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A DOG’S PERFECT CHRISTMAS

One of our recommended books is A Dog's Perfect Christmas by W. Bruce Cameron

The perfect, feel-good holiday gift from W. Bruce Cameron, the #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the A Dog’s Purpose series.

The problems fracturing the Goss family as Christmas approaches are hardly unique, though perhaps they are handling them a little differently than most people might. But then a true emergency arises, one with the potential to not only ruin Christmas, but everything holding the family together.

Is the arrival of a lost puppy yet another in the string of calamities facing them, or could the little canine be just what they all need?

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THE DISTANCE

One of our recommended books is The DIstance by Ivan Vladislavić

In his youth in 1970s suburban Pretoria, Joe falls in love with Muhammad Ali. He diligently scrapbooks newspaper clippings of his his hero, recording the showman’s words and taking in his inimitable brand of resistance. Forty years later, digging out his yellowed archive of Ali clippings and comic books, Joe sets out to write a memoir of his childhood. Calling upon his brother Branko for help, their two voices interweave to unearth a shared past. Reconstructing a world of bioscopes, Formica tabletops, Ovaltine, and drop-offs in their father’s Ford Zephyr, conjuring the textures of childhood, what emerges is a collision of memories,

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THE BELL IN THE LAKE

One of our recommended books is The Bell in the Lake by Lars Mytting

The engrossing epic novel—a #1 bestseller in Norway—of a young woman whose fate plays out against her village’s mystical church bells.

As long as people could remember, the stave church’s bells had rung over the isolated village of Butangen, Norway. Cast in memory of conjoined twins, the bells are said to ring on their own in times of danger. In 1879, young pastor Kai Schweigaard moves to the village, where young Astrid Hekne yearns for a modern life. She sees a way out on the arm of the new pastor, who needs a tie to the community to cull favor for his plan for the old stave church,

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READING GROUP CHOICES 2021

Reading Group Choices 2021 annual print guide

The Reading Group Choices 2021 guide is filled with over 50 book recommendations in 3 sections (fiction, nonfiction, and young adult). Each title has been carefully selected for reading groups, and includes discussion questions to facilitate lively group discussions.

 

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THE BLIND LIGHT

One of our recommended books is The Blind Light by Stuart Evers

A multigenerational story about two families bound together by the tides of history and the bittersweet complexity of love.

England, 1959: two young soldiers—Drummond and Carter—form an intense and unlikely friendship at “Doom Town,” a training center that recreates the aftermath of atomic warfare. The experience will haunt them the rest of their lives. Years later, Carter, now a high-ranking government official, offers working-class Drummond a way to protect himself and his wife, Gwen, should a nuclear strike occur. Their pact, kept secret, will have devastating consequences for the families they so wish to shield.

The Blind Light is a grand,

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EARTHLINGS

One of our recommended books is Earthlings by Sayaka Murata

From the beloved author of cult sensation Convenience Store Woman, which has now sold more than a million copies worldwide, comes a spellbinding and otherworldly novel about a young girl who believes she is an alien.

As a child, Natsuki doesn’t fit into her family. Her parents favor her sister, and her best friend is a plush toy hedgehog named Piyyut who has explained to her that he has come from the planet Popinpobopia on a special quest to help her save the Earth. Each summer, Natsuki counts down the days until her family drives into the mountains of Nagano to visit her grandparents in their wooden house in the forest,

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