Skipping Christmas
by John Grisham
Luther and Nora Krank are fed up with the chaos of Christmas. The endless shopping lists, the frenzied dashes through the mall, the hassle of decorating the tree... where has all the joy gone? This year, celebrating seems like too much effort. With their only child off in Peru, they decide that just this once, they'll skip the holidays. They spend their Christmas budget on a Caribbean cruise set to sail on December 25, and happily settle in for a restful holiday season free of rooftop snowmen and festive parties.
But the Kranks soon learn that their vacation from Christmas isn't much of a vacation at all, and that skipping the holidays has consequences they didn't bargain for...
A modern Christmas classic, Skipping Christmas is a charming and hilarious look at the mayhem and madness that have become ingrained in our holiday tradition.
The Red Tent
by Anita Diamant
Skillfully interweaving biblical tales with events and characters of her own invention, Diamant's sweeping first novel re-creates the life of Dinah, daughter of Leah and Jacob, from her birth and happy childhood in Mesopotamia through her years in Canaan and death in Egypt. When Dinah reaches puberty and enters the Red Tent (the place women visit to give birth or have their monthly periods), her mother and Jacob's three other wives initiate her into the religious and sexual practices of the tribe. Diamant sympathetically describes Dinah's doomed relationship with Shalem, son of a ruler of Shechem, and his brutal death at the hands of her brothers. Following the events in Canaan, a pregnant Dinah travels to Egypt, where she becomes a noted midwife. Diamant has written a thoroughly enjoyable and illuminating portrait of a fascinating woman and the life she might have lived. Recommended for all public libraries.
My Sister's Keeper
by Jodi Picoult
The Agora Book Club has chosen My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult for it's October reading selection. My Sister's Keeper is a complex and emotional book about 13-year-old Anna Fitzgerald who decides to sue her parents to stop them from using her as "spare parts" for her older sister suffering from leukemia. The Agora Book Club's next meeting is October 21, 2007 at 2:00 p.m. Please join us in what promises to be a lively discussion on a current and controversial topic.
