Profound River by John L. Gubbins

Did a nun really invent the first flies for fly-fishing? Yes. Dame Juliana Berners was a remarkable woman: devout catholic nun and the credited inventor of fly-fishing. From boar-hunting on horseback with nothing but a spear to facing off with greedy priests determined to further impoverish her convent and family of faithful sisters, Dame Juliana's story will surprise and inspire you.

Dame Juliana Berners was a devout catholic nun who used the rich decorations that adorned the ceremonial robes of her faith to create the first fishing lures, becoming the Mother of Fly-Fishing From boar-hunting on horseback with nothing but a spear to facing off against greedy priests determined to further impoverish her convent and family of faithful sisters, Dame Juliana's story will surprise and inspire you.

 

235 pages (August 2011)

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Reading Guide from BookMovement.

 

The Best Book Club Questions to Spark Discussion from The Oprah Magazine

 

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.)

 

Profound River at goodreads

 

Juliana Berners at Project Continua

Dame Juliana Berners: IGFA Fishing Hall of Fame:

Title Read-alikes: Magdalena Mountain by Robert Michael Pyle; Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams; My Last Continent by Midge Raymond; Earthly Joys by Philippa Gregory; Year of Wonders by Geradine Brooks; The Glass Ocean by Lori Baker; Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh; The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott; Illuminations by Mary Sharratt; The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett; The Anchoress by Robyn Cadwallader; The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro; and Antihill by Edward O. Wilson.

New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance by Elna Baker

It's lonely being a Mormon in New York City. So once again, Elna Baker attends the New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance-a virgin in a room full of virgins doing the Macarena. Her Queen Bee costume, which involves a black funnel stuck to her butt for a stinger, isn't attracting the attention she'd anticipated. So once again, Elna is alone at the punch bowl, stocking up on generic Oreos, exactly where you'd expect to find a single Mormon who's also a Big Girl. But loneliness is nothing compared to what happens when she loses eighty pounds. . . . and falls in love with an atheist.

The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance is the memoir of a girl who distresses her family when she chooses NYU over BYU. A girl who's cultivating an oxymoronic identity as a bold, educated, modern, funny, proper, abstinent, religious stand-up comic, equal parts wholesome and hot. As Elna test-drives her identity, she finds herself in the strangest scenarios including selling creepy, overpriced dolls to petulant children at FAO Schwarz and dressing a head wound with a maxi pad while on a date.

276 pages (October 2009)

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Reading Guide from BookMovement.

Reading Guide from Penguin Random House

13 Book Club Questions to Energize Any Meetup from Bustle

 

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 New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance at goodreads

 

Review at By Common Consent

Review at FreshFiction

Interview in The Guardian

Review from Kirkus Reviews

Author Webpage

Author Interview on PRI's Radio West.

 

The Moth Presents Elna Baker: Yes Means Yes?

 

 

Title Read-alikes: Confessions of a Latter-day Virgin by Nicole Hardy; Bossypants by Tina Fey; Yes Please by Amy Poehler; Next Level Basic by Stassi Schroeder; The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo by Amy Schumer; Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle; Cool, Calm, & Contentious by Merrill Markoe; Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes; Help Me! by Marianne Power; The Bedwetter by Sarah Silverman; You're Not Doing It Right by Michael Ian Black; and Gunn's Golden Rules by Tim Gunn.

Red Water by Judith Freeman

“An unforgettable portrait of the unceasing labor, passion and danger of frontier life, recalling the best of Willa Cather.” —Los Angeles Times 

In 1857, at a place called Mountain Meadows in southern Utah, a band of Mormons and Indians massacred 120 emigrants. Twenty years later, the slaughter was blamed on one man named John D. Lee, previously a member of Brigham Young’s inner circle. Red Water imagines Lee’s extraordinary frontier life through the eyes of three of his nineteen wives. Emma is a vigorous and capable Englishwoman who loves her husband unconditionally. Ann, a bride at thirteen years old, is an independent adventurer. Rachel is exceedingly devout and married Lee to be with her sister, his first wife. These spirited women describe their struggle to survive Utah’s punishing landscape and the poisonous rivalries within their polygamous family, led by a magnetic, industrious, and considerate husband, who was also unafraid of using his faith to justify desire and ambition.

“Compelling, vivid writing that is both compassionate and unflinching; Freeman has gotten under the skin of these three very different women and their milieu in a profoundly affecting way.” —The Seattle Times

 

321 pages (January 2002)

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Reading Guide from ReadingGroupGuides.

Readers' Guide from Penguin Random House

 

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.)

 

Red Water at goodreads

 

Review at book reporter

Review at historical novel society

Review from Kirkus Reviews

Review from The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Review from Publishers Weekly

 

Author Website

A Conversation with Judith Freeman from RadioWest 

Thoughts on Judith Freeman’s Red Water from A Motley Vision: Mormon literature and culture.

 

What is the Mountain Meadows Massacre from Saints Unscripted:

 

Title Read-alikes: The Bishop's Wife by Mette Ivie Harrison; The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown; The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields; For Time and Eternity by Allison Pittman; One More River to Cross by Margaret Blair Young; When Men Become Gods by Stephen Singular; Riders of Deseret by Diane Coolidge; Mormon America by Richard N. Ostling; and The Council of Fifty.