The Sacramento Public Library chose Three Cups of Tea this year, and the Seattle Public Library included it in their September Project last year.

Another selection worthy of a discussion: Breach of Peace: Portraits of the 1961 Mississippi Freedom Riders. Learning about an important historical period from first-hand accounts would certainly spark thoughtful discussions amongst participants.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist would be a provocative choice, that just happens to be the selection for a campus-wide reading at Tulane University this year.

The University of North Carolina Wilmington read and discussed The Kite Runner for their event last year.

Persepolis would certainly get participants thinking about historical events and their currency in today's world. I had the pleasure to attend a talk by the author, Marjane Satrapi, at the Seattle Public Library a few years back.

These are just a few ideas that came to mind. I'm certain there's more... hint, hint: please share!

Otsuka provides an intriguing and catchy narrative that really pulls the reader in from the start (+). It's not exactly a traditional narrative and the family is never identified beyond their roles within the family (mother, daughter, etc.). For the most part, this provides complex identity and Everyman dynamics, but there were a few parts I found to be confusing (-). I particularly loved the chapter after the Internment as the family attempts to reestablish their lives and Otsuka establishes such a great presentation and I found it far surpassing many of the other novels I've read (+). In fact, quite a few of the novels discussing Internment don't particularly detail the return trip.

My greatest concern with the novel is that as much as I enjoyed it possible discussion seems fairly limited. (--) Our One Book Project ideally is occurring over a rather lengthy period of time and where a book such as Nisei Daughter provided a plethora of conversation points from daily life, to holidays, etc. to work with, I am concerned that When the Emperor Was Divine does not provide a similar broad avenue for discussion. Otsuka has a terrific way of slipping in additional background material, but some of this information would require a pretty hefty amount of knowledge on Japan of the period. After all, I'm not sure our One Book crowd once to spend a great deal of time focusing on narrative structure.

On the practical and physical side of the book, When the Emperor Was Divine received some publicity when it was released so we would not be going with an unknown title (+), it's available in paperback for $9.95 (+), and at 144 pages it's by no means a lengthy or demanding read (+). Also, I love the cover (+).

While When the Emperor Was Divine is an enjoyable read I am comfortable recommending, I'm not sure if it's the best selection for the One Book project.

Score: 3

As I mentioned, Nisei Daughter is a nonfiction piece, which is attractive as our community has always stayed with a fictional book (+). (It's also a great opportunity as Monica Sone lives locally (++), which allows for the practical purpose of saving money on the author appearance and also gives the community the chance to explore Asian culture within our own culture.) Monica is a Japanese-American and A good deal of the literature I came across in my exploration almost exclusively focused on Internment camps, which is certainly a much needed discussion, but Sone's memoir is ripe with cultural information from Japanese school, to specific Japanese holidays, to common cultural muddles, and her family's dynamics (+++). Additionally, her novel does offer looks at historically significant events such as Internment camps to TB wards. Ultimately, Nisei Daughter offers an extensive list of discussion points.

Nisei Daughter is somewhat of a series of vignettes that is a multi-faceted exploration of her life and her identity, and the chapters can almost individually stand. The first chapter is definitely slow moving (-), but the following chapters do pick up and are entertaining. Though the idea of finding a book to suit a younger audience has been discarded, Nisei Daughter would still meet any age appropriateness needs (+). Nisei Daughter also has an Introduction and Preface that provides a good deal of additional information on the author, book, and Japanese-American experience (+).

My other problem with the book is a bit of a sticky issue for myself and I've reread the final passage a few times to try and settle this with myself. During the final chapter, Sone visited a friend of the family whose son had been killed in the war. In a letter to his father, the son quoted the father's comments on the Internment camp: "It's for the best. For the good of many, a few must suffer. This is your sacrifice. Accept it as such and you will no longer be bitter." A page later Sone reflects that: "Her [America's] ideas and ideals of democracy are based essentially on religious principles and her very existence depends on the faith and moral responsibilities of each individual. I used to think of the government as a paternal organization. When it failed me, I felt bitter and sullen. Now I know I'm just as responsible as the men in Washington for its actions."

I'm having problems accepting this conclusion and I'm also nervous on how a largely conservative area may interpret these statements. (+/-).

On a purely physical and practical level, the book is a standard paperback (+), under 250 pages (+), and after calling around seems to sell at a standard $14.95 (+/-). One downside is that the cover is very much a small press selection and while I am intrigued by the photograph (assumed of Monica and her sister) it's not an eye catching cover (-). Additionally, our last One Book sold thousands of copies and I have concerns whether or not enough copies can be obtained (-). Because the author and book are relatively unknown, the One Book project should consider the possible need of spending additional money for publicity (-).

Score: 6

The book selection did finally reach a consensus on four books to consider: Snow Falling On Cedars [1], Nisei's Daughter, When The Emperor Was Divine, and The Samura's Garden. What is interesting in particular about this reading group is that each member will be rating the novels and eventually listing them from most to least preferred. I can honestly say that I have never done this with a group of novels and I am quite excited.

However, another book related project has surpassed my excitement for the One Book choice. My partner (also an English major) and I are reading The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck together. Despite dating for nearly three years and living together for nearly one we have yet to read a book together. It seems as I cannot find a book club to join to save my life I am simply going to have to establish my own. My fingers are crossed that this project will continue and I can talk him into reading No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy after we finish Steinbeck.

And talking about McCarthy, I finally got around to seeing the film No Country For Old Men (I still haven't read the book) and it was amazing! I love the Coen brothers and Javier.

[1] Snow Falling On Cedars had been thrown out earlier from the book decision process, but was returned to the option list after the age appropriateness issue had been addressed.

I last posted that I was keeping my eye open for the gender of the book and thus far I see no reason why it would be considered "chick lit" or "too masculine." However, the issue I stumbled across was sexual content.

I mentioned previously that my One Book, One Community committee had rejected Snow Falling On Cedars and at our meeting I inquired exactly why this was so. I am afraid I did not receive a direct answer on this, but learned that last year one of the local high schools took issue with the book. Also I believe I have mentioned that my One Book program is more all encompassing than some and wants to find a novel that is suitable for high school freshman and up. So, when I came to the chapter "Weeding" (as well as some comments through later chapters) I was left wondering what is appropriate for a high school student to read.

Without retyping the entire chapter, Sam and Yuriko are attracted to one another and she invites him over to seduce him. It works until the two are interrupted by the American man that "keeps" Yuriko. Hamamura uses anatomically correct language including "nipple" and "erect penis," which could not bother me in the least but certainly had me curious in regards to the freshman reading level. The language is neither superfluous nor unnecessary.

A co-worker of mine, with freshman aged children, read the chapter and said she had no problems with it particularly if you take into consideration that every other young woman seems to be devouring the Clique or Gossip Girls novels. Regardless, I did flag the chapter and will bring it up at the next meeting.

Otherwise though, the book is wonderful with interesting description and development.

"There is a vast part of this city with mouths buried in it... Mouths capable of speaking to us. But we stop them up with concrete and build over them and whatever it is they wanted to say gets whispered down empty alleys and turns into wind..."

These are among the last words of Professor David Hollis before he throws himself off a ferry into the frigid waters of Lake Ontario. A renowned professor of forensic geology, David leaves in his wake both a historical mystery and an academic scandal. He postulated that on the site where a sports arena is about to be built lie the ruins of a Victorian boat containing an extraordinary treasure: a strongbox full of hundreds of never-seen photographs of early Toronto, a priceless record of a lost city. His colleagues, however, are convinced that he faked his research materials.

Determined to vindicate him, his widow, Marianne, sets up camp in a hotel overlooking the construction site, watching and waiting for the boat to be unearthed. The only person to share her vigil is John Lewis, fiancé to her daughter, Bridget. An orphan who had come to love David as his own father, John finds himself caught in a struggle between mother and daughter all the while keeping a dark secret from both women.

Interwoven into the contemporary story is another narrative set in 1850s: the tale of Jem Hallam, a young apothecary struggling to make a living in the harsh new city so he can bring his wife and daughters from England. Crushed by ruthless competitors, he develops an unlikely friendship with two other down-on-their-luck Torontonians: Samuel Ennis, a brilliant but dissolute Irishman, and Claudia Rowe, a destitute widow. Together they establish a photography business and set out to create images of a fledgling city where wooden sidewalks are put together with penny nails, where Indians spear salmon at the river mouth and the occasional bear ambles down King Street, where department stores display international wares and fine mansions sit cheek-by-jowl with shantytowns.

Consolation, by Torontonian Michael Redhill, is the winner of the 2007 Toronto Book Award, and nominee for the 2007 Man Booker Prize. It has been selected as the One Book for the community to read together during the month of February, as part of the inaugural Keep Toronto Reading program of the Toronto Public Library.

Consolation moves back and forth between David Hollis's legacy and Jem Hallam's struggle to survive, ultimately revealing a mysterious connection between the two narratives. Exquisitely crafted and masterfully written, Michael Redhill's second novel reveals how history is often transformed into a species of fantasy, and how time alters the contours of even the things we hold most certain. As complex and layered as the city whose story it tells, Consolation evokes the mysteries of love and memory, and what suffering the absence of the beloved truly means.

The book tells about a city only too keen to bury all existing remnants of its past. "It's just one more link to the place that we come from that was carelessly removed, and it's unfortunate that no attempt at preservation was ever made."

Redhill began writing Consolation in the late 1990s, motivated equally by the desire to alert his fellow citizens to the historical toll taken by Toronto's "developmental frenzy" as he was to write a book rooted in his city's soil and tell a story that connected two eras in Toronto's relatively brief but criminally neglected civic history.

Of the reason for that neglect, an apparent civic amnesia blighting Toronto more dramatically than just about any other centre of its size and significance, Redhill muses, "In part because it's a young city. We live in a place that's just over 200 years old now and although it's as old as it's ever been to us who live there, in the context of world cities it's not a very old city at all.

Redhill recalls being overwhelmed by a series of photographs he discovered in book by William Dendy called Lost Toronto. A 360-degree panorama consisting of thirteen shots of the city taken in 1856 from a hotel at the corner of Simcoe and York Streets, the pictures sparked in the author a kind of hypothetical reverie of the city that once was. In fictional form, the photos would also come to play a key role in Consolation.

Toronto Star Books

Toronto Public Library: One Book

The Toronto Panorama

Michael Redhill's Blog

Michael Redhill: Poetry and Publications

Reading Cities

Toronto Book Awards

These are among the last words of Professor David Hollis before he throws himself off a ferry into the frigid waters of Lake Ontario. A renowned professor of forensic geology, David leaves in his wake both a historical mystery and an academic scandal. He postulated that on the site where a sports arena is about to be built lie the ruins of a Victorian boat containing an extraordinary treasure: a strongbox full of hundreds of never-seen photographs of early Toronto, a priceless record of a lost city. His colleagues, however, are convinced that he faked his research materials.

Determined to vindicate him, his widow, Marianne, sets up camp in a hotel overlooking the construction site, watching and waiting for the boat to be unearthed. The only person to share her vigil is John Lewis, fiancé to her daughter, Bridget. An orphan who had come to love David as his own father, John finds himself caught in a struggle between mother and daughter all the while keeping a dark secret from both women.

Interwoven into the contemporary story is another narrative set in 1850s: the tale of Jem Hallam, a young apothecary struggling to make a living in the harsh new city so he can bring his wife and daughters from England. Crushed by ruthless competitors, he develops an unlikely friendship with two other down-on-their-luck Torontonians: Samuel Ennis, a brilliant but dissolute Irishman, and Claudia Rowe, a destitute widow. Together they establish a photography business and set out to create images of a fledgling city where wooden sidewalks are put together with penny nails, where Indians spear salmon at the river mouth and the occasional bear ambles down King Street, where department stores display international wares and fine mansions sit cheek-by-jowl with shantytowns.

Consolation, by Torontonian Michael Redhill, is the winner of the 2007 Toronto Book Award, and nominee for the 2007 Man Booker Prize. It has been selected as the One Book for the community to read together during the month of February, as part of the inaugural Keep Toronto Reading program of the Toronto Public Library.

Consolation moves back and forth between David Hollis's legacy and Jem Hallam's struggle to survive, ultimately revealing a mysterious connection between the two narratives. Exquisitely crafted and masterfully written, Michael Redhill's second novel reveals how history is often transformed into a species of fantasy, and how time alters the contours of even the things we hold most certain. As complex and layered as the city whose story it tells, Consolation evokes the mysteries of love and memory, and what suffering the absence of the beloved truly means.

The book tells about a city only too keen to bury all existing remnants of its past. "It's just one more link to the place that we come from that was carelessly removed, and it's unfortunate that no attempt at preservation was ever made."

Redhill began writing Consolation in the late 1990s, motivated equally by the desire to alert his fellow citizens to the historical toll taken by Toronto's "developmental frenzy" as he was to write a book rooted in his city's soil and tell a story that connected two eras in Toronto's relatively brief but criminally neglected civic history.

Of the reason for that neglect, an apparent civic amnesia blighting Toronto more dramatically than just about any other centre of its size and significance, Redhill muses, "In part because it's a young city. We live in a place that's just over 200 years old now and although it's as old as it's ever been to us who live there, in the context of world cities it's not a very old city at all.

Redhill recalls being overwhelmed by a series of photographs he discovered in book by William Dendy called Lost Toronto. A 360-degree panorama consisting of thirteen shots of the city taken in 1856 from a hotel at the corner of Simcoe and York Streets, the pictures sparked in the author a kind of hypothetical reverie of the city that once was. In fictional form, the photos would also come to play a key role in Consolation.

Toronto Star Books

Toronto Public Library: One Book

The Toronto Panorama

Michael Redhill's Blog

Michael Redhill: Poetry and Publications

Reading Cities

Toronto Book Awards

We are encouraging groups around town to participate in book discussions. We will provide guides courtesy of the NEA. If anyone has ideas for other programs, please contact Maggie at the library.

Visit our Books Open Doors home page to keep up with the latest.

6. One book that you wish had been written:
1968-1999 The Peace Years; ed by Robert Kennedy, with chapters by Martin Luther King, Malcom X, and John Lennon.

7. One book that you wish had never been written:
Medea by Euripedes.

8. One book you’re currently reading:
Jacob's Tears by Mary Douglas.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
Purgatorio and Paradiso by Dante.

Mark

Zvaigznite’s books (artist)

1. One book that changed your life: Rachel and her Children by Jonathan Kozol
2. One book that you’ve read more than once: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
3. One book you’d want on a desert island: Complete works of Anthony Trollop
4. One book that made you laugh: Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa
5. One book that made you cry: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
6. One book that you wish had been written: The Autobiography of Andre Sedriks
7. One book that you wish had never been written: Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
8. One book you’re currently reading: Sweet Revenge by Diane Mott Davidson
9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: War and Peace by Tolstoy

Bill’s Books (former chess champion, cure for cancer researcher)

1. One book that changed your life: 1, 2. 3, Infinity by George Gamow
2. One book that you’ve read more than once: Nature of the Chemical Bond by Linus Pauling
3. One book you’d want on a desert island: A water resource management book
4. One book that made you laugh: Anything by Mark Twain
5. One book that made you cry: The last Harry Potter
6. One book that you wish had been written A book in the manner of Faraday that teaches modern science to kids.
7. One book that you wish had never been written: The Old Testament
8. One book you’re currently reading: Proust was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer
9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: Huck Finn by Mark Twain -- I' like to read this again

Carlos’s books (clinical psychologist)

1. One book that changed your life: Clinical Series on Self Psychology by Heinz Kohut
2. One book that you’ve read more than once: The Intersubjective Perspective by Robert Stolorow
3. One book you’d want on a desert island: The Complete Works of Western and Eastern Religions and Spirituality
4. One book that made you laugh: The last Harry Potter
5. One book that made you cry: A Prayer for Own Meany by John Irving
6. One book that you wish had been written: A seminal book on addressing the integration of neurobiology and psycho-analytic theory
7. One book that you wish had never been written: All Nazi Propaganda books and communist propaganda books
8. One book you’re currently reading: Retire on Less than You Think by Fred Brock
9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Joanne’s books (grandmother)

1. One book that changed your life: The Enneagrams
2. One book that you’ve read more than once: The Blind Heart by Storm Jameson
3. One book you’d want on a desert island: The plays of Eugene O’Neil
4. One book that made you laugh: As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
5. One book that made you cry: Can't recall
6. One book that you wish had been written: The Walter Family Genealogy
7. One book that you wish had never been written: Charles Manson: Music, Mayhem, Murder
8. One book you’re currently reading: Dangerous Admissions by Jane O'Connor
9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

One Book, One Billerica, Pass It On  is a community-wide reading program. It centers on one book, encouraging people  to come together in the library, coffee shop, dentist office waiting, schools, homes and offices to read and discuss the same book at the same time.

1. Pick up a copy of the book at the library or one of the many distribution points in town (O'Connor Hardware, the Coffee EMporium, ProFitness, Curves, Billerica CHiropratic, Dr. Feuerstein, DMD, Collins Bowladrome, Java's Brewin, Colleen Sgroi's Art Gallery, Java Jane's, Billerica Senior Center, Billerica Boys and Girls Club, and Town Hall). 500 copies were purchased through the Family Friends!

2. Read it, discuss it and then log on here at our blog to place comments  and give feedback. (You can place comments just by clicking below a post where it shows the number of comments or 'No Comments' is there aren't any yet. Be the first!)

3. Pass it on to a friend, a family member or an aquaintance to enjoy or return it to a distribution spot for someone else to discover.

ps: more copies are available for checkout through the library!