The West Valley Book Club will meet on Wednesday, July 11th 2012 at 6:30 PM to discuss Olive Kitteridge   by Elizabeth Strout. We have this book in various formats, including print, audio, downloadable eBook, and eAudio. Want to learn how to download this book onto your computer or eReader device? Join us at West Valley on Wednesday, June 20 2012 at 4:30pm OR Friday, July 6 2012 at 2:00pm. We're offering monthly workshops throughout the summer for people to learn how to use SJPL's growing and thriving eBook collections!

At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town of Crosby, Maine, and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance; a former student who has lost the will to live; Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and her husband, Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.
As the townspeople grapple with their problems, mild and dire, Olive is brought to a deeper understanding of herself and her life–sometimes painfully, but always with ruthless honesty. Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition–its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires. (From Amazon.com)
 

Whether you read the book or the eBook, please join us in July for lively literary conversation!

Most readers know that Stephen King's novels usually take place in the state of Maine, where the novel Olive Kitteridge (2008), by Elizabeth Strout also takes place, but King broke out of the mold with the popular Duma Key (2008),which takes place in Florida. Many novels take place in New York, both city and state.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005), by Jonathan Safran Foer, a moving 9/11 novel, features a child as the main character. Most of the Agent Pendergrast series of novels by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, such as Cemetery Dance (2009), start in New York City as well, while also visiting, among other sites, Prendergast's childhood home in New Orleans, Louisiana. Gone Tomorrow (2009), one of Lee Child's best thrillers, also takes place in New York.

Moving West, Jeannette Walls' novel, Half-Broke Horses (2009), is based on her grandmother's incredible life growing up in Texas and Arizona. Alaska is featured in the mysteries of Dana Stabenow and in a bleak new novel about marriage and relationships, Caribou Island (2011), by David Vann. Finally, the "granddaddy" of all writers of novels about states, James Michener, wrote one of the best ever, Hawaii (1959).