In the Vault

Another idea we discussed at the last Book Club was keeping a list of books we've voted on so we can add them to our choices later. In December, we voted on books that were given in the gift exchange, so we had a lot of good options! I'm listing the favorites here, with a brief description, and also tagging this post "In the Vault" so everyone can find it later. It should be a good reference for future book club ideas and just for good books to read on our own!

~ Lindsey

Lit: A Memoir by Mary Karr

The Liars' Club brought to vivid, indelible life Mary Karr's hardscrabble Texas childhood. Cherry, her account of her adolescence, "continued to set the literary standard for making the personal universal" (Entertainment Weekly). Now Litfollows the self-professed blackbelt sinner's descent into the inferno of alcoholism and madness and to her astonishing resurrection.

Karr's longing for a solid family seems secure when her marriage to a handsome, Shakespeare-quoting blueblood poet produces a son they adore. But she can't outrun her apocalyptic past. She drinks herself into the same numbness that nearly devoured her charismatic but troubled mother, reaching the brink of suicide. A hair-raising stint in "The Mental Marriott," with an oddball tribe of gurus and saviors, awakens her to the possibility of joy and leads her to an unlikely faith. Not since Saint Augustine cried, "Give me chastity, Lord but not yet!" has a conversion story rung with such dark hilarity.

Lit is about getting drunk and getting sober; becoming a mother by letting go of a mother; learning to write by learning to live. Written with Karr's relentless honesty, unflinching self-scrutiny, and irreverent, lacerating humor, it is a truly electrifying story of how to grow up as only Mary Karr can tell it.

Look Again by Lisa Scottoline 

Reporter Ellen Gleeson is on a quest to determine whether her adopted son and the boy in a “Have You Seen This Child?” flyer are one and the same.

Whistlin' Dixie in a Nor'easter by Lisa Patton (A Memphis Author!)

Leelee Satterfield seemed to have it all: a gorgeous husband, two adorable daughters, and roots in the sunny city of Memphis, Tennessee. So when her husband gets the idea to uproot the family to run a quaint Vermont inn, Leelee is devastated…and her three best friends are outraged. But she’s loved Baker Satterfield since the tenth grade, how can she not indulge his dream? Plus, the glossy photos of bright autumn trees and smiling children in ski suits push her over the edge…after all, how much trouble can it really be?

Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers (a favorite for many of us!)

The heroine, Angel, is a young woman who was sold into prostitution as a child. Michael Hosea is a godly man sent into Angel’s life to draw her into the Savior’s redeeming love.