Host An Unforgettable Book Club Party

In the late 1800′s many single women flocked to New York to find respectable work in the burgeoning industries. Clara Driscoll, one such woman, managed the all-women’s Glass Cutting Department at Tiffany Studios, where she and her staff were known as the Tiffany Girls.

Frank Mackey grew up in a tenement house and loved a girl named Rosie. Frank and Rosie were going to run away and start a new life in London, but on their scheduled night of departure, Rosie did not show up. Frank, heartbroken, left Faithful Place, supposedly for good, and became a detective in Dublin. Twenty two years later, he gets a call that the suitcase belonging to Rosie, who had never been seen again after that night, had been found in an abandoned house. Frank returns to Faithful Place and the family he felt did their best to ruin his life to solve the mystery of what happened to Rosie.

“Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption” is a biographical narrative written by Laura Hillenbrand about the indomitable Louie Zamperini. The novel begins with Louie’s troubled youth, his discovery of distance running, and subsequent participation in Hitler’s 1936 Berlin Olympics. There he roomed with Jesse Owens, shook Hitler’s hand, and stole a Nazi flag. Although Nineteen-year old Louie didn’t medal, he was the top American finisher and set his sites on the 1940 Tokyo Olympics. However, World War II would bring the cancellation of those games, and thrust young Louie into a harrowing and disturbing fight for “survival, resilience and redemption.”

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.

Jane Eyre is the story of a young woman’s struggles to uphold her convictions despite her painful upbringing and the strictures of society and religion. Jane does not compromise, even at risk to her own happiness and health, that which she holds as truths. She is an ageless heroine for all young girls today.

Penned by Charlotte Brontë under a pseudonym in 1847, Jane Eyre, at the time, was criticized as having an anti-Christian slant. Today this semi-autobiographical novel is considered one of the top literary classics of all-time.

If I Stay tells the story of young Mia, an aspiring cellist, trying to decide if she should stay after a tragic car accident. While in a coma in the intensive care unit, Mia has flashbacks and observes her family and friends trying to deal with her being on the brink of death. The thought of living seems too much to bear, but she realizes it is her choice…should she stay?

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain, set in the 1920′s, is the partly fictional/partly factual account of Ernest Hemingway and his first wife Elizabeth Hadley Richardson and their life together in Paris among other British and American expatriates. The bohemian lifestyle of these expats led Gertrude Stein to dub them the “Lost Generation.”

The Paris Wife is movingly told in Hadley’s voice from her first meeting of Ernest, their courtship and wedding, life abroad, the birth of their son, and the painful unraveling of their marriage.

Ladies and Gentlemen! Step right up for the amazing, the unbelievable, the marvelous wonders we have gathered for this book club party inspired by Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. The main character, Jacob Jankowski, jumps on the circus train after suffering a tragedy in his life. He encounters “the most dazzling collection” of people and animals “gathered from all four corners of the earth”.

This is a story of an elaborate birthday party gone wrong. The host is an unappreciated Vice President of a poor South American country. The birthday boy is a powerful businessman from Japan. The entertainment is a mesmerizing soprano that wins the heart of all who hear her sing.
When terrorists crash this party, the evening and the lives of everyone present will forever change.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett is told from the perspectives of three women who had the courage to tell the story of what it was like to be “the help” in the 1960s. Skeeter, a recent college graduate returning home to Jackson, and two of the black maids, Aibileen and Minny secretly work together, while encouraging others to tell their stories. The three women, and the town of Jackson, will never be the same again.