Books-N-Wine Book Club

I'd never read this book, nor seen the movie, so this book was a complete surprise.

We liked

Devil in the White City

so much; also Susan has been reading another Larson book, called

Dead Wake

about the sinking of the Lusitania; we decided to read

Thunderstruck

.  It tells two intertwined stories about the invention of radio and its role in capturing a murderer trying to flee.

We wanted to continue in the murder/crime spree theme we started last month.

In Cold Blood

is considered the book that started the genre of true crime novels.

Book Cover: "On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.

As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence."

This is a book about the Chicago World's Fair in the late 19th century.

Several in the group have not read this classic book for high school English book reports and Susan wanted to read it.  I read last in 11th grade when we had to act out a scene in the book.

It's that time of year again...it's Spooky Book month at the ol' Book Club!

“Makes your blood chill and your scalp prickle…Shirley Jackson is the master of the haunted tale.” (

New York Times Book Review

)

“Now widely regarded as the greatest haunted-house story ever written.” (

Wall Street Journal

)

“Shirley Jackson is unparalleled as a leader in the field of beautifully written, quiet, cumulative shudders.” (Dorothy Parker,

Esquire

)

We've read a book by Troost previously.  It recorded his time living on the islands of the nation of Kiribati.  We read it in

April 2013

.  The new book relates his travels to China.

The Giver by Lois Lowry is a Young Adult novel and is short.  It is the first in a series of four books.

There is an audiobook version on Audible.

There is a movie version coming out mid-month.

This book has been on our list for a long time.   Meeting is July 13th.

Description from Amazon:

A Confederacy of Dunces is an American comic masterpiece. John Kennedy Toole's hero, one Ignatius J. Reilly, is "huge, obese, fractious, fastidious, a latter-day Gargantua, a Don Quixote of the French Quarter. His story bursts with wholly original characters, denizens of New Orleans' lower depths, incredibly true-to-life dialogue, and the zaniest series of high and low comic adventures" (Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times).

This is the story of the hijacking of a FedEx Flight 705 in 1992.  It describes the early days of FedEx and the stories of the three pilots attacked by a fourth, disgruntled co-worker.  The author is a report for the Memphis newspaper.  The book does read like an extended, investigative newspaper article.