Moby-Dick – Herman Melville
The original ‘Great American Novel’, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick is a masterful study of obsession.
The Fruit of the Tree – Edith Wharton
Originally published in 1907, this little known novel by the author of The Age of Innocence and Ethan Frome was considered controversial for its frank treatment of labor and industrial conditions, drug addiction, mercy killing, divorce, and second marriages. Author Edith Newbold Jones was born into such wealth and privilege that her family inspired the…
In the Beauty of the Lilies – John Updike
Begins in 1910 and traces God’s relation to four generations of American seekers: Clarence Wilmot, a clergyman in Paterson, NJ who loses his faith. Son, Teddy, becomes a mailman who retreats from American exceptionalism into a life of ordinariness. Teddy’s daughter, Esther, becomes a movie star, an All-American goddess. Her son, Clark, is possessed of…
Ordinary Love & Good Will – Jane Smiley
ORDINARY LOVEAt a reunion with her grown children, a woman recalls the long-ago affair that ended her relationship with their father–and changed all their lives irrevoccably.GOOD WILLDespite the carefully self-sufficient life he has designed for his small family, a man discovers that even the right choices have unexpected consequences–sometimes heart-breaking ones. Discussed September 10, 2016…
Saturday – Ian McEwan
Saturday is set within a single day in February 2003. Henry Perowne is a successful neurosurgeon, happily married to a newspaper lawyer, and enjoying good relations with his children. Henry wakes to the comfort of his large home in central London on this, his day off. He is as at ease here as he is…
It Can’t Happen Here – Sinclair Lewis
A cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America. Written during the Great Depression when America was largely oblivious to Hitler’s aggression, it juxtaposes sharp political satire with the chillingly realistic rise of a President who becomes a dictator to save the nation…
March – Geraldine Brooks
The book March (2005) is a novel by Geraldine Brooks. It is a novel that retells Louisa May Alcott‘s novel Little Women from the point of view of Alcott’s protagonists’ absent father. Brooks has inserted the novel into the classic tale, revealing the events surrounding March’s absence during the American Civil War in 1862. The novel won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for fiction….
Crossing to Safety – Wallace Stegner
Crossing to Safety is a 1987 semi-autobiographical novel by “The Dean of Western Writers”, Wallace Stegner. It gained broad literary acclaim and commercial popularity.
The Plot Against America – Philip Roth
The Book The Plot Against America is a novel by Philip Roth published in 2004. It is an alternative history in which Franklin D. Roosevelt is defeated in the presidential election of 1940 by Charles Lindbergh. Author PHILIP ROTH (1933–2018) won the Pulitzer Prize for American Pastoral in 1997. In 1998 he received the National…
Tinkers – Paul Harding
The book An old man lies dying. As time collapses into memory, he travels deep into his past where he is reunited with his father and relives the wonder and pain of his impoverished New England youth. A powerful celebration of life in which a New England father and son, through suffering and joy, transcend…