Downtown Owl by Chuck Klosterman

The book takes place in a tiny North Dakota town in the months preceding a giant blizzard. We're introduced to 3 characters: Mitch, a high-school boy; Julia, a high-school teacher; and Horace, an elderly widower. We never hear about these characters interacting. Instead, the book devotes chapters to each character and that is how we follow their lives during this time. As I read it, I kept waiting for something... anything... to actually happen. And when it does, the book ends. While I thought the characters were well developed and interesting, the book was just OK. -June

Acedia & me, A Marriage, Monks and A Writer's Life by Kathleen Norris

I'd never heard of Acedia, so when this book appeared on my book club list, I bought it and dove in. However, this book reads like a term paper. Obviously, the author did some research, and she seemed determine to quote every writer who had ever written anything about the subject. Despite all the research, it was hard to know what acedia really is. The parts of the book that describes her life are mildly interesting, but the rest was torture for me. One of my book club members summed it all up when she said it would have made a nice 75-page book. Unfortunately, it's 250 pages too long. - June

Mudbound by Hillary Jordan

I read Mudbound and also highly recommend that book although it is strange and dark. Barbara Kingsolver writes, "This is storytelling at the height of its powers...Hillary Jordan writes with the force of a Delta storm." It really is a page-turner! I have it and will send to any takers or bring in August. - BT

Read "mudbound" last summer and agree with turd. it is the kind of story that you are thankful that you don't know some of the characters in real life 'cause you'd have bad fantasies about how you could get them their justly deserved payback. some touching relationships that add several smiles, as well as some that make you want to throw the book on the floor and stomp it (and the bigots). in many ways it is a kindness that the book is so short. - Tillie

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley

I just finished The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley and it is extraordinary! -- about a 91 year old black man who is drifting into dementia and is rescued momentarily by -- well, you have to read it. You could feel his confusion and fear, his frustration and anger at the losses, as well as his joy and sorrow as he relived so vividly things that happened a lifetime ago. - BT

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

I just love reading a book that has such creativeness in the way it is structured! This book appears to be almost a collection of short stories and yet they are all woven together. Characters appear and reappear in different chapters, and time seems to shift forward and backward constantly. The book reminded me of Olive Kitteredge in how the book brings the characters into different stories. Loved the book and I can see how it would win the awards it's received. - June