Here you can find information on the many titles housed in the Millcreek Community Center Library's book club collection. We have summaries of each book, as well as links to our catalogue, and other resources for reading groups. All titles can be checked out singly or as a set to anyone with a Salt Lake County Library card.
For fans of A Man Called Ove, a charming, witty and
compulsively readable exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope
that traces a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.
After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night
shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping
busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her
eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget
Sound over thirty years ago.
Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific
octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can
imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his
human captors—until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.
Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son
disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old
invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's
too late.
Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking
a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt
impossible.
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's
home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for
the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library
card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth
Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an
average woman. But it's the early 1960s and her all-male team at
Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality.
Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize
nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind.
True chemistry results.
But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later
Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant
star of America's most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth's
unusual approach to cooking ("combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a
pinch of sodium chloride") proves revolutionary. But as her following
grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott
isn't just teaching women to cook. She's daring them to change the
status quo.
Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's
home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for
the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library
card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
The latest historical novel from New York Times bestselling
author Lisa See, inspired by the true story of a woman physician from
15th-century China - perfect for fans of See's classic Snow flower and the Secret Fan and The Island of Sea Women.
According to Confucius, "an educated woman is a worthless woman,"
but Tan Yunxian—born into an elite family, yet haunted by death,
separations, and loneliness—is being raised by her grandparents to be of
use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in
China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine, the Four
Examinations—looking, listening, touching, and asking—something a man
can never do with a female patient.
From a young age, Yunxian learns about women's illnesses, many of which
relate to childbearing, alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling.
The two girls find fast friendship and a mutual purpose—despite the
prohibition that a doctor should never touch blood while a midwife comes
in frequent contact with it—and they vow to be forever friends, sharing
in each other's joys and struggles. No mud, no lotus, they tell
themselves: from adversity beauty can bloom.
But when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law
forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women and girls in
the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wife—embroider bound-foot
slippers, pluck instruments, recite poetry, give birth to sons, and
stay forever within the walls of the family compound, the Garden of
Fragrant Delights.
How might a woman like Yunxian break free of these traditions, go on to
treat women and girls from every level of society, and lead a life of
such importance that many of her remedies are still used five centuries
later? How might the power of friendship support or complicate these
efforts? Lady Tan's Circle of Women is a captivating story of
women helping other women. It is also a triumphant reimagining of the
life of a woman who was remarkable in the Ming dynasty and would be
considered remarkable today.
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's
home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for
the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library
card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
After their decision not to have a biological
child, Sarah Sentilles and her husband, Eric, decide to adopt via the
foster care system. Despite knowing that the system's goal is
reunification with the birth family, Sarah opens their home to a flurry
of social workers who question, evaluate, and ultimately prepare them to
welcome a child into their family--even if it means most likely having
to give them back. After years of starts and stops, and endless
navigation of the complexities and injustices of the foster care system,
a phone call finally comes: a three-day old baby girl, named Coco, in
immediate need of a foster family. Sarah and Eric bring this newborn
stranger home.
"You were never ours," Sarah tells Coco, "yet we belong to each other."
A love letter to Coco, and to the countless children like her, Stranger
Care chronicles Sarah's discovery of what it means to mother--in this
case, not just a vulnerable infant, but the birth mother who loves her,
too. Ultimately, Coco's story reminds us that we depend on family, and
that family can take different forms. With "fearless, stirring,
rhythmic" (Nick Flynn) prose, Sentilles lays bare an intimate, powerful
story, with universal concerns: How can we care for and protect each
other? How do we ensure a more hopeful future for life on this planet?
And if we're all related--tree, bird, star, person--how might we better
live?
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's
home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for
the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library
card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
Glamour, danger, liberation: in a Mad Men–era of commercial flight, Pan Am World Airways attracted the kind of young woman who wanted out, and wanted up
Required to have a college degree, speak two languages, and possess the
political savvy of a Foreign Service officer, a jet-age stewardess
serving on iconic Pan Am between 1966 and 1975 also had to be between
5′3" and 5′9", between 105 and 140 pounds, and under 26 years of age at
the time of hire. Julia Cooke’s intimate storytelling weaves together
the real-life stories of a memorable cast of characters, from Lynne
Totten, a science major who decided life in a lab was not for her, to
Hazel Bowie, one of the relatively few black stewardesses of the era, as
they embraced the liberation of their new jet-set life.
Cooke
brings to life the story of Pan Am stewardesses’ role in the Vietnam
War, as the airline added runs from Saigon to Hong Kong for planeloads
of weary young soldiers straight from the battlefields, who were off for
five days of R&R, and then flown back to war. Finally, with
Operation Babylift—the dramatic evacuation of 2,000 children during the
fall of Saigon—the book’s special cast of stewardesses unites to play an
extraordinary role on the world stage.
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's
home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for
the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library
card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
In this one-of-a-kind retelling of Pride and Prejudice set
in modern-day Pakistan, Alys Binat has sworn never to marry - until an
encounter with one Mr. Darsee at a wedding makes her reconsider.
A scandal and vicious rumor concerning the Binat family
have destroyed their fortune and prospects for desirable marriages, but
Alys, the second and most practical of the five Binat daughters, has
found happiness teaching English literature to schoolgirls. Knowing that
many of her students won't make it to graduation before dropping out to
marry and have children, Alys teaches them about Jane Austen and her
other literary heroes and hopes to inspire the girls to dream of more.
When an invitation arrives to the biggest wedding their small town has
seen in years, Mrs. Binat, certain that their luck is about to change,
excitedly sets to work preparing her daughters to fish for rich,
eligible bachelors. On the first night of the festivities, Alys's lovely
older sister, Jena, catches the eye of Fahad "Bungles" Bingla, the
wildly successful - and single - entrepreneur. But Bungles's friend
Valentine Darsee is clearly unimpressed by the Binat family. Alys
accidentally overhears his unflattering assessment of her and quickly
dismisses him and his snobbish ways. As the days of lavish wedding
parties unfold, the Binats wait breathlessly to see if Jena will land a
proposal - and Alys begins to realize that Darsee's brusque manner may
be hiding a very different man from the one she saw at first glance.
Told with wry wit and colorful prose, Unmarriageable is a charming update on Jane Austen's beloved novel and an exhilarating exploration of love, marriage, class, and sisterhood.
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
A new memoir about identity, paternity, and family secrets--a
real-time exploration of the staggering discovery Shapiro recently made
about her father, and her struggle to piece together the hidden story of
her own life.
What makes us who we are? What combination of memory,
history, biology, experience, and that ineffable thing called the soul
defines us?
In the spring of 2016, through a genealogy website to
which she had whimsically submitted her DNA for analysis, Dani Shapiro
received the stunning news that her father was not her biological
father. She woke up one morning and her entire history--the life she had
lived--crumbled beneath her.
Inheritance is a book about
secrets--secrets within families, kept out of shame or
self-protectiveness; secrets we keep from one another in the name of
love. It is the story of a woman's urgent quest to unlock the story of
her own identity, a story that has been scrupulously hidden from her for
more than fifty years, years she had spent writing brilliantly, and
compulsively, on themes of identity and family history. It is a book
about the extraordinary moment we live in--a moment in which science and
technology have outpaced not only medical ethics but also the
capacities of the human heart to contend with the consequences of what
we discover.
Timely and unforgettable, Dani Shapiro's memoir is a gripping, gut-wrenching exploration of genealogy, paternity, and love.
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Mothers,
a stunning new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who
ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and
one white.
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But
after growing up together in a small, southern black community and
running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily
lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families,
their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister
lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried
to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband
knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and
just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will
happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' storylines
intersect?
Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from
the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett
produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a
brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well
beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting
influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and
expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in
which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their
origins.
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
