated into more than 50 languages.  There Are Rivers in the Sky was a top five Sunday Times bestseller

October 28   Last Hope Island by Lynn Olson        Discussion leader:  Kathy Evans

When the Nazi blitzkrieg rolled over continental Europe in the early days of World War II, the city of London became a refuge for the governments and armed forces of six occupied nations. As the only European democracy still holding out against Hitler, Britain became known to occupied countries as “Last Hope Island.” Getting there, one young emigré declared, was “like getting to heaven.”
In this epic, character-driven narrative, acclaimed historian Lynne Olson takes us back to those perilous days when the British and their European guests joined forces to combat the mightiest military force in history. Here we meet the courageous King Haakon of Norway, whose distinctive “H7” monogram became a symbol of his country’s resistance to Nazi rule, and his fiery Dutch counterpart, Queen Wilhelmina, whose antifascist radio broadcasts rallied the spirits of her defeated people.  Last Hope Island also recounts some of the Europeans’ heretofore unsung exploits that helped tilt the balance against the Axis: the crucial efforts of Polish pilots during the Battle of Britain; the vital role played by French and Polish code breakers in cracking the Germans’ reputedly indecipherable Enigma code; and the flood of top-secret intelligence about German operations—gathered by spies throughout occupied Europe—that helped ensure the success of the 1944 Allied invasion.   

November 12  The Downstairs Girl by Stacy Lee        Discussion leader and program coordinator: Joan Funk
This is the Sister to Sister selection.  The meeting will be held on Nov 12, 2025 at the Valparaiso Gelsosom0″s at 3:45.  Pizza will be served.  A donation is asked of members to defray to cost for the high school student participants.

By day, seventeen-year-old Jo Kuan works as a lady’s maid for the cruel daughter of one of the wealthiest men in Atlanta. But by night, Jo moonlights as the pseudonymous author of a newspaper advice column for the genteel Southern lady, “Dear Miss Sweetie.” When her column becomes wildly popular, she uses the power of the pen to address some of society’s ills, but she’s not prepared for the backlash that follows when her column challenges fixed ideas about race and gender. While her opponents clamor to uncover the secret identity of Miss Sweetie, a mysterious letter sets Jo off on a search for her own past and the parents who abandoned her as a baby. But when her efforts put her in the crosshairs of Atlanta’s most notorious criminal, Jo must decide whether she, a girl used to living in the shadows, is ready to step into the light. With prose that is witty, insightful, and at times heartbreaking, Stacey Lee masterfully crafts an extraordinary social drama set in the New South.

January 20  Lead Babies and Poisoned Houses by Carolyn Boisrsky      Discussion leaders:  Susan Stuart and Ann Ruggabar

This is the public Policy selection for 2025-26.  Drawing on historic sources as well as present-day interviews, Lead Babies and Poisoned Housing is a story about systemic racism, environmental injustice, and the failure of government.  In 2016, 1,100 mainly minority residents of a low-income housing complex in East Chicago, Indiana, received a letter from the city forcibly evicting them from their homes because a high level of lead was found in the soil under their houses. The residents were given two months to move. Many could not find safe housing nearby. The site was designated by the Environmental Protection Agency as a Superfund site because of the large amount of toxic material on it. More than 1,300 similar sites are located throughout the United States. Over 70 million people live within three miles of one of these sites. 

But this isn’t just a story of victimization; it is also about empowerment and community members insisting their voices be heard. Lead Babies and Poisoned Housing records the human side of what happens when the industries responsible for polluting leave, but the residents remain. Those residents tell their stories in their own words—not just what happened to them, but how they acted in response. We should listen, not only for justice, but as a cautionary tale against repeated history.

February 24  The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd       Discussion leader:  Judith Hurdle

One of the few contemporary novels to show Japan as it was and is.” — Japan Times

A stunning tour de force acclaimed throughout the world, The Ginger Tree is the spellbinding odyssey of one woman’s strength and spirit in the face of terrifying odds.  In 1903, a young Scotswoman named Mary Mackenzie sets sail for China to marry her betrothed, a military attaché in Peking. But soon after her arrival, Mary falls into an adulterous affair with a young Japanese nobleman, scandalizing the British community. Casting her out of the European community, her compatriots tear her away from her small daughter. A woman abandoned and alone, Mary learns to survive over forty tumultuous years in Asia, including two world wars and the cataclysmic Tokyo earthquake of 1923.

March 24  This is Happiness by Niali Williams      Discussion leader:  Sandy Holt

Change is coming to Faha, a small Irish parish unaltered in a thousand years. For one thing, the rain is stopping. Nobody remembers when it started; rain on the western seaboard is a condition of living. But now—just as Father Coffey proclaims the coming of the electricity—the rain clouds are lifting. Seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe is idling in the unexpected sunshine when Christy makes his first entrance into Faha, bringing secrets for which he needs to atone. Though he can’t explain it, Noel knows right then: something has changed.  As the people of Faha anticipate the endlessly procrastinated advent of the electricity, and Noel navigates his own coming-of-age and his fallings in and out of love, Christy’s past gradually comes to light, casting a new glow on a small world.

April 28  This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing by Jacqueline Winspear    Discussion leader:  MaryAnn Thompson

“Jacqueline Winspear has created a memoir of her English childhood that is every bit as engaging as her Maisie Dobbs novels, just as rich in character and detail, history and humanity. Her writing is lovely, elegant and welcoming.”
An eye-opening and heartfelt portrayal of a post-War England we rarely see, This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing chronicles a childhood in the English countryside, of working class indomitability and family secrets, of artistic inspiration and the price of memory.

May 26  Maus 1 and 2 by Art Spiegelman  Discussion leader:  Diane Woolever

Maus by Art Spiegelman was the first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize. It originally ran in Spiegelman’s Raw magazine between 1980 and 1991 before receiving mainstream attention as two collected volumes, Maus I in 1986 and Maus II in 1991. This guide is based on the 1996 complete edition. This historic memoir interlaces two narratives, one of Spiegelman’s Jewish father as he survives World War II Poland and the Auschwitz concentration camp, and the other of Spiegelman recording his father’s story while navigating their contentious relationship. The graphic novel is notable for its art style, with the Jewish people drawn as mice, the Germans as cats, the Poles as pigs, and the Americans as dogs. The characters are depicted as animals to reflect the dehumanization caused by prejudice, war, and genocide.

Maus was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1992. It was an instant bestseller upon its release, going on to sell six million copies. Spiegelman has received numerous awards and accolades, including Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2005, the Grand Prix at the Angoulême International Comics Festival in 2011, and the Edward MacDowell Medal in 2018—the first comic to receive the award. 

June 23  Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney  Discussion leader:  Anita Quinlan

She took 1930’s New York by storm, working her way up writing copy for R.H. Macy’s to become the highest-paid advertising woman in the country. It was a job that, she says, “In some ways saved my life, and in other ways ruined it.”

Now it’s the last night of 1984 and Lillian, eighty-five years old but just as sharp and savvy as ever, is on her way to a party. It’s chilly enough for her mink coat, and Manhattan is grittier now—her son keeps warning her about a subway vigilante on the prowl—but the quick-tongued poetess has never been one to scare easily. On a walk that takes her more than ten miles around the city, she meets bartenders, bodega clerks, security guards, criminals, children, parents, and parents-to-be, while reviewing a life of excitement and adversity, passion and heartbreak. This novel is inspired by the life and work of the poet and ad woman Margaret Fishback.

July 28  Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon        Discussion leader:  Linda Cronk

This is historical fiction inspired by real events. The author called it “biographical fiction.”  It is a story about a midwife in Maine, in the late 1780’s. The US Constitution was only two years old at that time and the Bill of Rights had not yet been ratified. The author says that 75 % of what happens in the book closely follows the historical record.

 (NPR Book of the Year) Frozen River is based on the diaries of Martha Ballard, a midwife and healer in Maine in 1780. Clever, layered, and subversive, Ariel Lawhon’s newest offering introduces an unsung heroine who refused to accept anything less than justice at a time when women were considered best seen and not heard. The Frozen River is a thrilling, tense, and tender story about a remarkable woman who left an unparalleled legacy yet remains nearly forgotten.

August 25  Raising Hare: a Memoir by Chloe Dalton       Discussion leader:  Wanda Rice

A moving and fascinating meditation on freedom, trust, loss, and our relationship with the natural world, explored through the story of one woman’s unlikely friendship with a wild hare.
Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and bounded around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, more than two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and slept in your house for hours on end. For political advisor and speechwriter Chloe Dalton, who spent lockdown deep in the English countryside, far away from her usual busy London life, this became her unexpected reality. 
Raising Hare chronicles their journey together while also taking a deep dive into the lives and nature of hares, and the way they have been viewed historically in art, literature, and folklore. We witness firsthand the joy at this extraordinary relationship between human and animal, which serves as a reminder that the best things, and most beautiful experiences, arise when we least expect them.