The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

Next Meeting
When: April 29
Hostess: Anne

Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed in which her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. 

Young Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid flutters beneath the table. She rescues the slip and, learning that the word means “slave girl,” begins to collect other words that have been discarded or neglected by the dictionary men....< Read More

Billy Summers by Stephen King

 

Next Meeting
When: March 19 (**special date change)
Hostess: Eva

"Billy Summers is a man in a room with a gun. He's a killer for hire and the best in the business. But he'll do the job only if the target is a truly bad guy. And now Billy wants out. But first there is one last hit. Billy is among the best snipers in the world, a decorated Iraq war vet, a Houdini when it comes to vanishing after the job is done. So what could possibly go wrong?

How about everything.

This spectacular can't-put-it-down novel is part war story, part love letter to.... < Read More

The Thursday Murder Club: A Novel by Richard Osman

Next Meeting
When: February 25
Hostess: Ruth

In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together, they call themselves the Thursday Murder Club. 

When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph... < Read more

Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey

Next Meeting

When: January 28
Hostess: Hazel

Number-one New York Times Best Seller Discover the life-changing memoir that has inspired millions of readers through the Academy Award-winning actor’s unflinching honesty, unconventional wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction.


I’ve been in this life for 50 years, been trying to work out its riddle for 42, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last 35. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me... < Read More

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

Next Meeting 

When: November 26
Hostess: Lucy

The extraordinary New York Times bestselling author of The Lacuna (winner of the Orange Prize), The Poisonwood Bible (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize), and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver returns with a truly stunning and unforgettable work. 

Flight Behavior is a brilliant and suspenseful novel set in present day Appalachia; a breathtaking parable of catastrophe and denial that explores how the complexities we inevitably encounter in life... < Read More

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

 

Next Meeting

When: October 29

Hostess: Tina (virtual)

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

Shuggie Bain is the unforgettable story of young Hugh “Shuggie” Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. Thatcher’s policies have put husbands and sons out of work, and the city’s notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings.

Shuggie’s mother Agnes walks a wayward path: she is Shuggie’s guiding light but a burden for him and his siblings. She dreams of a house with its own front door while she flicks through the pages of the Freemans catalogue... < Read More

The Speed Merchant by Alex Bertea, local author

Next Meeting and Q&A
When: September 24
Hostess: Catherine (Author will be present to answer any questions)

Ex-clandestine operations pilot Guy Cook is down and out, working unfulfilling jobs on the fringes of the air racing circuit. When his one-time boss from a covert air contractor shows up with a surprising offer, Cook jumps at the chance. But what starts out as an exciting reentry into his former life quickly goes sideways as the danger stacks up, and only his skills and abilities can bring him out alive… < Read More

Saanenland resident (and husband of our lovely member Katrin) Alex Bertea was born in Southern California, where he grew up going to airshows and visiting out-of-the-way airfields to play on derelict World War II warplanes. He has flown numerous aircraft, having stick time in a Douglas AD-5N, Grumman HU-16 Albatross, and a Grumman C-1 Trader among others. He is a former reserve police officer, an EMT, and an emergency radio communicator. He has a BA in History from Boston University, an MLIS degree from the University of Washington, and his interests include writing, flying, sailing, biathlon, cross-country ski marathons, and backcountry hiking.

Alex Bertea, the author