Thursday, January 13, 7:00 p.m.- Kansas Reads book
What Kansas Means to Me by Thomas Fox Averill and
Ghosts in Kansas by Beth Cooper
Discussion Leader – Orin Marshall
Refreshments – Orin and Lenora Marshall

Additional reads – Shanghai Girls by Lisa See,
Life Is What You Make It by Peter Buffet,
Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman,
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson

Book Blurbs

The Book Thief is a novel by Markus Zusak. Set in Nazi Germany, it describes a young girl's relationships with her foster parents, the other residents of their neighborhood, and a Jewish fist-fighter who hides in her home during the escalation of World War II.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Francie Nolan, avid reader, penny-candy connoisseur, and adroit observer of human nature, has much to ponder in colorful, turn-of-the-century Brooklyn. She grows up with a sweet, tragic father, a severely realistic mother, and an aunt who gives her love too freely--to men, and to a brother who will always be the favored child. Francie learns early the meaning of hunger and the value of a penny. She is her father's child--romantic and hungry for beauty. But she is her mother's child, too--deeply practical and in constant need of truth. Like the Tree of Heaven that grows out of cement or through cellar gratings, resourceful Francie struggles against all odds to survive and thrive.

Anatomy of Hope - In this provocative book, New Yorker staff writer and Harvard Medical School professor Groopman explores the way hope affects one's capacity to cope with serious illness. Drawing on his 30-year career in hematology and oncology, Groopman presents stories based on his patients and his own debilitating back injury. Through these moving if somewhat one-dimensional portraits, he reveals the role of memory, family and faith in hope and how they can influence healing by affecting treatment decisions and resilience.
What Kansas Means to Me - To understand why people say 'Dear old Kansas!' is to understand that Kansas is no mere geographical expression, but a 'state of mind,' a religion, and a philosophy in one," writes historian Carl Becker in the classic 1910 essay that leads off this volume. They share the conviction that Kansas represents something powerful, something significant, something noteworthy. The seventeen selections are put into perspective by Thomas Fox Averill's headnotes and introductory essay, which makes its own contribution to our understanding of Kansas.

Loving Frank - So writes Mamah Borthwick Cheney in her diary as she struggles to justify her clandestine love affair with Frank Lloyd Wright. Four years earlier, in 1903, Mamah and her husband, Edwin, had commissioned the renowned architect to design a new home for them. During the construction of the house, a powerful attraction developed between Mamah and Frank, and in time the lovers, each married with children, embarked on a course that would shock Chicago society and forever change their lives.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet - From School Library Journal -—Henry Lee is a 12-year-old Chinese boy who falls in love with Keiko Okabe, a 12-year-old Japanese girl, while they are scholarship students at a prestigious private school in World War II Seattle. Henry hides the relationship from his parents, who would disown him if they knew he had a Japanese friend. His father insists that Henry wear an "I am Chinese" button everywhere he goes because Japanese residents of Seattle have begun to be shipped off by the thousands to relocation centers. This is an old-fashioned historical novel that alternates between the early 1940s and 1984, after Henry's wife Ethel has died of cancer. A particularly appealing aspect of the story is young Henry's fascination with jazz and his friendship with Sheldon, an older black saxophonist just making a name for himself in the many jazz venues near Henry's home. Other aspects of the story are more typical of the genre: the bullies that plague Henry, his lack of connection with his father, and later with his own son.

True Blue - This promising first in a new series from bestseller Baldacci introduces Beth Perry, chief of the District of Columbia's Metropolitan Police, and Beth's younger sister, Mace Perry, a former police officer dubbed “the Patty Hearst of the twenty-first century” after she was seized by bandits, drugged and taken along on a series of armed robberies around Washington. Mace, who's just getting out of prison after serving a two-year sentence, is willing to risk everything to clear her name and reclaim her life as a cop by cracking a big case on her own.

Girl With the Dragon Tatoo - Once you start The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, there's no turning back. This debut thriller--the first in a trilogy from the late Stieg Larsson--is a serious page-turner rivaling the best of Charlie Huston and Michael Connelly. Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch--and there's always a catch--is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues. Little is as it seems in Larsson's novel, but there is at least one constant: you really don't want to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo.