When the oldest of Kate Braestrup's four children was ten years old, her husband, a Maine state trooper, was killed in a car accident. Stunned and grieving, she decided t o pursue her husband's dream of becoming a Unitarian minister, and eventually began working with the Maine Game Warden Service, which conducts the state's search and rescue operations when people go missing in the wilderness. She comes to discover that giving comfort is both a high calling and a precious gift. It is a deeply moving story of faith and hope.
Lyrical meditations on life, love, peace and solitude, inspired by a quiet summer at the beach, and the shells Lindbergh found along the way. This is a classic book to be read over and over.
Johnson's bittersweet and often humorous debut novel portrays the lives of five very different Southern women: compassionate Lorraine, bossy Margaret, grief-stricken Bernice, ambitious April and brusque Rhonda. The story unfolds slowly over decades and life milestones, giving the characters plenty of time to reveal themselves. The underlying message of the power of love and friendship resonates, as does its depiction of the way in which people leading unremarkable lives can have a tremendous impact on those around them.
September 16th - The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland by
Jim Defede
Peggy Greenawalt’s home…remembering the 9th anniversary of 9/11
In the immediate aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, 38 commercial airliners carrying over 6,000 passengers were forced, as a precautionary measure, to land in Gander, Newfoundland, Canada. Due to the ongoing closure of U.S. airspace, the passengers spent four days in this isolated town of 10,000 before being allowed to continue on their way. In that time, Gander's residents rallied together to extend a kind of hospitality that seems too expansive for the word hospitality.
Non-Fiction
Read also Let's Roll!: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage by Lisa Beamer
October 21st - The Help (Hardcover) by Kathryn Stockett
Meeting Room at Laura’s Library
http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides_H/the_help1.asp
Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women-mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends-view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope that takes place in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960’s.
Fiction
Read also Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill
November 18th - 29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life by Cami Walker
Bring a small wrapped gift to share
Just a month after her wedding, 31-year-old Walker was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis; two years later, she was bitter, isolated, and addicted to both pain medication and self-pity. In need of help beyond drug detox, Cami takes the advice of a South African healer: give away something every day, for 29 days.
Non-Fiction/Memoir
Read also Life Is a Verb: 37 Days to Wake Up, Be Mindful, and Live Intentionally by Patti Digh
December 16th - The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton
http://www.bookmovement.com/app/readingguide/view.php?readingGuideID=1702
Book donations and cookie exchange
When Fiona Sweeney tells her family she wants to do something that matters, they do not expect her to go to Africa to help start a traveling library. But that is where Fiona chooses to make her mark: in the arid bush of northeastern Kenya, among tiny, far-flung communities, nearly unknown and lacking roads and schools, where people live daily with drought, hunger, and disease. Fi travels to settlements where people have never held a book in their hands. However, because the donated books are limited in number and the settlements are many, the library initiates a tough fine: if anyone fails to return a book, the bookmobile will stop coming. Fiction based on an actual bookmobile in Kenya
Read also Facing the Lion: Growing Up Maasai on the African Savanna by Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton
January 20th - Prayers for Sale by Sandra Dallas
Barnes and Noble Westlake Bookstore 10:00 AM
http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides_P/prayers_for_sale1.asp
The Great Depression of 1936 has taken its toll in the high country of the snow-covered Rocky Mountains. Two women, one as old as the other is young, form an unlikely friendship --- one in which the deepest of hardships are shared and the darkest of secrets are confessed over the making of a quilt. Combining the raw brutality of gold mining with the comforts of home craftsmanship, this novel goes to the heart of the American experience, and is a journey through love and sorrow, forgiveness and redemption.
Fiction
Read also The Diary of Mattie Spenser by Sandra Dallas
February 17th - Mudbound by Hillary Jordan
http://www.bookbrowse.com/reading_guides/detail/index.cfm?book_number=2103
Black History Month
In 1946, Laura McAllan, a college-educated Memphis schoolteacher, becomes a reluctant farmer's wife when her husband, Henry, buys a farm on the Mississippi Delta, a farm she aptly nicknames Mudbound. Told in alternating chapters, the story unfolds with a chilling inevitability. Jordan's writing and perfect control of the material lift it from being another "ain't-it-awful" tale to a heart-rending story of deep, mindless prejudice and cruelty. Fiction
Read also Picking Cotton by Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Cannino
March 17th - Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
French Restaurant in Austin
http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides_S/sarahs_key1.asp
Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours. Paris, May 2002: On Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life. Fiction
Read also Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum
April 21st - Three Little Words: A Memoir by Ashley Rhodes-Courter
Guests from Foster Care Services, as well Christy Rome and Morgan Stokes
http://books.simonandschuster.com/Three-Little-Words/Ashley-Rhodes-Courter/9781416948063/reading_group_guide
Ashley was only three years old when she was taken from her mother -- too young to understand why she couldn't stay with the mother she adored, and she could not possibly have realized that she was going to spend the next nine years bouncing from one foster family to another. Ashley’s story contains all the passion and detail that can only come from someone who has experienced the foster care system from the inside. Non-Fiction/Memoir
Read also Blackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found by Jennifer Lauck 

May 19th - Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
WHPC Parlor Asia Buffet
http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides_h/hotel_corner_bitter_sweet1.asp
Henry Lee, a Chinese-American in Seattle in 1986, has just lost his wife to cancer. After Henry hears that the belongings of Japanese immigrants interned during WWII have been found in the basement of the Panama Hotel, the narrative shuttles between 1986 and the 1940s in a story that chronicles the losses of old age and the bewilderment of youth. Henry recalls the difficulties of life in America during WWII, when he and his Japanese-American school friend, Keiko, wandered through wartime Seattle. Keiko and her family are later interned in a camp, and Henry, horrified by America's anti-Japanese hysteria, is further conflicted because of his Chinese father's anti-Japanese sentiment.
Fiction
Read also Color of the Sea by John Hamamura or Tallgrass by Sandra Dallas
June 16th - Her Mother’s Hope (Marta’s Legacy) by Francine Rivers
Karen Casey’s home and garden tour
http://www.francinerivers.com/books/84/discussion-guide
The first in an epic two-book saga by beloved author Francine Rivers, this sweeping story explores the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters over several generations. Near the turn of the 20th century, fiery Marta leaves Switzerland determined to find life on her own terms. Her journey takes her through Europe and finally lands her with children and husband in tow in the central valley of California. Marta’s experiences convince her that only the strong survive. Hildie, Marta’s oldest daughter, has a heart to serve others, and her calling as a nurse gives her independence, if not the respect of her mother. Amid the drama of WWII, Hildie marries and begins a family of her own. She wants her daughter never to doubt her love—but the challenges of life conspire against her vow. Each woman is forced to confront her faulty but well-meaning desire to help her daughter find her God-given place in the world.
Christian fiction
Read also her sequel to this book due out in 2011
July 21st - Have a Little Faith: A True Story by Mitch Albom
http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides_h/have_a_little_faith1.asp
What if our beliefs were not what divided us, but what pulled us together? 
Mitch Albom offers a beautifully written story of a remarkable eight-year journey between two worlds, two men, two faiths, two communities --- that will inspire readers everywhere. 
This non-fiction story begins with an unusual request: an eighty-two-year-old rabbi from Albom’s old hometown asks him to deliver his eulogy.
Non-Fiction
Read also Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation by Eboo Patel
August 18th - Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel by Jeannette Walls
http://books.simonandschuster.com/Half-Broke-Horses/Jeannette-Walls/9781416586289/reading_group_guide
Jeannette Walls brings us the story of her grandmother, told in a first-person voice that is authentic, irresistible, and triumphant. Lily Casey Smith survived tornadoes, droughts, floods, the Great Depression, and the most heartbreaking of personal tragedies. She bristled at prejudice of all kinds -- against women, Native Americans, and anyone else who didn't fit the mold. Rosemary Smith Walls always told Jeannette that she was like her grandmother, and in this true-life novel, Jeannette Walls channels that kindred spirit. Fiction based on true story
Read also The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
