SDL Book Club 

SDL's book discussion group meets the first Wednesday of the month at 5:30 p.m. 

Share your love of books with others who enjoy reading!

September 3 at 5:30

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See

In their remote mountain village, Li-Yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea. For the Akha people, ensconced in ritual and routine, life goes on as it has for generations until a stranger appears at the village gate in a jeep, the first automobile any of the villagers has ever seen. The strangers arrival marks the first entrance of the modern world in the lives of the Akha people. Slowly, Li-Yan, one of the few educated girls on her mountain, begins to reject the customs that shaped her early life. When she has a baby out of wedlock conceived with a man her parents consider a poor choice she rejects the tradition that would compel her to give the child over to be killed, and instead leaves her, wrapped in a blanket with a tea cake tucked in its folds, near an orphanage in a nearby city. As Li-Yan comes into herself, leaving her insular village for an education, a business, and city life, her daughter, Haley, is raised in California by loving adoptive parents. Despite her privileged childhood, Haley wonders about her origins. Across the ocean Li-Yan longs for her lost daughter. Over the course of years, each searches for meaning in the study of Puer, the tea that has shaped their family's destiny for centuries. Provided by the publisher. 

October 1 at 5:30

Rolling Toward Clear Skies by Catherine Ryan Hyde

"Maggie Blount, divorced mother of two and California physician, puts her private practice on hold when disaster strikes. Doctors on Wheels takes her and Alex--Maggie's professional and romantic partner--wherever they're needed. After rolling into rural Louisiana in the wake of a category five hurricane, Maggie immediately bonds with two sisters and their puppy, all orphaned by the storm. It's enough to break Maggie's heart, and she's not leaving them behind. Feeling blessed and looking forward to their new foster home in affluent Vista del Mar--a world apart from the one they've known--Jean and Rose are polite, appreciative, and humble. Frankly, they're the polar opposite of Maggie's own self-involved teenage daughters, Willa and Gemma, who resist this intrusion by strangers into their privileged lives. Soon enough, Maggie's new blended family is in chaos. Teaching Willa and Gemma about gratitude and empathy will be hard enough. Maggie must also admit her own role in their entitled upbringing, undo the damage, and anticipate the needs of all four girls and a puppy, all amid faraway natural disasters and those closer to home.: Provided by the publisher.

November 5 at 5:30

Kate & Frida by Kim Fay

"A buoyant, mouth-watering oasis of a novel, Kate & Frida is a love letter to bookshops and booksellers, to the way stories shape how we perceive ourselves, to the passion we bring to life in our twenties, and to the last precious years before the internet changed everything. Twenty-something Frida Rodriguez comes to Paris in 1991, relishing the city's butter-soaked cuisine and seeking her future as a war correspondent. But when she writes to a bookshop in Seattle, she receives more than just the book she requests. A friendship begins that will redefine the person she thought she wanted to become. Seattle bookseller Kate Fair is transformed by Frida's free spirit, spurred to kiss her handsome coworker, to believe in herself as a writer, and to find beauty even in loss. Through the most tumultuous years of their young lives--personally and globally--Kate and Frida's friendship sustains and nourishes them as they show each other how to overcome self-doubt and the necessity of embracing joy even through our darkest hours." Provided by the publisher. 

Previous Book Club Discussion Titles

If you enjoyed these books, check out SDL's Reader's Advisory for more suggestions. 

• All The Children Are Home by Patry Francis
• All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
• The Art of Racing In The Rain by Garth Stein
• Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys 
• The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman
• The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife by Anna Johnston
• The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett by Annie Lyons
• Chariot On The Mountain by Jack Ford
• The Christmas Train by David Baldacci
• Clock Dance by Anne Tyler
• The Doll Maker by Harriet Arnow
• The Dry Grass of August by Anna Jean Mayhew
• Educated: a memoir by Tara Westover
• Florence Gordon by Brian Morton
• The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys
• The Funeral Ladies of Ellerie County by Clair Swinarski
• Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen
• Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart. Based on true events. Read the series.
• The Grapes of Wrath by Jon Steinbeck
• The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows 
• Harry's Tree by Jon Cohen
• The Help by Kathryn Stockett
• Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly
• Hostage by Clare Mackintosh
• House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson
• How The Penguins Saved Veronica by Hazel Prior
• The Invention Of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd 
• Iona Iverson's Rules For Commuting by Clare Pooley 
• The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
• Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
• Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson
• A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman 
• The Monogram Murders: A New Hercule Poirot Mystery by Sophie Hannah
• The Martian by Andy Weir
• Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil by John Berndt
• Miss Cecily's Recipes For Exceptional Ladies by Vicky Zimmerman 
• Miss Morgan's Book Brigade by Janet Skeslien Charles
• Mockingbird Summer by Lynda Rutledge
• The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
• No One Ever Asked by Katie Ganshert
• The Only Woman In the Room by Marie Benedict
• The Other Einstein by Marie Benedict
• The Persian Pickle Club by Sandra Dallas
• The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams
• Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
• The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
• Sea Biscuit: an American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand  Read the book. Watch the DVD.
• Seven Days Of Us by Francesca Hornak 
• Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult
• Still Life by Louise Penny
• The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin 
• The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg
• Things Past Telling by Sheila Williams
• The Things That Keep Us Here by Carla Buckley
• The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
• To Kill A Mockingbird - Lee Harper
• A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith
• The Truth According To Us by Annie Barrows
• Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom
• Unbroken: a World War II story of survival, resilience and redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
• Until I Come Back For You by P. A. White
• Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler 
• Wade In The Water by Nyani Nkruman
• A Walk In the Woods by Bill Bryson
• Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen
• The Women by Kristin Hannah
• The Women of Copper Country by Mary Doria Russell