Second Saturday Book Club

November 2011 Pick: From the Booker Prize-winning author of the New York Times bestseller Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha comes a heartrending and beautifully written novel of a woman emerging from an abusive marriage. "A mixture of spirit and grief . . . a painful and beautiful story, a tale where the sadness and despair are redeemed because they are never denied".--San Francisco Chronicle. Show Less

September 2011 Selection: A clever, engrossing portrait of class and prejudice When attractive, impulsive English widow Lidia takes a holiday in Italy, she causes a scandal by marrying Gino, a dashing and highly unsuitable Italian twelve years her junior. Prim and snobbish, her in-laws make no attempt to hide their disapproval, and when Lidia's decision eventually brings disaster, her English relatives embark on an expedition to face the uncouth foreigner. But their mission yields results that are unexpected, to say the least. Confronted by the beauty of Italy and the charm and vitality of the disreputable Gino, their own narrow lives are shattered by emotion, upheaval, and violence. Show Less

July 2011 Selection: The exemplary novel of the Jazz Age, F. Scott Fitzgeralds' third book, "The Great Gatsby" (1925), stands as the supreme achievement of his career. T. S. Eliot read it three times and saw it as the "first step" American fiction had taken since Henry James; H. L. Mencken praised "the charm and beauty of the writing," as well as Fitzgerald's sharp social sense; and Thomas Wolfe hailed it as Fitzgerald's "best work" thus far. The story of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when, "The New York Times" remarked, "gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession," it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s that resonates with the power of myth. A novel of lyrical beauty yet brutal realism, of magic, romance, and mysticism, "The Great Gatsby" is one of the great classics of twentieth-century literature.

May 2011 Selection: The author of "Wonder Boys" returns with a powerful and wonderfully written collection of stories. Caught at moments of change, Chabon's men and women, children and husbands and wives, all face small but momentous decisions. They are caught in events that will crystallize and define their lives forever, and with each, Michael Chabon brings his unique vision and uncanny understanding of our deepest mysteries and our greatest fears.

March 2011 Selection: Margaret Atwood's latest brilliant collection of short stories follows the life of a single character, seen as a girl growing up the 1930s, a young woman in the 50s and 60s, and, in the present day, half of a couple, no longer young, reflecting on the new state of the world. Each story focuses on the ways relationships transform a character's life: a woman's complex love for a married man, the grief upon the death of parents and the joy with the birth of children, the realization of what growing old with someone you love really means. By turns funny, lyrical, incisive, earthy, shocking, and deeply personal, "Moral Disorder" displays Atwood's celebrated storytelling gifts and unmistakable style to their best advantage.

December 2010 Selection: The "San Diego Tribune" called "The Stone Diaries" a "universal study of what makes women tick." With "Larry's Party" Carol Shields has done the same for men. Larry Weller, born in 1950, is an ordinary guy made extraordinary by his creator's perception, irony, and tenderness. "Larry's Party" gives us, as it were, a CAT scan of his life, in episodes between 1977 and 1997, that seamlessly flash backward and forward. We follow this young floral designer through two marriages and divorces, and his interactions with his parents, friends, and a son. Throughout, we witness his deepening passion for garden mazes--so like life, with their teasing treachery and promise of reward. Among all the paradoxes and accidents of his existence, Larry moves through the spontaneity of the seventies, the blind enchantment of the eighties, and the lean, mean nineties, completing at last his quiet, stubborn search for self. Larry's odyssey mirrors the male condition at the end of our century with targeted wit, unerring poignancy, and faultless wisdom.

October 2010 Selection: Set in the new South Africa and in an Arab village in the desert, this is a gripping tale of contemporary anguish and unexpected desire from a Nobel Prize-winning writer.

August 2010 Selection: Both an exploration of character and a reflection on the meaning of history, Memoirs of Hadrian has received international acclaim since its first publication in France in 1951. In it, Marguerite Yourcenar reimagines the Emperor Hadrian's arduous boyhood, his triumphs and reversals, and finally, as emperor, his gradual reordering of a war-torn world.

June 2010 Selection: Salinger's classic collection of short stories is now available in trade paperback.