ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE
By Anthony Doerr
Moderator & Host: Connie Harrison
March 21, 2016
From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the beautiful, stunningly ambitious
instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in
occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.
Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the
master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect
miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she
is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where
Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be
the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.
In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a
crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a
talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the
resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the
heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.
Doerr’s “stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) are
dazzling. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, he illuminates the ways, against all
odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, a National Book Award finalist, All
the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer “whose sentences never
fail to thrill” (Los Angeles Times).
BOYS IN THE BOAT: NINE AMERICANS AND THEIR EPIC QUEST FOR GOLD AT THE 1936 BERLIN OLYMPICS
By Daniel J. Brown
Moderator & Host: Cheryl Whited
November 16, 2016
For readers of Unbroken, out of the depths of the Depression comes an irresistible story about beating
the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times—the improbable, intimate account of how
nine working-class boys from the American West showed the world at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin what
true grit really meant.
It was an unlikely quest from the start. With a team composed of the sons of loggers, shipyard workers,
and farmers, the University of Washington’s eight-oar crew team was never expected to defeat the elite
teams of the East Coast and Great Britain, yet they did, going on to shock the world by defeating the
German team rowing for Adolf Hitler. The emotional heart of the tale lies with Joe Rantz, a teenager
without family or prospects, who rows not only to regain his shattered self-regard but also to find a real
place for himself in the world. Drawing on the boys’ own journals and vivid memories of an once-in-alifetime shared dream, Brown has created an unforgettable portrait of an era, a celebration of a
remarkable achievement, and a chronicle of one extraordinary young man’s personal quest.
DEAD WAKE: THE LAST CROSSING OF THE LUSITANIA
by Erik Larson (author of The Devil in White City)
Moderator & Host: Percy Weber
October 19, 2015
On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an
English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children
and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas
around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic.
But the Lusitania was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds”—the fastest liner then in
service—and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures
of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack.
Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the
captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit
tracked Schwieger’s U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward
Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small—hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded
secret, and more—all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history
It is a story that many of us think we know but don’t, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching
between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive
Era. Full of glamour and suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed
Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodore Pope to President Woodrow
Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love.
Gripping and important, Dead Wake captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster whose
intimate details and true meaning have long been obscured by history.
GIRL ON THE TRAIN, THE
By Paula Hawkins
Moderator & Host: Enid Serebransky
April 18, 2016
Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past
a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple
breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. “Jess and Jason,” she calls
them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.
And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now
everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel offers what she knows to the police, and
becomes inextricably entwined in what happens next, as well as in the lives of everyone involved. Has
she done more harm than good?
Compulsively readable, The Girl on the Train is an emotionally immersive, Hitchcockian thriller and an
electrifying debut.
Legends of Winter Hill: Cops, Con Men, and Joe McCain, LAST REAL DETECTIVE
By Jay Atkinson
Moderator & Host: Bonnie Cardoza
January 18, 2016
“At McCain Investigations, I’d be sent looking for people who didn’t want to be found, following guys
who didn’t want to be followed, and entering neighborhoods where I was not at all welcome. There
would be no commercials, no time-outs, no ‘do-overs’ if somebody got shot or stabbed or run over.
These guys were playing for keeps.”
Seasoned journalist and adventurer Jay Atkinson spent a year working as a rookie private eye for the
storied firm McCain Investigations, founded by the late Joe McCain, Sr., one of the most decorated
police officers in Boston history. In his colorful narrative style, Atkinson describes some of the cases he
worked as a detective, chasing down an assortment of felons, thieves, and con artists, as well as the
ghost of a real-life American hero, legendary cop Joe McCain.
Atkinson traces McCain’s story from the day he put on his Boston Metropolitan Police uniform in the
1950s through the heyday of his run-ins with mafiosi, bad cops, and ruthless killers. Big Joe was the
genuine article, a detective so committed to his work that a gunshot wound suffered in the line of duty
took thirteen years to kill him. McCain pursued such infamous Winter Hill mobsters as Stephen “the
Rifleman” Flemmi and the murderous James “Whitey” Bulger, who remains on the FBI’s Ten Most
Wanted list. Here Atkinson reveals new details—based on his exclusive interviews and an abundance of
his own shoe leather—about how Bulger, one of America’s most notorious fugitives, came within inches
of being apprehended during Joe McCain’s reign.
Atkinson also tracks the career of Joe McCain’s son, Joe Jr., a tattooed, hard-riding motorcycle fanatic
who followed his old man onto the force. Since big Joe’s death, young Joe has learned the hard way that
a father’s mythic persona can be both a blessing and a curse, as a fellow cop with a grudge against Joe
Sr. may be out to ruin young Joe’s career. Atkinson delves into this dark and dangerous aspect of “the
job,” where it’s uncertain which side some cops are on
Legends of Winter Hill takes you into an alluring and gritty world where heroes go unsung every day,
and moral boundaries aren’t always black and white.
REMAINS OF INNOCENCE
By J. A. Jance
Moderator & Host: Sue Banfield
September 21, 2015
Sheriff Joanna Brady must solve two perplexing cases that may be tied together in New York Times
bestselling author J. A. Jance’s thrilling tale of suspense that brings to life Arizona’s Cochise County and
the desert Southwest in all its beauty and mystery.
(continued on next page)
An old woman, a hoarder, is dying of emphysema in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. In cleaning out
her house, her daughter, Liza Machett, discovers a fortune in hundred dollar bills hidden in the tall
stacks of books and magazines that crowd every corner.
Tracing the money’s origins will take Liza on a journey that will end in Cochise County, where Sheriff
Joanna Brady is embroiled in a personal mystery of her own. A man she considers a family friend is
found dead at the bottom of a hole in a limestone cavern near Bisbee. And now there is the mystery of
Liza and the money. Are the two disparate cases connected? It’s up to Joanna to find out.
ROCK WITH WINGS ( A Leaphorn and Chee Mystery)
by Anne Hillerman
Moderator & Host: Nancy Woodling
February 15, 2016
Navajo Tribal cops Jim Chee and Bernadette Manuelito, and their mentor, the legendary Lieutenant Joe
Leaphorn, investigate two perplexing cases in this exciting Southwestern mystery from the New York
Times bestselling author of Spider Woman’s Daughter/”””/
Doing a good deed for a relative offers the perfect opportunity for Sergeant Jim Chee and his wife,
Officer Bernie Manuelito, to get away from the daily grind of police work. But two cases will call them
back from their short vacation and separate them—one near Shiprock, and the other at iconic
Monument Valley.
Chee follows a series of seemingly random and cryptic clues that lead to a missing woman, a
coldblooded thug, and a mysterious mound of dirt and rocks that could be a gravesite. Bernie has her
hands full managing the fallout from a drug bust gone wrong, uncovering the origins of a fire in the
middle of nowhere, and looking into an ambitious solar energy development with long-ranging
consequences for Navajo land.
Under the guidance of their mentor, retired Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn, Bernie and Chee will navigate
unexpected obstacles and confront the greatest challenge yet to their skills, commitment, and courage
Suggested Meeting Dates
September 21, 2015
October 19, 2015
November 16, 2015
December 21, 2015 ** may be changed to the 14th.
January 18, 2016
February 15, 2016
Marc 21, 2016
April 18, 2016
May 16, 2016 selection of next year’s books and moderators.
List of Suggested Books
All the Light We Cannot See
Host and Moderator
Connie Harrison
Month & Day
March 21, 2016
Boys in the Boat
Cheryl Whited
November 16, 2015
Dead Wake
Percy Weber
October 19, 2015
Girl on the Train
Enid Serebranski
April 18, 2016
Handsome Man’s Deluxe Cage
Barbara Neubert
December 21, 2015
Last Real Detective
Bonnie Cardoza
January 18, 2016
Remains of Innocence
Sue Banfield
September 21, 2015
Rock with Wings
Nancy Woodling
February 15, 2016