From the Library

The Young Adult Diverse Books Book Club met on Tuesday to discuss Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo and to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with Mantecaditos, Dominican butter cookies. This is Acevedo's second novel in verse after The Poet X. This is a moving story of love, loss and lies. Book Club members loved this book so much they could quote lines from memory as Katie K. did when she recited the line, "Lies rotting in their stomachs." Clap When You Land is beautifully written and was inspired by the second worst aviation crash in US History that happened two months after September 11, 2001. Ninety percent of the passengers were of Dominican descent and Acevedo began to research their stories when she was only a teenager. She didn't want their stories to be forgotten. Acevedo's first work of fiction for adults, Family Lore, is available in our library along with The Poet X and Clap When You Land.

The next book the Young Adult Diverse Books Book Club will be reading is As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh. It is a nominee for the 2023-24 Green Mountain Book Award. The publisher's note states that it is a "A love letter to Syria and its people, As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow is a speculative novel set amid the Syrian Revolution, burning with the fires of hope, love, and possibility." The YADB Book Club will meet in December to discuss it. Please stop by the library to reserve your copy and see Ms. Piccoli for more information about joining the club.

Last week, the Faculty/Staff Book Club met to discuss The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime and a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel. Everyone agreed that it was a great book, a page turner and one of our members was so inspired by Stéphane Breitwieser (the art thief) that she stole another member's stroopwafel, a delicious thin waffle cookie filled with caramel from the Netherlands! It was a lively discussion about art, crime, obsession and museum collections.

If you are interested in other books by Michael Finkel, you might try The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit. If you would like to read more about art crimes you might like to try Master Thieves: The Boston Gangsters Who Pulled Off the World's Greatest Art Heist by Stephen Kurkjian and Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures by Robert K. Wittman (Founder, FBI Art Crime Team) with John Shiffman. All three titles are available in our library.

Hernan Diaz's Trust: A Novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 2022. The publisher's note states, " At once an immersive story and a brilliant literary puzzle, TRUST engages the reader in a quest for the truth while confronting the deceptions that often live at the heart of personal relationships, the reality-warping force of capital, and the ease with which power can manipulate facts."

This is a high-demand title and difficult to get through interlibrary loan. We have a couple of copies with some more on the way. If you can get a copy through your local library or on an audio platform, please do!

We will aim for a date in late November or early December to meet and discuss.

Email: susan.piccoli@mtnviews.org
Website: https://www.wuhsms.org/index.php/en/more/rhoda-teagle-library
Location: Woodstock, VT, USA
Phone: 802 457 1317