Winter Spring Summer 2012

January 23rd(due to MLK on 3rd week): Irish Fiction
Winter Bloom by Tara Heavey
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In the heart of bustling modern Dublin is a littered, overgrown garden of tangled weeds and a stagnant, hidden pond. Belonging to an iron-willed elderly lady named Mrs. Prendergast, who is rumored to have murdered and buried her husband there, the garden draws Eva Madigan, a young mother struggling to move on from the pain of her past. Eva is joined by Emily, a beautiful but withdrawn college dropout; Uri, an old-world immigrant; Seth, his all-too-handsome son; and occasionally even Mrs. Prendergast herself. But what drives Eva to transform the neglected urban wilderness? What makes the others want to help her? Even as Mrs. Prendergast puts the land up for sale, the thorny lives of all the gardeners are revealed and slowly start to untangle. Overgrown secrets are dug up and shared. Choices are made; a little pruning is in order. Now Eva is about to discover that every garden is a story of growth toward a final harvest. . . .

February 20th: WW2 fiction
The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer
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Orringer’s central character, Andras Levi, is a promising student of architecture who leaves his native Hungary to study in Paris in the late 1930s — until his scholarship is revoked when anti-Jewish laws go into effect. As you might expect, the trials he and his wife and their extended families face will grow exponentially worse in the years to come. Their happiest days and, later, their struggles, are rendered in sweeping, epic fashion.

March 20: Swedish Mystery
Three Seconds by Rosland and Hellstrom
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Piet Hoffman is a paid infiltrator and former criminal who is working for the Swedish police; a man who is willing to put his life on the line in order to eventually earn his freedom and a chance at a life with his wife and two young sons. He has managed to infiltrate the top leadership of the Polish mafia who are running drugs by using human mules; and now he needs to go one step further – after a botched drug deal where a man is murdered he agrees to enter the Swedish prison system and shut down the huge drug ring that represents billions of dollars to the mafia.

April 15: CHANGE...Under a Flaming Sky
The Citywide Read will culminate at the Plymouth Creek Center, 14800 34th Ave. N. at 6:30 p.m. on Sun., April 15 with Literary Night, as part of the Primavera Springtime Celebration of the Arts. The evening will feature the author, who will speak about his book and engage in conversation with participants. He will also be available to sign copies of his book.

May 21st: Medical Biography
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
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Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, and more. Henrietta’s cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can’t afford health insurance.

June 18th: WW1 Fiction
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
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On the eve of the first world war, a little girl is found abandoned on a ship to Australia. A mysterious woman called the Authoress had promised to look after her -
but the Authoress has disappeared without a trace.

July 16th; Asian Fiction
Snow Flower and The Secret Fan by Lisa See
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This absorbing novel – with a storyline unlike anything Lisa See has written before – takes place in 19th century China when girls had their feet bound, then spent the rest of their lives in seclusion with only a single window from which to see.

August 20:Religious Autobiography
Story of A Soul by Translated by John Beevers by St. Therese of Lisieux
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A spiritual guide for millions the world over, this is the autobiography of a holy woman who "attained to the knowledge of supernatural things in such abundant measure that she was able to point out the sure way of salvation to others." --Pope Pius XI.