In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties. Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous and exhausting cross-country trips by car and train and their new lives in colonies that grew into ghettos, as well as how they changed these cities with southern food, faith, and culture and improved them with discipline, drive, and hard work. Both a riveting microcosm and a major assessment, The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an "unrecognized immigration" within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is destined to become a classic. CPL's Lunch and a Book Group gave this title 4.6 stars out of 5. This kit contains 10 copies of the title.

Persuasion [kit] by Jane Austen

In her final novel, as in her earlier ones, Jane Austen uses a love story to explore and gently satirize social pretensions and emotional confusion. Persuasion follows the romance of Anne Elliot and naval officer Frederick Wentworth. They were happily engaged until Anne's friend, Lady Russell, persuaded her that Frederick was "unworthy." Now, eight years later, Frederick returns, a wealthy captain in the navy, while Anne's family teeters on the edge of bankruptcy. They still love each other, but their past mistakes threaten to keep them apart. Austen may seem to paint on a small canvas, but her characters contain the full range of human passion and moral complexity, and the author's generous spirit renders them all with understanding, compassion, and humor. CPL's Lunch and a Book Group gave this title 2.4 stars out of 5. This kit contains 10 copies of the title.

The 2017-18 Great Michigan Read, X: A Novel, is a tale of reinvention and redemption. Written by Ilyasah Shabazz, Malcom X’s third daughter, and Kekla Magoon, X is a young-adult novel with a writing style and message that will appeal to readers of all ages. Join one of our discussions! The Canton Seniors Book Discussion Group will be discussing X on February 22, 2018 and CPL's Lunch and a Book will be discussing X on March 8, 2018.

 

X : a novel by Ilyasah Shabazz

No life is set in stone. Malcolm was a young man with boundless potential but with the odds stacked against him. Losing his father under suspicious circumstances and his mother to a mental health hospital, Malcolm fell into a life of petty crime and eventually prison. Instead of letting prison be his downfall, Malcom found a religion, a voice, and the podium that would eventually make him one of the most prominent figures in the burgeoning Civil Rights movement.

The gilded hour [kit] by Sara Donati

The year is 1883, and in New York City, it's a time of dizzying splendor, crushing poverty, and tremendous change. With the gravity-defying Brooklyn Bridge nearly complete and New York in the grips of anti-vice crusader Anthony Comstock, Anna Savard and her cousin Sophie--both graduates of the Woman's Medical School--treat the city's most vulnerable, even if doing so may put everything they've strived for in jeopardy. Anna's work has placed her in the path of four children who have lost everything, just as she herself once had. Faced with their helplessness, Anna must make an unexpected choice between holding on to the pain of her past and letting love into her life. For Sophie, an obstetrician and the orphaned daughter of free people of color, helping a desperate young mother forces her to grapple with the oath she took as a doctor--and thrusts her and Anna into the orbit of Anthony Comstock, a dangerous man who considers himself the enemy of everything indecent and of anyone who dares to defy him. With its vivid depictions of old New York and its enormously appealing characters, The Gilded Hour is a captivating, emotionally gripping novel that proves Sara Donati is an author at the height of her powers. CPL's Lunch and a Book Group gave this title 3.5 stars out of 5. This kit contains 10 copies of the title.

"From one of America's greatest comic novelists, a hilarious new novel about aging, family, loneliness, and love The Bergman clan has always stuck together, growing as it incorporated in-laws, ex-in-laws, and same-sex spouses. But families don't just grow, they grow old, and the clan's matriarch, Joy, is not slipping into old age with the quiet grace her children, Molly and Daniel, would have wished. When Joy's beloved husband dies, Molly and Daniel have no shortage of solutions for their mother's loneliness and despair, but there is one challenge they did not count on: the reappearance of an ardent suitor from Joy's college days. And they didn't count on Joy herself, a mother suddenly as willful and rebellious as their own kids. The New York Times bestselling author Cathleen Schine has been called "full of invention, wit, and wisdom that can bear comparison to [ Jane] Austen's own" ( The New York Review of Books ), and she is at her best in this intensely human, profound, and honest novel about the intrusion of old age into the relationships of one loving but complicated family. They May Not Mean To, But They Do is a radiantly compassionate look at three generations, all coming of age together. CPL's Lunch and a Book Group gave this title 4 stars out of 5. This kit contains 10 copies of the title.

The handmaid's tale [kit] by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale is the #1 New York Times bestseller and seminal work of speculative fiction from the Booker Prize-winning author Margaret Atwood. It is now a Hulu series starring Elizabeth Moss, Samira Wiley, and Joseph Fiennes. Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the days before, when she lived and made love with her husband Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now.... Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid's Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and literary tour de force. CPL's Lunch and a Book Group gave this title 3.5 stars out of 5. This kit contains 10 copies of the title.

After his eleven-year-old son dies, guitarist Quinn Porter does yard work for an aged Lithuanian immigrant, Ona Vitkus, whom his son had often visited, and comes to a resolution about his son's death as Ona discusses his son's capacity to listen and learn. CPL's Lunch and a Book Group gave this title 4.1 stars out of 5. This kit contains 10 copies of the title.

Wolf's mouth [kit] by John Smolens

In 1944 Italian officer Captain Francesco Verdi is captured by Allied forces in North Africa and shipped to a POW camp in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where the senior POW, the ruthless Kommandant Vogel, demands that all prisoners adhere to his Nazi dictates. His life threatened, Verdi escapes from the camp and meets up with an American woman, Chiara Frangiapani, who helps him elude capture as they flee to the Lower Peninsula. By 1956 they have become Frank and Claire Green, a young married couple building a new life in postwar Detroit. When INS agent James Giannopoulos tracks them down, Frank learns that Vogel is executing men like Frank for their wartime transgressions. As a series of brutal murders rivets Detroit, Frank is caught between American justice and Nazi vengeance. In Wolf 's Mouth, the recollections of Francesco Verdi/Frank Green give voice to the hopes, fears, and hard choices of a survivor as he strives to escape the ghosts of history. CPL's Lunch and a Book Group gave this title 4.4 stars out of 5. This kit contains 10 copies of the title.

Celebrate Asteroid Day on Saturday, July 1, 2017 (1:00 - 4:00pm) at the Cranbrook Institute of Science. Asteroid Day is a global movement established to heighten awareness of the potential threat to humanity posed by asteroid impacts. On July 1, the Institute of Science will offer lectures and activities including the chance to inspect and handle genuine meteorites from around the world, and the opportunity to explore a special "Tutankhamun and Rocks from Space" exhibition (free with regular admission). 

In this charming debut from one of Sweden's most successful authors, a grumpy yet loveable man finds his solitary world turned on its head when a boisterous young family moves in next door. Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon -- the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him "the bitter neighbor from hell." But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time? Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents' association to their very foundations. A feel-good story in the spirit of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, Fredrik Backman's novel about the angry old man next door is a thoughtful exploration of the profound impact one life has on countless others. CPL's Lunch and a Book Group gave this title 4.4 stars out of 5. This kit contains 10 copies of the title.

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