Host An Unforgettable Book Club Party

The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is back from the war and reunited with her husband — when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach — an “outlander” — in a Scotland torn by war and raiding Highland clans in the year of Our Lord … 1743.

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri is a collection of short stories about Indian culture, both in India and the United States, as well as the joys and difficulties of relationships that someone of any culture can identify with.

Connie Danforth, an obstetrician, recalls in 1981 as a teen, the events leading up to and surrounding the involuntary manslaughter trial of her mother, Sibyl.

Anna Westerby’s diaries, written in Danish over seventy years ago, are published to great acclaim by her daughter Swanny after Anna’s death. But, do the diaries also contain the revelations of a double mystery within their pages: the true identity of a lost child and an unsolved gruesome murder? “Anna’s Book” by Barbara Vine is a compelling novel that will keep you guessing until its final pages.

The Mulvaneys are living the American ideal. But, this ideal family begins to slowly and painfully fall apart after tragedy befalls only daughter Marianne following her high school prom in 1976.

The Christmas Box is about a young family that moves in with an elderly woman, MaryAnne Parkin, to help her with meal preparation and to care for her old mansion. They develop a deep friendship with Mary who teaches the overworked Richard about the first gift of Christmas.

The tyrannical Nathan Price, a World War II veteran and evangelical Baptist missionary, takes his family into the Belgian Congo in 1959 to run a mission in the small village of Kilanga. Nathan and his family are ill-prepared for dealing with the indigenous culture, and are caught in the political firestorm of an African nation seeking independence from white rule.

In 1990, Chris McCandless got in his Datsun and left everything behind – his real name, his family, his possessions and ventured into the wild. He traveled through the United States for almost two years, living as a vagabond, walking and hitchhiking towards his ultimate destination, Alaska.

He walked into the wilderness of Alaska in April 1992 with a .22 caliber rifle, a camera, a ten pound bag of rice and his books. He found shelter in an abandoned bus left from the 1960′s to shelter construction workers hired to upgrade The Stampede Trail. He hunted game and foraged for food using Tanaina Plantlore for guidance.

Chris McCandless did not make it out of the Alaskan wilderness. He left behind notes written in the side bars of his books, letters to people he met along his journey, writings on the walls of the bus and a camera. His writings and photos opened a window into the life of McCandless during his two years on the road.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is about listening to your heart and believing in your dreams. This fable tells the story of an Andalucian shepherd named Santiago who travels to Morocco and then to the pyramids of Egypt to find his treasure. Along the way he learns many life lessons that you will find brings inspiration to your own life.

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood is the stunning fictionalized account of the real-life 1843 double murder of Thomas Kinnear and his mistress, Nancy Montgomery. Accused in the murders are two of Kinnear’s servants, James McDermott, a stable hand, and sixteen year old Grace Marks, a maid.