Ravenna Third Place Book Club
2004 Book Picks

Our December book was The Known World by Edward P. Jones.
In this moving novel, Henry Townsend, a black farmer, bootmaker and former slave, becomes proprietor of his own plantation - as well as of his own slaves. When he dies, his widow, Caldonia, succumbs to profound grief, and things begin to fall apart at their plantation: slaves take to escaping under the cover of night, and families who had once found love beneath the weight of slavery begin to betray one another. Beyond the Townsend estate, the known world also unravels. Library Journal Review said of this book, "By focusing on an African American slaveholder, Jones forcefully demonstrates how institutionalized slavery jeopardized all levels of civilized society so that no one was really free. A fascinating look at a painful theme, this book is an ideal choice for book clubs. Highly recommended."

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Our November book was the Pulitzer Prize winning play, Anna in the Tropics, by Nilo Cruz.
This play celebrates the transformative power of literature by depicting the lives and loves of a group of Cuban-American workers in a cigar factory in Tampa, Florida, during the Great Depression. In the play, owners of the cigar factory have brought in a paid reader, a "lector," to read Leo Tolstoy's masterpiece, Anna Karenina, aloud to their employees at work. Parallels abound between the situations faced by the characters of Tolstoy's classic novel and those faced by characters in the play.

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Our October book was Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer.
For the past three years, Americans have been struggling with the idea of "violent faith," trying to come to terms with the actions of the Taliban and Al-Queda. Now Jon Krakauer (author of Into Thin Air and Into The Wild) asks us to turn our attention inward and look at the shocking case of two Mormon brothers who insist that God asked them to kill. In Under The Banner of Heaven, Krakauer, well known for his books about the extremes of physical adventure, examines the extremes of religious faith, an issue emerging more and more often into the American cultural and political landscape. Come join us for a thought-provoking discussion about this book and about all kinds of religious fundamentalism in America and abroad.

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Our September book was The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.
A remarkable novel in the most untraditional fashion, this is the story of Heny DeTamble, an adventuresome librarian who, due to "Chrono Displacement Disorder," travels involuntarily through time. Almost randomly, and finds himself in the past or future, usually at a time or place of importance in his life. Claire Abshire, the love of his life, is an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Audrey Niffenegger gives us, in this debut novel, an inventive tale which works on three levels: as an intriguing science fiction concept, a realistic character study, and a touching love story.

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Our August book was The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton.
Aside from love, few activities seem to promise us as much happiness as traveling. And though we are inundated with advice on where to travel, few writers seem to talk about why we go. In The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton (author of How Proust Can Change Your Life) takes a look at several travelers who preceded us -- using writers and artists such as Edward Hopper, Baudelaire, Flaubert, van Gogh, Wordsworth and Ruskin, among others -- to examine the delights and vagaries of travels both far (Egypt) and near (our own bedrooms!) With great wit and intelligence, de Botton modestly suggests how we can learn to be a little happier in our travels.

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Our July book was A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.
This novel, narrated by a 15-year-old autistic savant obsessed with Sherlock Holmes, weaves together an old-fashioned mystery, a contemporary coming-of-age story, and a fascinating excursion into the mind of an autistic young man. What would it be like, to live in a world where you can't read or process emotions? The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is an extraordinary story, grabbing you on Page 1 and never letting go.

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Our June book was The True Account: A Novel of the Lewis & Clark & Kinneson Expeditions by Howard Frank Mosher.
Mosher ("Northern Borders") tells us about the the adventures and misadventures of Private True Teague Kinneson, an intrepid but bungling explorer determined to reach the Pacific before Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Along the way True and his nephew, Ti, encounter Daniel Boone and his six-foot-two spinster daughter, Flame Danielle; fight and trick a renegade army out to stop Lewis"s expedition; invent baseball with the Nez Perce; hold a high-stakes rodeo with Sacagawea"s Shoshone relatives; and outwit True"s lifelong adversary, the Gentleman from Vermont, a.k.a. the devil himself. It's Don Quixote meets Paul Bunyan.

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Our May book was Straight Man by Richard Russo.
A laugh-out-loud story about the trials and tribulations of Hank Devereaux Jr., the reluctant chairman of a squabbling English Department at a second-rate college. Russo, the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of Empire Falls, demonstrates in this novel his characteristic high-wire walk between hilarity and heartbreak.

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Our April book was Devil in the White City by Eric Larson - A true tale of "murder, magic and madness" at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893.
Seen as a symbol of America's movement from the Gilded Age into the 20th Century, the Fair provides Seattle author Eric Larson with a setting for this literary thriller, in which he juxtaposes the creativity with inspires a gifted architect and the destructive forces which propel a sociopath. A guaranteed page-turner!

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Our March book was Man Walks Into a Room by Nicole Krauss.
Imagine having surgery to remove a brain tumor and losing every memory you ever made as an adult. You don't know the person you're married to, you don't recognize your old life. Then imagine feeling that you had been freed rather than diminished. This novel explores the strange path one man takes in trying to sort out what the loss of memory means to him. A remarkable fiction debut from poet Nicole Krauss.

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Our February book was Brunelleschi's Dome by Ross King.
Best-selling author Ross King draws a vivid portrait of the genius and scandal at the heart of Florence's famous Renaissance architecture. An engrossing work of non-fiction, by turns hilarious and startling, this book promises a deeper understanding of the competitive nature of art and artists.

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Our January book was Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.
Jeffrey Eugenides's gender-bending masterpiece reminds us "that every human being... is the culmination of an infinitely unlikely journey through genetic and social history, the product of coincidence and passion, fate and free will" - Salon.com