Book Discussion Groups

Great Books

League of Women Voters

Lifelong Learning

Science Books

Science Fiction / Fantasy

These discussions generally follow the format and materials available through the Great Books Foundation. Having been through most of their readings, we now supplement with books of our own choosing. Members come from a variety of backgrounds and levels of education. The only requirements are a willingness to read carefully and an interest in discussing subjects that matter. Emphasis is on the experience of struggling to express our own interpretations and ideas rather than learning the latest opinions of academic specialists (for that, courses are offered at UAF).

First- time participants should check with Don Triplehorn for copies of the selections and to verify the date. (Schedules sometimes change from the regular 2nd Tuesday. of the month).

The January through April selections are from the collection “Happiness and Discontent” published by the Great Books Foundation. To obtain a copy, contact Don Triplehorn or go to the Foundation website.

• January 8 – The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol by John Berger
• February 12 – Happiness by Mary Lavin and two poems by Emily Dickinson
• March 12 – Endless Mountains by Reynolds Price
• April 9 – As You Like It by William Shakespeare
• May14 – Middlemarch by George Elliot (separate paperback; check with Don Triplehorn for the correct edition)
• June, July, August – no meeting
• September 10 – Moby Dick by Herman Melville (separate paperback; check with Don Triplehorn for the correct edition)

Library Contact: Georgine Olson, 459-1063 or golson@fnsblibrary.us

Discussion Leader: Don Triplehorn,474-6891 or dmtriplehorn@alaska.edu

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The League of Women Voters Book Discussion Group is sponsored by the League of Women Voters of the Tanana Valley, a nonpartisan political organization. The LWV book discussion group began in 2003 and is open to everyone; it is not necessary to be a member of League to participate. Titles are selected annually by the members and generally are nonfiction works (biography, contemporary political issues, history, social and economic topics).

January 12, 2013 – Alone Together: why we expect more from technology and less from each other by Sherry Turkle

Turkle is the Margaret Mead of digital culture. Here, she looks into why we expect more from technology and less from each other. This book represents fifteen years of study on the effects of technology on our lives, good and bad. Blackberry, Twitter, Facebook constantly nag at us – but we can’t get along without them. Frightening in many parts, but also reassuring about some of the changes we are all experiencing. (2011, 360 pages)

February 9, 2013 – The Solar Economy: renewable energy for a sustainable global future by Hermann Scheer

The global economy and our way of life are based on the exploitation of fossil fuels, which not only threaten massive environmental and social disruption through global warming but, at present rates of consumption, will run out within decades, causing huge industrial dislocation and economic collapse. The alternative exists: renewable energy from renewable sources – above all, solar. It can be done, and it can be done in time. This book lays out the blueprints, showing how the political, economic and technological challenges can be met using indigenous, renewable and universally available resources, and the enormous opportunities and benefits that will flow from doing so. (2002, 347 pages)

March 9, 2013 – The Other Wes Moore: one name, two fates by Wes Moore

Two kids named Wes Moore were born blocks apart within a year of each other. Both grew up fatherless in similar Baltimore neighborhoods and had difficult childhoods; both hung out on street corners with their crews; both ran into trouble with the police. How, then, did one grow up to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader, while the other ended up a convicted murderer serving a life sentence? In alternating narratives that take readers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption, this tells the story of a generation of boys trying to find their way in a hostile world. (2010, 256 pages)

April 13, 2013 – The Founding Gardeners: the revolutionary generation, nature, and the shaping of the American nation by Andrea Wulf

This offers insight into the lives of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and others who consciously strive to develop landscapes to reflect the “New Republic”. They found renewal and inspiration (as all gardeners do!) in their experimental plantings, a common “ground” in times of political divisiveness, and great satisfaction in their many scientific experiments with soils, manures, and seeds, trees and crops. A fine read for the gardener/would-be gardener/nature lover in all of us. (2011, 349 pages)

May 11, 2013 – The Worst Hard Time: the untold story of those who survived the great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan

The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. This book is a fascinating read – delving not only into the lives of those living in the Dust Bowl but the political, environmental climate and ramifications of government actions. (2006, 340 pages)

June 8, 2013 – Selection of titles for September 2013 – July 2014

July 13, 2013 – The Power of Habit: why we do what we do and how to change it by Charles Duhigg

Per investigative reporter Duhigg, if people can understand how behaviors became habits, they can restructure those patterns in more constructive ways. His information comes from academic studies, interviews with scientists and executives, and research conducted in dozens of companies. (2012, 304 pages)

LWV Contact: Donna Dinsmore: 479-5265 or ddinsmore@alaska.net

Library Contact: Georgine Olson 459-1063 or golson@fnsblibrary.us

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The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UAF is a membership organization offering classes, lectures, and educational travel for adults who are 50 or older. Its Book Club is open to all interested adults. All books read by this group will be available in Large Print or in Audio.

February 19, 2013 - Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghase

Verghese mines his own life and experiences in a sweeping novel that moves from India to Ethiopia to an inner-city hospital in New York City over decades and generations. Sister Mary Joseph Praise, a devout young nun, leaves the south Indian state of Kerala in 1947 for a missionary post in Yemen. During the arduous sea voyage, she saves the life of an English doctor bound for Ethiopia, who becomes a key player in her destiny when they meet up again at Missing Hospital in Addis Ababa. Seven years later, Sister Praise dies birthing twin boys: Shiva and Marion, the latter narrating his own and his brother’s dramatic story set against the backdrop of political turmoil in Ethiopia, of the life of the hospital compound in which they grow up, and of the love story of their adopted parents, both doctors at Missing. The boys become doctors as well, and Verghese’s weaving of the practice of medicine into the narrative is fascinating even as the story weaves with the power and coincidences of the best 19th-century novel. (fiction; 2009; 541 pgs)

March 19, 2013 - Island Beneath the Sea by Isabelle Allende

Zarieté, known as Tété, is born a slave in Haiti, then called Saint-Domingue, in 1700. She is bought by Toulouse Valmorain, a young Frenchman whose ideals quickly disappear in the brutality of life on a sugar plantation. Tété tenderly cares for Valmorain’s son and, since she is her master’s property, bears two of the master’s children herself. She helps Valmorain and the children escape just as the bloody violence of the slave revolt reaches the plantation. They set sail for New Orleans, a raucous city where Tété finds more family drama and, finally, love and freedom. This timely and absorbing novel is filled with adventure, vivid characters, and richly detailed descriptions of life in the Caribbean at that time. (fiction; 2010; 457 pgs)

April 16, 2013 - Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet: a novel by Jamie Ford

Fifth-grade scholarship students and best friends Henry and Keiko are the only Asians in their Seattle elementary school in 1942. Henry is Chinese; Keiko is Japanese, and Pearl Harbor has made all Asians — even the American born — targets for abuse. Because Henry’s nationalistic father has a deep-seated hatred for Japan, Henry keeps his friendship with and eventual love for Keiko a secret. When Keiko’s family is sent to an internment camp in Idaho, Henry vows to wait for her. Forty years later, Henry comes upon an old hotel where the belongings of dozens of displaced Japanese families have turned up, and his love for Keiko is reborn. In his first novel, Ford expertly nails the sweet innocence of first love, the cruelty of racism, the blindness of patriotism, the astonishing unknowns between parents and their children, and the sadness and satisfaction at the end of a life well lived. (fiction; 2009; 290 pgs)

May 21, 2013 - booktalk & title selection for September 2013–April 2014

Library Contact / Discussion Leader: Georgine Olson, 459-1063 or golson@fnsblibrary.us

Osher Lifelong Learning Institute: Sarah Garland, 474-6607 or UAF-OLLI@alaska.edu

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The Science Book Discussion Group is Noel Wien Library’s longest running group. It has been meeting for nearly 20 years and does NOT require any particular background in science. The books chosen are those that would be of interest to the general adult reader with an interest in all aspects of science and technology. Books can be borrowed or purchased at cost ($10 or less, often much less).

• January 3 (Thursday) – Visions of the Cosmos by Carolyn Collins Petersen and John C. Brandt
• February 5 – Dry Storeroom No.1: the secret life of the Natural History Museum by Richard A. Fortey
• March 5 – Uncle Tungsten: memories of a chemical boyhood by Oliver W. Sacks
• April 2 – The Greatest Show On Earth: the evidence for evolution by Richard Dawkins
• May 7 – In Search of Time: the science of a curious dimension by Dan Falk
• June 4 – The Essential Engineer: why science alone will not solve our global problems by Henry Petroski

Library Contact: Georgine Olson: 459-1063 or golson@fnsblibrary.us

Discussion Leader: Don Triplehorn: 474-6891

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NOTE: all meetings are held on the fourth Monday at 7 PM in NWL Group Study Room #1

The Science Fiction / Fantasy Book Discussion Group reads a deliberately chosen variety of books, from new authors to recently-published award winners to classics from the 50s, 60s, and earlier. We read a mix of fantasy, science fiction, young adult fiction – and a horror tale in October. The discussions are informal, often leading to recommendations of other interesting books. It is a small, loyal group, always looking to welcome new members to share our enthusiasm.

January 28 – Blackout by Connie Willis

February 25 – All Clear by Connie Willis

Two sequential books, making one story, part of her Time Travel series, which includes Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog – Oxford in 2060 is a chaotic place. Scores of time-traveling historians are being sent into the past, to destination including the American Civil War and attack on the World Trade Center. Michael Davies is prepping to go to Pearl Harbor. Merope Ward is coping with a bunch of bratty 1940 evacuees and trying to talk to her thesis advisor, Mr. Dunworthy, into letting her go to VE Day. Polly Churchill’s next assignment will be as a shopgirl in the middle of London’s Blitz. And 17-year-old Colin Templer, who has a major crush on Polly, is determined to go to the Crusades so that he can catch up’ to her in age. But now the time-travel lab is suddenly canceling assignments and switching around everyone’s schedules. And when Michael, Merope and Polly finally get to World War II, things just get worse, to say nothing of a growing feeling that not only their assignments but the war and history itself are spiraling out of control. Because suddenly the once-reliable mechanisms of time travel are showing significant glitches, and our heroes are beginning to question their most firmly held belief: that no historian can possibly change the past. (SF, 2010; 512 pg & 656 pg; Locus, Hugo, Nebula winner)

March 25 – Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu

“An award-winning literary author presents her first foray into supernatural fantasy with a novel of post-apocalyptic Africa. In a far future, post-nuclear-holocaust Africa, genocide plagues one region. The aggressors, the Nuru, have decided to follow the Great Book and exterminate the Okeke. But when the only surviving member of a slain Okeke village is brutally raped, she manages to escape, wandering farther into the desert. She gives birth to a baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand and instinctively knows that her daughter is different. She names her daughter Onyesonwu, which means “Who Fears Death?” in an ancient African tongue. Reared under the tutelage of a mysterious and traditional shaman, Onyesonwu discovers her magical destiny-to end the genocide of her people. The journey to fulfill her destiny will force her to grapple with nature, tradition, history, true love, the spiritual mysteries of her culture-and eventually death itself.” FFiction (Fantasy, 2010, 304 pgs; World Fantasy Award winner; nominated for Tiptree Jr, Locus, Nebula)

April 22 – Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

“At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, READY PLAYER ONE is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut – part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed. It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place. Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets. And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune – and remarkable power – to whoever can unlock them. For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday’s riddles are based in the pop culture he loved – that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday’s icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes’s oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig. And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle. Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt – among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life – and love – in the real world he’s always been so desperate to escape. A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready?” FFiction (SF, 2011, 374 pgs; Locus top 5; movie rights already optioned)

June 3 (for May 27) – Gateway & All the Lives He Led by Frederick Pohl

(Two relatively short books, with 35 years between them – to get a feel for how this still writing Grand Master has changed over the years)

Gateway – “Wealth or death. Those are the choices Gateway offered. Human had discovered this artificial spaceport, full of working interstellar ships left behind by the mysterious, vanished Heechee. Their destinations were preprogrammed. They were easy to operate, but impossible to control. Some came back with discoveries which made their intrepid pilots rich; others returned with their remains barely identifiable. It was the ultimate game of Russian roulette, but in this resource-starved future there was no shortage of desperate volunteers.” FFiction (1976, 278 pgs; Hugo, Nebula, John Campbell Memorial Award)

All the Lives He Led – “Two thousand years after Pompeii’s destruction, a thriller of upheaval — volcanic and political — as only SF Grandmaster Frederick Pohl can write it! When Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD it gave so little warning that Pompeiians were caught unawares, and many bodies were preserved in volcanic ash. Two thousand years later, in 2079, Pompeii is a popular them park eager anticipating Il Giubeleo, the Jubilee celebration of the great anniversary. But Vesuvius is still capable of erupting, and even more threatening are terrorists who want to use the occasion to draw attention to their cause by creating a hugh disaster. As the fateful day draws near, people from all over the world — workers, tourists, terrorists — caught in the shadow of the volcano will grapple with upheaval both natural and political.” FFiction (SF, 2011; 347 pgs; Locus nominee)

June 24 – Girl Genius. Volume 1, Agatha Heterodyne and the Beetleburg Clank by Phil Foglio

After Agatha Clay’s locket is stolen, which is the only link to her parents, it sparks a series of events that lead to revenge, kidnappings, and death. (Graphic Lit, Steampunk, 2001, 87 pgs)

July 22 – Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve

*Starred Review* Set some centuries before the Hungry City Chronicles, yet still well into the future, this prequel series opener stars young Fever Crumb, reared by the Order of Engineers in the massive head of an unfinished statue, to operate with a slavish devotion to logic. (In one delightful scene, a group of engineers pours out of the head’s nostril door like a highly educated sneeze ).

Uncertain of her heritage, as well as the source of the memories invading her mind, Fever embarks on a rather typical quest of discovery with anything-but-typical trimmings. London is a nearly medieval backwater, where relics of ancient technology hint at a time thousands of years ago when people still understood how to make circuit boards and microchips. Reeve’s captivating flights of imagination play as vital a role in the story as his endearing heroine, hissworthy villains, and nifty array of supporting characters. Although there’s all manner of foundation work to gratify readers familiar with the world introduced in 2003′s Mortal Engines (including the genesis of Municipal Darwinism and the origins of a very familiar figure), Reeve has crafted a swiftly paced story worthy of standing alone, both in terms of where Fever’s adventure may lead her next as well as the connections to the Hungry City Chronicles. It may not be possible for Reeve to ever fully explore this world, but that shouldn’t keep him from trying, hopefully in many books to come. (YA SF steampunk; 2010; #14 Locus YA; 336 pgs)

August 26 – Someplace to be Flying by Charles de Lint

In many hands, the urban fantasy plot involving strange beings just around the corner fails dismally. It does not in the hands of the reliable, the inimitable de Lint. Photojournalist Lily hears rumors of “animal people” living in the slums and goes in search of the truth. That truth is an underground community of the First People (i.e., American Indians)–the trickster, the storyteller, and others. None of them are absolutely human any more (were they ever?), and although some have specific goals, others are just into mischief for the fun of it. Lily is quickly drawn into their various quests, with results as page-turning and intelligent as usual for de Lint, who clearly has no equal as an urban fantasist and very few equals among fantasists as a folklorist. First-rate. –Roland Green, Booklist Review (Urban Fantasy; 1998; 380 pgs)

September 23 – Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin

A joyously apocalyptic vision of New York City, past and future, emerges as both the frame and theme of this enthralling novel. Much of Helprin’s writing veers far from the realistic realm, and his style revels in the magical, haunting possibilities of technology, love, courage, the urban environment, and human transcendence. – Booklist review (SF/Fantasy, 1983, 673 pgs)

October 28 – The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

The Triffids are a monstrous species of stinging plant; they walk, they talk, they dominate the world. The narrator of this novel wakes up in a hospital to find that, by missing the end of the world as he knew it, he has survived to witness a new one. But the new world that awaits him is fantastic, horrific – and entirely plausible. (Horror; 1951; 216 pgs)

November 25 – Thirteenth Child by Patricia Wrede

A magical alternative history set in the Columbian West, some years after the Secession War. Unlucky 13th child Eff moves with her loving family—professor father, stoic mother, older siblings not yet on their own and her twin, Lan, the 14th child and the seventh son of a seventh son — to a land-grant college on the banks of the Mammoth River, along which runs the Great Barrier Magic that keeps steam dragons and other monsters safely at bay. Eff tells her tale in leisurely fashion, relating the events big and small of her growing up: Lan’s advanced magic lessons, her friendship with fellow faculty child William, sister Rennie’s elopement with an anti-magic Rationalist—and, perhaps most importantly, her tutoring sessions with Miss Ochiba, who teaches her not only Avrupan but also Hijero-Cathayan and Aphrikan magical techniques. The world-building is effortless, flowing naturally through Eff’s conversational narration. The culminating adventure of this volume—an expedition to investigate a plague of destructive grubs—ties up Eff’s coming-of-age with a frontier-style bow while leaving her poised for more adventures—many more, readers will hope. – Kirkus review (YA F/alt hist; 2009; 344 pgs; 1st in a series)

December 23 – Remnant Populationby Elizabeth Moon

When the Earth-based sponsors of a distant colony planet decide to pack it up and move the citizens elsewhere, the widow Ofelia, determined to spend the rest of her days on the planet, evades the evacuation party. She contentedly resumes tending her garden and livestock and writing a history of the colony. Then a new landing party encounters bloody resistance from aliens on the planet whom Ofelia and her fellow colonists never knew existed. Although expecting to suffer the same fate as the new arrivals, Ofelia slowly establishes an alliance with the aliens, who call themselves the People, and eventually earns a place in the humanoid creatures’ “nest.” As word of her achievement spreads, Ofelia gains respect as humanity’s unlikely first ambassador to an alien species. Moon, veteran author of several fantasies and two best-selling collaborations with Anne McCaffrey, produces a fascinating adventure of interspecies contact that includes the occasional masterfully rendered peek into the aliens’ unique mind-set. Enthusiasts for alien anthropology as well as Moon’s many fans should enjoy, enjoy. (SF; 1996; 339 pgs)

Library Contact: Georgine Olson, 459-1063 or golson@fnsblibrary.us

Discussion Leader: Sharron Albert, morgana@gci.net