Book Club Pix

Contributed by Mary Anne Ellis, Southern History Department, Birmingham Public Library
  September
by Rosamunde Pilcher

For readers who loved Pilcher’s novel The Shell Seekers, September is a welcome second helping of family saga. The self-centered Noel Keeling finds his life taking an unexpected turn when he falls in love and begins to question his former goals in which money and status were all-important. Though she is not the glamorous woman Noel had imagined marrying, Alexa’s warmhearted affection makes his former concerns appear shallow and unworthy. But is he strong enough to give them up for love?
Book Jacket The October Country
by Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury makes no secret of his devotion to the month of October, the strange and haunted time of year, and these stories reflect that devotion. Long out of print, this collection is once more available for connoisseurs of the spooky and supernatural. Meet a baby who is outraged at being born and means to revenge himself on his parents, a man terrified by his realization that he’s carrying around a skeleton inside his body, a mysterious crowd of onlookers who always show up at car accidents, and a dog whose devotion to his family goes above and beyond the call of duty.
Book Jacket Light in August
by William Faulkner

One of Faulkner’s most accessible and riveting novels, Light in August is an excellent choice for readers who wish to enter the universe of Yoknapatawpha County. Joe Christmas is a compelling portrait of one man’s struggles with his racial identity; though he is of Caucasian appearance, there are rumors in the community that he has African blood and under the belief system that one drop of black blood makes you black, Christmas is alienated from the white community, both by their racial prejudices and by his own love-hate relationship with his possible African ancestry. Grim and violent, Light in August is also layered with Christian imagery and conveys the hopeful message that man can rise above hatred and racism.
Book Jacket Old School
by Tobias Woolf

The late 1950’s and early 1960’s are often regarded as a golden, innocent age before the assassination of John Kennedy, the long agony of Vietnam, and other events that shook the world. Set in a boarding school filled with boys who are obsessed with literature and the idea of becoming successful writers, Old School takes us back to that time of imagined tranquility, when nothing is so important as winning one of the school’s literary prizes and an opportunity for a one-on-one conference with Ernest Hemingway is the sum of all good fortune. Succinct and delicately-crafted, Old School is a glimpse of a lost era that will appeal to any readers who fondly remember how they fell in love with literature.
Book Jacket Inside Mrs. B’s Classroom: Courage, Hope, and Learning on Chicago’s South Side
by Leslie Baldacci

Leslie Baldacci had spent years as a journalist writing stories about problems in Chicago’s school systems. One day, she decided that writing was not enough and gave up her career as a journalist to go and teach in one of the public schools of Chicago’s South Side. Baldacci encountered every problem that she expected and more--extreme poverty, drugs, gang violence--but she had too much pride to quit, figuring that as long as the children kept coming to school, she could keep teaching school. Any teacher in adverse circumstances could relate to this story, and it is a must-read for anyone considering a teaching career.