Pageturners
Facilitated by Kathy Carrus
Members receive 20% off each month's book choice
"Kathy's selection of titles for discussion are thought provoking and the discussion always stimulating. Her meticulous research and skill as a facilitator is superb as she moves the discussion along while allowing time to explore various aspects of a book. There hasn't been a discussion that I've come away from where I haven't felt enlightened and enriched." - Tuki S.
Pageturners is a discussion group that exposes participants to literature with various perspectives so Kathy's books promote thoughtful and often lively discussions. Pageturners selections include an eclectic variety of both fiction and nonfiction titles. For over 30 years Kathy's book clubs have been reading biographies, historical fiction, social justice books, international fiction, plays, classics, and works by debut novelists that provide “new voices” -- so Pageturner readers gain insight into contemporary society as well as themselves. A keen researcher and librarian, Kathy provides background information which enhances the discussion and understanding of each book read.
Kathy: My passion for literature and my curiosity to dig into what the author is really expressing makes for informative discussions. Book groups have always been a form of continuing education for me and I love to share ideas and conversation each month when we gather. I view my book list as a type of syllabus and invite those interested to read along with me.
Meetings will be via Zoom through May. Summer meetings will be in-person at Prairie Path Books - email kathy@prairiepathbooks.com for latest details.
Pageturners
A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK!
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER
Yaa Gyasi's stunning follow-up to her acclaimed national best seller Homegoing is a powerful, raw, intimate, deeply layered novel about a Ghanaian family in Alabama.
Gifty is a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford University School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after an ankle injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her. But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family's loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive. Transcendent Kingdom is a deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief--a novel about faith, science, religion, love. Exquisitely written, emotionally searing, this is an exceptionally powerful follow-up to Gyasi's phenomenal debut.
Nofar is an average teenage girl -- so average, in fact, that she's almost invisible. Serving customers ice cream all summer long, she is desperate for some kind of escape. One afternoon, a terrible lie slips from her tongue. And suddenly everyone wants to talk to her: the press, her schoolmates, and even the boy upstairs. He is the only one who knows the truth, and he is demanding a price for his silence. Then Nofar meets Raymonde, an elderly immigrant whose best friend has just died. Raymonde keeps her friend alive the only way she knows how, by inhabiting her stories. But soon, Raymonde's lies take on a life of their own. Written with propulsive energy, dark humor, and deep insight, The Liar reveals the far-reaching consequences of even our smallest choices, and explores the hidden corners of human nature to reveal the liar, and the truth-teller, in all of us.
A GOOD MORNING AMERICA Book Club Pick! A magnificent new novel from the Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro--author of Never Let Me Go and the Booker Prize-winning The Remains of the Day. Klara and the Sun, the first novel by Kazuo Ishiguro since he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, tells the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: what does it mean to love? In its award citation in 2017, the Nobel committee described Ishiguro's books as novels of great emotional force and said he has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.
From the beet fields of North Dakota to the campgrounds of California to Amazon's CamperForce program in Texas, employers have discovered a new, low-cost labor pool, made up largely of transient older adults. These invisible casualties of the Great Recession have taken to the road by the tens of thousands in RVs and modified vans, forming a growing community of nomads.
Nomadland tells a revelatory tale of the dark underbelly of the American economy--one which foreshadows the precarious future that may await many more of us. At the same time, it celebrates the exceptional resilience and creativity of these Americans who have given up ordinary rootedness to survive, but have not given up hope.