Please join us. The group is open to all. We typically meet in members’ homes each month, but we are in Zoom format for the present time. If you are planning to join for the first time, or have any questions about Book Group, please email Susie Wells at susie48winnip@gmail.com.

February 10, 2023

Summary:  An American Book Award Winner, written by journalist Dave Eggers. Zeitoun (his surname that happens to mean guava in Arabic)the story of an amazing man — a Syrian (Muslim) immigrant to New Orleans, with a loving family (American wife), four children, and a very successful contracting business who stays in New Orleans after Katrina, when his family evacuates, to be able to help in any way. That he does for weeks, riding around the “River Katrina” rescuing people, checking on friends’ homes, feeding dogs left by their owners. In the midst of this humanitarian mission he gets swept up by FEMA justice teams, better named FEMA InJustice — denying every right of American citizens. He finds himself labeled an Al Qaeda terrorist, beaten and flung into a maximum security prison, nearly starved by their serving him all-pork meals, denied a single phone call! It is an amazing true story that has the novelist’s grip on the reader. 

March 10, 2023

Summary: The German-American author Ursula Hegi explores the perennial 20th century question: how could otherwise “good” people have been ok with letting the Holocaust happen? In her 1994 novel, Stones From the River, Hegi portrays the history of a small town through the period following WWI and ending just after WWII. The novel follows the life of a woman born with dwarfism. Through her eyes, we see the townspeople’s conflicting impulses clash: greed versus compassion, cowardice versus bravery, conflict avoidance versus moral principles, and prejudice versus fellow feeling.

April 14, 2023

Summary: In 1975, a group of amazing women rowed their way to international success and glory, battling sexual prejudice, bureaucracy, and male domination in one of the most grueling and competitive sports around. Among the members of the first international women’s crew team–and one of the first women’s teams anywhere–were Gail Pearson, the soft-spoken MIT professor who fought equally hard off the water to win the political battles necessary for her team to succeed; lead rower Carie Graves, a statuesque bohemian from rural Wisconsin who dropped out of college and later became the most intense rower of the crew; and Lynn Stillman, a tiny sixteen-year-old coxswain from California. On hand to guide them was Harry Parker, the legendary Harvard men’s crew coach who overcame his doubts about the ability of women to withstand the rigors of hard training. From their first dramatic bid at the 1975 World Championships to their preparations for their first Olympic Games in 1976, this gripping story of bravery, determination, and indomitable spirit captures a compelling moment in the history of sports and of America

May 12, 2023

Summary: Bonnie Garmus’s debut novel is about a scientist in the 1960s who is opinionated, funny and intelligent, full stop. Unfortunately, Elizabeth Zott has been unceremoniously and brutally sidelined by male colleagues who make Don Draper look like a SNAG (Sensitive New Age Guy). How, exactly, she was cheated out of a doctorate and lost the love of her life — Calvin Evans, a kindred scientist, expert rower and the father of her daughter, Madeline — are central elements in the story, but feminism is the catalyst that makes it fizz like hydrochloric acid on limestone. Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist