The Columbus Public Library is very fortunate to have a wonderful rapport with the different book clubs and discussion groups in our community. As a bookseller of many years, and now in my role at the Library, I keep in close touch with the members of those organizations.

Consequently, the Library is privy to their respective reading lists and we try to stock at least one, if not two, of the titles being discussed. It’s quite gratifying to see the excellent choices the book clubs make.

I thought it would be interesting for the rest of our patrons to learn about the selections of the local clubs. My hope is to encourage all patrons to “broaden their horizons” and choose to read a book, not because it’s on the best-seller list, but because it has some merit and would be a challenging read. The following is part of the Between the Lines Book Club reading list of 2004:

JACK AND ROCHELLE: A HOLOCAUST STORY OF LOVE AND RESISTANCE BY JACK AND ROCHELLE SUTIN
Avoiding the sentimentality and romanticized experiences of so many other Holocaust books, “Jack and Rochelle” tells a beautiful and compelling personal story in a way that gives us a much deeper appreciation of the complexities faced by Jews trying to navigate among German, Polish, and Russian anti-Semites, each presenting fresh dangers for those Jews fighting to survive. It’s an engaging and lively read, and an excellent way to learn a segment of the Holocaust history and to encounter the experiential reality of those few who managed to live to tell the story
T
HE BONESETTER’S DAUGHTER BY AMY TAN
Set both in contemporary San Francisco and in a Chinese village prior to World War II where Peking Man is being unearthed, “The Bonesetter’s Daughter” is an excavation of the human spirit: the past, its deepest wounds, its most profound hopes. The story conjures the pain of broken dreams, the power of myths, and the strength of love that enables us to recover in memory what we have lost in grief. Over the course of one fog-shrouded year, between one season of falling stars and the next, a mother and daughter find what they share in their bones through heredity, history, and inexpressible qualities of love.

BIG STONE GAP BY ADRIANA TRIGIANI
It’s 1978, and 35-year-old Ave Maria Mulligan is about to discover a skeleton in her own family’s tidy closet that will blow the lid right off her quiet, uneventful life. Comic and compassionate, “Big Stone Gap” is the story of a woman who thinks life has passed her by, only to learn that the best is yet to come.

MYSTIC RIVER BY DENNIS LEHANE
Shamus Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane’s “Mystic River” was recently adapted to the big screen by Clint Eastwood to much acclaim. According to Newsweek, “…”Mystic River” is Lehane’s best book… it shimmers with great dialogue and a complex view of the world.” When they were children, Sean, Jimmy, and Dave were friends. Now, years later, they are reunited after a tragic murder and begin to sift through the emotional wreckage that replaced their friendship.

THREE JUNES BY JULIA GLASS
Elegantly detailed yet full of emotional suspense, often as comic as it is sad, “Three Junes” is a glorious triptych about how we learn to live, and live fully, beyond incurable grief and betrayals of the heart----how family ties, both those we’re born into and those we make, can offer us redemption and joy.

The last five titles for Between the Lines Book Club will be discussed in a future column. I intend to review the other book club selections in the near future. Hopefully, you’ll be able to save these articles and refer to them when you’re at Columbus Public Library.