Marching Powder: A True Story of Friendship, Cocaine, and South America's Strangest Jail

When: April 20*
Where: Barbara's
Book:  Marching Powder: A True Story of Friendship, Cocaine, and South America's Strangest Jail by Rusty Young

From Good Reads:

"Rusty Young was backpacking in South America when he heard about Thomas McFadden, a convicted English drug trafficker who ran tours inside Bolivia's notorious San Pedro prison. Intrigued, the young Australian journalist went to La Paz and joined one of Thomas's illegal tours. They formed an instant friendship and then became partners in an attempt to record Thomas's experiences in the jail. Rusty bribed the guards to allow him to stay and for the next three months he lived inside the prison, sharing a cell with Thomas and recording one of the strangest and most compelling prison stories of all time. The result is Marching Powder.

This book establishes that San Pedro is not your average prison. Inmates are expected to buy their cells from real estate agents. Others run shops and restaurants. Women and children live with imprisoned family members. It is a place where corrupt politicians and drug lords live in luxury apartments, while the poorest prisoners are subjected to squalor and deprivation. Violence is a constant threat, and sections of San Pedro that echo with the sound of children by day house some of Bolivia's busiest cocaine laboratories by night. In San Pedro, cocaine--"Bolivian marching powder"--makes life bearable. Even the prison cat is addicted. 

Yet Marching Powder is also the tale of friendship, a place where horror is countered by humor and cruelty and compassion can inhabit the same cell. This is cutting-edge travel-writing and a fascinating account of infiltration into the South American drug culture."

An autobiographical novel about growing up gay in a working-class town in Picardy

When: March 23*
Where: Lucy's
Book: The End of Eddy by Édouard Louis & Michael Lucey


From Amazon.com:

An autobiographical novel about growing up gay in a working-class town in Picardy.

“Every morning in the bathroom I would repeat the same phrase to myself over and over again . . . Today I’m really gonna be a tough guy.” Growing up in a poor village in northern France, all Eddy Bellegueule wanted was to be a man in the eyes of his family and neighbors. But from childhood, he was different―“girlish,” intellectually precocious, and attracted to other men.

Already translated into twenty languages, The End of Eddy captures the violence and desperation of life in a French factory town. It is also a sensitive, universal portrait of boyhood and sexual awakening. Like Karl Ove Knausgaard or Edmund White, Édouard Louis writes from his own undisguised experience, but he writes with an openness and a compassionate intelligence that are all his own. The result―a critical and popular triumph―has made him the most celebrated French writer of his generation.

From Penguin Books:

‘A brilliant novel… courageous, necessary and deeply touching’ Guardian

Édouard Louis grew up in a village in northern France where many live below the poverty line. His bestselling debut novel about life there, The End of Eddy, has sparked debate on social inequality, sexuality and violence.

It is an extraordinary portrait of escaping from an unbearable childhood, inspired by the author’s own. Written with an openness and compassionate intelligence, ultimately, it asks, how can we create our own freedom?

‘A mesmerising story about difference and adolescence’
New York Times

‘Édouard Louis…is that relatively rare thing – a novelist with something to say and a willingness to say it, without holding back’
The Times

‘Louis’ book has become the subject of political discussion in a way that novels rarely do’
Garth Greenwell, New Yorker


Read more by clicking here.

Imagine the near future where power is overtaken by the religious right

When: February 23, 2018
Where: Vre
Book: The Handmaids' Tale by Margaret Atwood

From Goodreads

Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the years before, when she lived and made love with her husband, Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now...

From Amazon.co.uk

It is the world of the near future, and Offred is a Handmaid in the home of the Commander and his wife. She is allowed out once a day to the food market, she is not permitted to read, and she is hoping the Commander makes her pregnant, because she is only valued if her ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the years before, when she was an independent woman, had a job of her own, a husband and child. But all of that is gone now...everything has changed. Deserves the highest praise. -- San Francisco Chronicle

Novel about Hemingway's first wife starts off the year

When: January 26, 2018
Where: Irina's
Book: The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

From Goodreads:

"A deeply evocative story of ambition and betrayal, The Paris Wife captures a remarkable period of time and a love affair between two unforgettable people: Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley.

Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway and her life changes forever. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group—the fabled “Lost Generation”—that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill prepared for the hard-drinking and fast-living life of Jazz Age Paris, which hardly values traditional notions of family and monogamy. Surrounded by beautiful women and competing egos, Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history, pouring all the richness and intensity of his life with Hadley and their circle of friends into the novel that will become The Sun Also Rises. Hadley, meanwhile, strives to hold on to her sense of self as the demands of life with Ernest grow costly and her roles as wife, friend, and muse become more challenging. Despite their extraordinary bond, they eventually find themselves facing the ultimate crisis of their marriage—a deception that will lead to the unraveling of everything they’ve fought so hard for.

A heartbreaking portrayal of love and torn loyalty, The Paris Wife is all the more poignant because we know that, in the end, Hemingway wrote that he would rather have died than fallen in love with anyone but Hadley."

Short stories on sex, love and parenthood end November

When: Friday, November 24th at 7:30pm
Where: Kay's
Book: Jellyfish by Janice Galloway


From Amazon.co.uk:

"Sex and Love and Parenthood. In this sparkling and powerful new collection, Janice Galloway takes on David Lodge's assertion. Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children; life's the other way round and scent-marks her multi-layered fiction with what she believes to be the greater truth. Razor sharp tales of two of the most powerful human experiences from one of our country s best loved and most acclaimed authors."

Praise for Janice Galloway's short stories:

'Stories that walk with steady, nerve-cracking skill down a nightmare edge. A virtuoso work.' -- New Statesman

'Blood is a salutary collection. It heightens and dignifies the human, and does it with writing that veers between the good and the simply superb. A writer of passion and virtuosity shines through.' -- Scotland on Sunday

'Genuinely unnerving. This is a fierce, troubling new writer.' -- Observer

'Galloway flecks her hard-edged realism with impressionist grace-notes, a potent mixture that confirms her as one of Scotlands best young writers.' -- Sunday Telegraph

Click here for a review in the Guardian

Memoir on fighting cancer focus of October meeting

When: Friday, October 27 at 7:30pm
Where: Eva's (Aida's choice)
Book: Dying to be Me by Anita Moorjani 



From Barnes and Noble: " In this truly inspirational memoir, Anita Moorjani relates how, after fighting cancer for almost four years, her body—overwhelmed by the malignant cells spreading throughout her system—began shutting down. As her organs failed, she entered into an extraordinary near-death experience where she realized her inherent worth . . . and the actual cause of her disease. Upon regaining consciousness, Anita found that her condition had improved so rapidly that she was able to be released from the hospital within weeks . . . without a trace of cancer in her body!
     Within these pages, Anita recounts stories of her childhood in Hong Kong, her challenge to establish her career and find true love, as well as how she eventually ended up in that hospital bed where she defied all medical knowledge."

Novel combines 'accessible yarn with a suspenseful puzzle', Boston Globe

When: Friday, September 29 at 7:30pm

Where: Vicky's
Book: Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult

"For over a decade, Jenna Metcalf obsesses on her vanished mom Alice. Jenna searches online, rereads journals of the scientist who studied grief among elephants. Two unlikely allies are Serenity Jones, psychic for missing people who doubts her gift, and Virgil Stanhope, jaded PI who originally investigated cases of Alice and her colleague. Hard questions and answers." - Goodreads

"Readers can usually count on blockbuster novelist Jodi Picoult for two things. First is a smart, accessible yarn with a suspenseful puzzle at its core that will keep readers enthusiastically turning the page..." - Boston Globe