May 18, 2016: The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough
June 15, 2016: Under the Wide and Starry Sky by Nancy Horan
Smith Book Club Announcement: GoodReads.com Discussion Group!
For Smithies in the Peninsula area, The Smith Club of the Peninsula has set up a discussion forum on GoodReads.com for the Book Club specifically to encourage discussion of Book Club books over entirety of the local Smithies, whether they are able to join us at Book Club meetings or now. To join the GoodReads aspect of the book club, please email Melanie Herscher ’14 to get instructions and help in joining the group.
About the Book Club:
The Book Club provides a friendly, open, and inquiring setting for discussing various works of literature (both classic and contemporary). Meetings take place from 7:30 – 9:30 pm, generally on the third Wednesday of each month. Any Smith alumna is welcome and you don’t have to “join.” Just come to the meetings as often as they fit your interests and schedule. If you are interested in attending our meetings, please contact the Book Club Coordinator, Sally Smith ’64, via email at thepeninsulasmithclub@gmail.com and she will add you to the distribution list.
Each month Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park carries our book selections on the Peninsula Smith Club shelf in their book club section. At the cash register, tell the sales clerk that this is a Peninsula Smith Club purchase and you will receive a 15% discount.
2016 Book Selections: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi, The Big Short by Michael Lewis, Case Histories by Kate Atkinson, and Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens.
2015 Book Selections: Dreaming in French: The Paris Years of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and Angela Davis by Alice Kaplan, My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, Two Towns in Provence by M.F.K. Fisher, The 100-Foot Journey by Richard Morais (book and movie), Good Omens by Neil Galman and Terry Pratchett, The Accidental Adventurer by Barbara Washburn ’35, The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler, The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman, The Rosie Project by Graeme C. Samson, and Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by by Nicholas D. Kristof & Sheryl WuDunn, Still Alice by Lisa Genova, The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman, and The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler.
2014 Book Selections: Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata, The Hare with the Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal, A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (class of ’80), The Sisters by Mary Lovell, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman, Rules of Civility by Amor Towles, The Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel, The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin, and The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown.
2013 Book Selections: Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, American Godsby Neil Gaiman, Madame Bovary by Gustav Flaubert; The Greater Journey by David McCullough; Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris; Nothing Daunted by Dorothy Wickenden; The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid; The Valleys of the Assassins by Freya Stark and Passionate Nomad, a biography of Stark by Jane Fletcher Geniesse; and The Devil in the White City by Eric Larson.
2012 Book Selections: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith; Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John LeCarre; Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady by Florence King; Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller; The Distant Land of My Father by Bo Caldwell; Citizens of London by Lynne Olson; The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver; and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.
2011 Book Selections: The Iliad, Lattimore translation; Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay; All in the Day’s Work by Ada Tarbell; The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Time Machine, and The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells; The Male Brain by Louanne Brizendine; The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan (Special Guest, Smith Professor Nancy Whittier discussed results from original Friedan Survey given to the Class of 1982); The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford; A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini; Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell; and Tinkers by Paul Harding.
2010 Book Selections:The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope; Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter by Thomas Cahill; Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (discussed at the Faculty Speaker Event with Smith Professor Cornelia Pearsall); The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson; A Pearl in the Storm: How I Found My Heart in the Middle of the Ocean by Tori Murden McClure; Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland; 1776 by David McCullough; Homer and Langley by E. L. Doctorow; and Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner.
