What are you reading?

For a few years now, I have been inviting my book club(s) to come down to BPYC so we can ask each other, "What are you reading?"

Memoir, historical fiction, non-fiction and true-life tales outweigh fiction in these summer choices:  21 books and only three of them works of fiction set in modern times.  Interesting choices!

Diane:  Under the Covers

• A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway:  what he chooses to reveal tells more about him than his subjects
• Freedom, by Jonathon Franzen:  dysfunctional families are this author's specialty 

Joan:  Trilogy of Memoirs by by Dave Pelzer

• A Child Called It: His brother, Richard Pelzer, is the author of the book "A Brother's Journey", confirming much of what David has said and describing his own abuse when David was finally removed from the home, although the two disagree about Dave's depictions
• The Lost Boy
• A Man Named Dave

Anne:  Next month's BPYC Book Club pick

• The Help by Kathryn Stockett:  Anne will be serving chocolate cake next month.  Will anyone bite?

Grace:  Is war a rich man's game?

• The Theatre of the World by Peter Marshall: Alchemy, astrology and magic in Renaissance Prague
• The War to End All Wars by Adam Hochschild:  A story of loyalty and greed
• The Ghosts of Europe, by Anna Porter:  Looking at Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia

Anita:  Comic relief

• Flashman, by George Macdonald Frazer:  recommended by PG Wodehouse; how can you go wrong?
• The Fine Art of Insincerity, by Angela Hunt: easy summer reading about the dynamics between sisters

Kaarina:  Beautiful book covers

• A Gathering Light, by Jennifer Donnelly: young adult fiction doesn't read like kiddie-lit
• The Gurnsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows:  a hit with book clubs across the world...

Wendy:  Compelling titles

• Half Broke Horses by Jeanette Walls:  Another "true-life" novel from the author of the Glass Castle
• Prayers for Sale by Sandra Dallas:  Historical fiction set in the Great Depression
• A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard:  memoir from a kidnap victim about 18 stolen years

Liz P.: This book is so insane and hard to believe, it must be true

• Sins of the 7th Sister by Huston Curtis III:  true story of the Gothic South...

Liz C: A big cat with a taste for revenge 

• The Tiger, by John Vaillant:  A true story of vengeance and survival as expert trackers hunting a man-killing tiger along the Russia/China border become prey themselves

Rebecca:  insurance tales

• Visit Elliot Special Risk  to learn details such as Shirley Maclean's $2.5M policy to insure against being captured by aliens; or Keith Richard's insurance for his middle finger

Annika:  Authentic voices

• Three Seconds, by Rosenberg Hallberg:  A Swedish bestseller penned by an unusual team; a former criminal and journalist.  Inside knowledge of the drug trade behind prison walls
• The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain:  The Moveable Feast told through the eyes of Hadley Hemingway