Here are some works that made an impression on WWLW members in the past year:
Vicky Topp began the session by recommending the poetic Roads by Larry McMurtry, Quentins by Maeve Binchy, and Latitudes and Attitudes by Michael Weiss.
Jane Pearlmutter raved about a plague novel, Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks, Stuffed, an enjoyable character study of a restaurant family, by Patricia Volk, and The Crimson Petal and the White a novel set in Victorian London, by Michel Faber.
Julie Chase brought us buttons and suggested Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, which is Madison's current citywide read, as well as The [TB] Plague and I by Betty McDonald. She and Phyllis Davis were wowed by Unless by Carol Shields.
Ann Clark and Barb Sanford recommended Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich to get a look-although sugar-coated-of the dismal working lives of the poor in this country.
Also from Barb Sanford came The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold and Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner (which Barb described as a clever tribute to overweight women) and Postville by Stephen Bloom, a compelling study of culture clashes experienced by a Hasidic community in a small Iowa town.
Telle Zoller highly recommended A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry.
Nancy McClements touted the Banta Award winning The Marcy Stories by Fran Zell, The Bee Season by Myla Goldberg, and Dawn Powell's Angels on Toast, an evocative depiction of New York in the 40's.
Amy Rudersdorf suggested, among other titles, Drink: A Social History of America by Anrew Barr, Michael Dorris' Broken Cord, about the effects of fetal alcohol syndrome on his adopted son, Royal Babylon: the Alarming History of European Royalty about the results of intermarriage, and Salvaged Pages: Young Writers' Diaries of the Holocaust.
Kathy Rohde's choices were Steve Martin's Shop Girl, a novel about women's suffrage, Falling Angels by Tracy Chevalier, Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds by Stephen Kinzer, Ahab's Wife by Sena Naslund, and a young adult novel, Dancing in the Cadillac Light by Kimberly Holt.
Anne Lundin recommended as comforting to anyone who has lost someone, The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, and praised the many books by Sharon Olds.
Mary Knapp praised Fireweed by Gerda Lerner, an autobiographical account of her childhood in Austria during WWII, and the excellent Three Junes by Julia Glass.
Edith Thayer suggested Kit's Law by Donna Morrissey and Margaret Lawrence's Hearts and Bones, a wonderful post-Revolutionary War period piece about a strong woman.
Films Recommended:--Compiled by Ann Clark
