When It All Burns// Jordan Thomas

 

🏊 Hey August!🩱 

 

Our September selection is Heretics Anonymous, by Katie Henry. We have several copies on the way, but just in case you don't need a copy and you haven't already let me know, would you please leave me a quick note in the comments below so we can keep the call list updated? Thank you for your help! 

 

 

 

Onward!

 

 

In When It All Burns, wildland firefighter and anthropologist Jordan Thomas recounts a single, brutal six-month fire season with the Los Padres Hotshots—the special forces of America’s firefighters. Being a hotshot is among the most difficult jobs on earth. Thomas viscerally renders his crew’s attempts to battle flames that are often too destructive to contain. He uncovers the hidden cultural history of megafires, revealing how humanity’s symbiotic relationship with wildfire became a war—and what can be done to change it back.

Overall, this book was well received, how well it was received had us almost exactly divided down the middle. On the side of those who really loved it, it was an eye-opener all around. They enjoyed reading about the rigorous hot shot training, the interrelationships between the crew, and family dynamics. It was tougher to get through the scary working conditions, the exhaustive schedules, and appalling pay and lack of benefits. They really soaked up the outlined wildfire background and the history of the indigenous people, and honestly, would have liked to read more from this author across the board.

While the less enamored half of us agreed with almost all of those points, and certainly felt that the material was important and should have been included in the book, we thought the bits about the history of wildfires, and especially the parts about the indigenous people, got long-winded and repetitive. We would rather have read more about the hot shots themselves, their training, their friendship and families, and how they got on together. We all liked Thomas, and are thankful there are people in the world that are willing to do this terrifying, monumental job.

In the end, we thought it was nice to know that we, as a population, are learning something about wildfires and indigenous people and their timeless traditions of fighting/managing fire. We have so much to learn from one another.

  

 

Did you enjoy When it All Burns? Fans of the book also enjoyed, They Poisoned the World, by Mariah Blake, Wildfire Days, by Kelly Ramsey, and There is No Place for Us, by Brian Goldstone. All of these titles are available within the Viking Library System~ reserve your copy today!    

 

The votes are in! 👇

Would we recommend this to a friend to read?  Yes

 
Would we recommend this to another book club for discussion?  Yes

                                                                                                                                             Rate the book 1-5 stars, with 1 being the lowest rating:  4 stars

Salt to the Sea// Ruta Sepetys

 

Hey June! 🌞

Coming up next for July is A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, by Holly Jackson. We have several copies on the way, but just in case you don't need a copy and you haven't already let me know, would you please leave me a quick note in the comments below so we can keep the call list updated? Thank you for your help! 

 

To the book!

 

While the Titanic and Lusitania are both well-documented disasters, the single greatest tragedy in maritime history is the little-known January 30, 1945 sinking in the Baltic Sea by a Soviet submarine of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a German cruise liner that was supposed to ferry wartime personnel and refugees to safety from the advancing Red Army. The ship was overcrowded with more than 10,500 passengers — the intended capacity was approximately 1,800 — and more than 9,000 people, including 5,000 children, lost their lives.                                                                                                                                              

Follow four fictionalized but historically accurate voices to convey the real-life tragedy. Joana, a Lithuanian with nursing experience; Florian, a Prussian soldier fleeing the Nazis with stolen treasure; and Emilia, a Polish girl close to the end of her pregnancy, converge on their escape journeys as Russian troops advance; each will eventually meet Albert, a Nazi peon with delusions of grandeur, assigned to the Gustloff decks. 

I'd say this book was unanimously very well received, and even those that were less enthusiastic, still weren't disappointed that they'd read it. We all really liked Sepety's writing, appreciated the shorter chapters, and found it a quick, easy read with a nice ending. We didn't think it read like your average Young Adult book (predictable), and we liked that~ we'd read more of her, some of us already have.

If I had to scratch around for some criticisms, they would be that the book felt like it tended to drag in places, and even though we like the shorter chapters, and were able to keep the ample characters straight, we wondered if all the hopping around made it tricky to really deeply connect with any of the personalities. We felt like we'll remember more about the Wilhelm Gustoff sinking, and 8,000 lives lost, than we will anything about the characters depicted. Also, with all of those good notions listed above aside, it's still a World War II book, and a good handful of us are becoming ever so weary of reading about war... even in the YA market.

 

How did Salt to the Sea leave you? Let us know in the comments below! 👇

 

Did you love Salt to the Sea? Fans of the book also enjoyed, Theo of Golden, by Allen Levi, The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau, by Kristin Harmel, and The River is Waiting, by Wally Lamb. All of these titles are available within the Viking Library System~ reserve your copy today!    

 

The votes are in!

Would we recommend this to a friend to read?  Yes

 
Would we recommend this to another book club for discussion?  Yes

                                                                                                                                             Rate the book 1-5 stars, with 1 being the lowest rating:  4 stars

2026-2027 Book Club Reading Schedule

 

Before the Coffee Gets Cold// Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Hello May! 🎕

Up next for June is Salt to the Sea, by Ruta Sepetys. We have several copies, but just in case you don't need a copy and you haven't already let me know, would you please leave me a quick note in the comments below so we can keep the call list updated? Thank you for your help! 

 

Speaking of June, we may plan to meet at Paul Miller Park for the summer months again, and we may kick that off with our June meeting. We'll keep an eye on the weather as the day gets closer and let you know!

 

A BIG thank you to everyone who nominated and voted this year~ this was our biggest voting year to date!! How fortunate we are to have such a fantastic group of readers! The new reading schedule for 2026-2027 is now ready and finalized~ bookmarks will be available at June's meeting and at the front desk, along with copies of the reading list, thereafter. I'll post it here in the blog as well for easy access and reference.

 

 

 

Onward!

 

 

 

In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a cafe where we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-traveling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer's, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.

But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . . 

 

We all agreed this book was a quick read, and that was nice following James. Kawaguchi breaking the book into 4 different story lines was fun, the segment about the mother and daughter was a favorite. The general sense was that if you could put aside reality and believablity, and go along with the fantasy of it, this had a feel good vibe and was a fun read. We had good conversation about who we would want to visit from the past or future if this sort of cafe really did exist, at least as much as we discussed the book itself.

 

On the other hand, there were several members who either could not get into it, or did not finish it. The writing was cited as disjointed and choppy (though we acknowledge that could be possibly be due to translation), and even long-winded for such a short book. The characters didn't really have any depth or development, and the fantasy genre, for some, just reads strange in and of itself. 

 

Let us know what you think below! 👇

 

Did you enjoy Before the Coffee Gets Cold? Fans of the book also enjoyed, Days at the Morisake Bookshop, by Satoshi Yagisawa, I Who Have Never Known Men, by Jacqueline Harpman, and If Cats Disappeared from the World, by Genki Kawamura. All of these titles are available within the Viking Library System~ reserve your copy today!    

 

The votes are in!

Would we recommend this to a friend to read?  No

 
Would we recommend this to another book club for discussion?  Yes

                                                                                                                                             Rate the book 1-5 stars, with 1 being the lowest rating:  3 stars

James// Percival Everett

Hello April! ☔

Up next for May is Before the Coffee Gets Cold, by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. We have several copies, but just in case you don't need a copy and you haven't already let me know, would you please leave me a quick note in the comments below so we can keep the call list updated?Thank you for your help! 

With all of the nominations in for next year's reading list, I am working to get them organized onto the ballot and out to you real soon. We will still plan to vote at our May 12th meeting, with the top 11 votes being our winners/selections. (We decided to use December's meeting as a time to come together to have a discussion about good books we've read (inside or outside of book club) and get some good recommendations from each other. With that in mind, we'll only vote in 11 books for next year's reading list, and we won't have a book club book to read for November 2026, but will get back to the reading list in December. Sorry if that's confusing~ please let me know if you have any questions!).

 

To the book!

 

When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. 

For most of our members, this book was very well received. They really liked a book from Jim's fictional perspective, and very much preferred it, and Everett's writing, to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. They liked the part about Jim being a self taught guy, that he shared those teachings with his wife and children, and that he toggled back and forth between the dialects, depending on the company he was keeping. We all liked Jim, we felt for him throughout the book, but we weren't sure what the point was of having him turn out to be Huck's father... especially since there really isn't a emotional, poignant moment of reunion... and the two didn't stick together in the end regardless (which was disappointing). 

On the other hand, those who weren't as charmed by the book, wondered out loud of maybe it was a mistake to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and James back-to-back. At least half of the book felt like the same story all over again, which was tedious. They didn't really feel like the book got interesting until the last few chapters, and then it ended terribly, with all kinds of open ended loose ends and questions. This group preferred James to Huckleberry Finn as well, but not by much.

Let us know your thoughts below! 👇

 

Did you love James? Fans of the book also enjoyed, The Correspondent, by Virginia Evans, My Friends, by Fredrik Backman, and Broken Country, by Clare Leslie Hall. All of these titles are available within the Viking Library System~ reserve your copy today!    

 

The votes are in!

Would we recommend this to a friend to read?  Yes

 
Would we recommend this to another book club for discussion?  Yes

                                                                                                                                             Rate the book 1-5 stars, with 1 being the lowest rating:  4 stars

 

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn// Mark Twain

 

 

Hello March! 🍀

 

Up next for April is James, by Percival Everett. We have several copies, but just in case you don't need a copy and you haven't already let me know, would you please leave me a quick note in the comments below so we can keep the call list updated? Thank you for your help!  

 

While I have you, it's that time of year again to start getting your nominations in for next year's reading list! We'd like to ask that you turn your nominations into me on or before our April 14th book club meeting. You can email them to amandaschaefer@hotmail.com, or give us a call at the library (346-4892), or even leave them with us at the front desk! In an effort to keep our final nomination ballots to a reasonable size, we are putting a limit of 5 nominations total for each of our members. Additionally, we are switching up the dedicated categories this year, and paring it down to 4. They will be Young Adult, Classic, Non-fiction, and Historical Fiction~ you do not need to nominate titles into these categories, but you will be required to vote for at least one book from each of these dedicated genres when the time comes. Sound good?

Immediately following our April book club meeting I'll be a busy bee getting the nominations organized and the ballots back out to you to look over. We will plan to vote at the May 12th meeting and away we go into a new year of reading!

One last thing, we also decided, with the hustle and bustle of the holidays, to use December's meeting as a time to come together to have a discussion about good books we've read (inside or outside of book club) and get some good recommendations from each other. With that in mind, we'll only vote in 11 books for next year's reading list, and we won't have a book club book to read for November 2026, but will get back to the reading list in December. Sorry if that's confusing~ please let me know if you have any questions!

 

Onward!

 

Thirteen-year-old Huckleberry Finn has had enough of "civilization." Tired of rules, manners, and suffocating expectations, Huck longs for the wild freedom of the Mississippi River. When he escapes his abusive father and encounters Jim—an enslaved man fleeing for his freedom—Huck embarks on a journey that will change his life forever. Together on a raft, they navigate the mighty Mississippi, facing dangerous waters and even more dangerous people. From cunning con men calling themselves the Duke and the King, to feuding families locked in deadly rivalry, each encounter tests their survival and challenges Huck's understanding of right and wrong. As their friendship deepens, Huck must confront the prejudices of his upbringing and make a choice that will define who he truly is. 

This book really averages out to be just "Meh" for us. One person really enjoyed it, five or six of us thought it was just ok, and a handful really didn't enjoy the book~ commenting it was hard to want to pick it up and get through it. One member said it was easier to listen to, rather than read (and wouldn't have finished it if they had attempted the printed book), and another confessed they read the abbreviated juvenile edition and still struggled to stay interested. 

Deciphering the dialect tripped us up a bit, and it wasn't all that easy to find a character (outside of Jim) we liked throughout the book, Huck included. In the end, our conversation broke off into many different tangents about all sorts of different things, a pretty good sign that this book was just ok for the group.

   

Did Huckleberry Finn have a greater impact on you than it did us? Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments below! 👇 

 

Did you love The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? Fans of the book also enjoyed, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain, James, by Percival Everett, and A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens. All of these titles are available within the Viking Library System~ reserve your copy today!    

 The votes are in!

Would we recommend this to a friend to read?  No

 
Would we recommend this to another book club for discussion?  Maybe

                                                                                                                                             Rate the book 1-5 stars, with 1 being the lowest rating:  2 stars

The Boys// Ron Howard and Clint Howard

 

Hello February! 💘

Looking ahead to March, we have a few extra copies coming in of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but just in case you don't need a copy and you haven't already let me know, would you please leave me a quick note in the comments below so we can keep the call list updated? Thank you for your help! 

 

To the book!

 

With the perspective of time and success—Ron as a filmmaker, producer, and Hollywood A-lister, Clint as a busy character actor—the Howard brothers delve deep into an upbringing that seemed normal to them yet was anything but. Their Midwestern parents, Rance and Jean, moved to California to pursue their own showbiz dreams. But it was their young sons who found steady employment as actors. Rance put aside his ego and ambition to become Ron and Clint’s teacher, sage, and moral compass. Jean became their loving protector—sometimes over-protector—from the snares and traps of Hollywood. By turns confessional, nostalgic, heartwarming, and harrowing, this is a dual narrative that lifts the lid on the Howard brothers’ closely held lives. 

We unanimously like the all the Howards, especially Rance and Jean. We commend the parents for being positive, present figures in their son's lives. For being dedicated advocates for them and for not helping themselves to their paychecks. We liked reading about a Hollywood family that loved and functioned in a healthy, wholesome manner~ it was refreshing and in stark contrast to most Hollywood memoirs. 

The majority also felt like while the style in which the book was written was neat, the book itself was too long~ all the intricate moving parts of each of Ron's acting jobs was really not necessary. We thought Ron could get a little long-winded and by the end, some of us thought the parts about Clint were too few. And it lacked any real talk of what married life has been like for Ron and Cheryl, and maybe a mention of how they have handled their own children's journey into acting and directing. To a handful, this retelling was a little too "squeaky clean" and they wondered if the whole truth might be a little more stained. It was also said that people who grew up watching "Happy Days" might enjoy the book a bit more than those who missed the hype. 

 

What do you think? Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments below! 👇 

 

Did you really like The Boys? Fans of the book also enjoyed, In Pieces, by Sally Field, Cher: The Memoir Part 1, by Cher, and Being Henry, by Henry Winkler. All of these titles are available within the Viking Library System~ reserve your copy today!    

 The votes are in!

Would we recommend this to a friend to read?  No

 
Would we recommend this to another book club for discussion?  No

                                                                                                                                             Rate the book 1-5 stars, with 1 being the lowest rating:  3 stars