Book Club Favorites

What are book clubs reading at the Chandler Library? Here are some recent favorites:

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford (also available in large type, audio CD, or ebook)
A tale of growing up in the World War II era of Japanese internment camps.


Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (also available as an audio CD)
An enthralling family saga of Africa and America, doctors and patients, exile and home.


The Shipping News by Annie Proulx (also available as an audio CD and a film adaptation)
A widower moves his family to a remote fishing village inhabited by memorable characters and buffeted by nature.

The Fallen by T. Jefferson Parker (also available as an audio CD or ebook)
A fall from a window leaves a homicide detective with synesthesia - a confusion of sensations that makes him a kind of lie detector.

Learn more about Chandler Library's book clubs! View the Events Calendar at chandlerlibrary.org by scrolling down to the green EVENTS box. Then click the tab to choose your branch, then click the VIEW FULL CALENDAR link. All the events at your branch will display, and you can use the options on the left to limit by type (such as Book Discussion) or age, or choose another branch.

Book Review: Time Traveller's Handbook

Did you know the first friction matches were invented in 1827 - before that, matches had to be lit from another flame? Did you know that a 19th-century voyage by sailing ship across the Atlantic could take as little as 20 days if eastbound, but westbound and in bad weather it could take as long as six weeks?

Time Traveller's Handbook: A Guide to the Past is a guide to genealogical research, intended to help genealogists make sense of records they might find: diaries, financial statements, and documents of all kinds. But it's presented as a guide to life in Canada, America, and Britain of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, and it's full of fascinating tidbits about social ranks, postage, travel, and more, even matches. This makes it a great book for not only genealogists, but also historical fiction readers, Jane Austen fans, writers, and anyone else interested in history. - Michelle (Sunset)

Summer Reading Program - week 3

Chandler Library's Summer Reading Program is in its third week. Here's what some library members have been reading for the adult program:

Bossypants by Tina Fey
Deception by Amanda Quick
8 Weeks to Optimum Health by Andrew Weil
Give Yourself a Raise by Travis Young
I'll Walk Alone by Mary Higgins Clark
Vanished by Karen Robards

There's plenty of time to read and enter the grand prize drawing for an ebook reader. Don't forget there are also reading programs for kids and teens. Visit this page for more information, and drop in to any Chandler library to sign up and get reading! The Summer Reading Program ends July 30.

Book Review: Caleb's Crossing

Bethia Mayfield is born to a hard life in Colonial Massachusetts, tending her home and caring for her siblings when her mother dies, forbidden by her minister father to be educated with her brother Makepeace despite her quick mind and ear for languages. So for a few years in her childhood she takes refuge at the distant seashore, and one day she meets a young Native man whom she calls Caleb. Keeping the secret from both their families, the two become friends, until Bethia is too old for such leisure time. Then a smallpox outbreak destroys Caleb's people and he comes to Bethia's father for shelter and education, ultimately following Makepeace to Cambridge and to Harvard. Bethia accompanies them, anxious to maintain the connection with her old friend, but has he crossed to a world where she cannot reach him? And in crossing, has he left his heritage too far behind him?

Geraldine Brooks gives us a lush historical novel in Caleb's Crossing, but she was inspired by a tiny nugget of history: the true but sparsely documented story of Caleb, the first Native American graduate of Harvard. Other historical novels similarly inspired by fragments of history include Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring, which imagines the creation of Vermeer's famous painting, and Emma Donoghue's Slammerkin, which fleshes out the story behind a servant girl's murder of her employer in 1763. - Michelle (Sunset)