A veteran Washington journalist recounts his long friendship with Charlie White, the centenarian next door who, sharing his good and meaningful life, mastered survival strategies that reflect thousands of years of human wisdom as his sense of adventure guided him through a century of upheaval.

From Amazon: "How does a mother cope when she is forced to walk away from her three children and never see them again? Whisper My Secret is the true story of a devoted mother who carried her heartbreaking secret to her grave. Myrtle is eventually rescued from her grief and despair by tall, dark and handsome George Rowley who fell in love with her, offering her romance and enduring love. Myrtle started a new life with George and had seven more children. She buried the grief of losing her first children deep within and kept her pain secret. JB Rowley, an award winning Australian author and one of Myrtle's seven children by her second husband, tells the compelling story of her mother's secret. Desperate to know how such a thing could happen to a caring mother, JB went on a journey to find out. It was a long time before she was able to work out that her mother kept her early life and her first family secret out of misplaced guilt and shame. To redress that, JB decided to tell the whole world her mother's secret as a proud declaration that Myrtle did nothing deserving of guilt or shame."

From Amazon - Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed in which her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Young Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid flutters beneath the table. She rescues the slip and, learning that the word means “slave girl,” begins to collect other words that have been discarded or neglected by the dictionary men.

As she grows up, Esme realizes that words and meanings relating to women’s and common folks’ experiences often go unrecorded. And so she begins in earnest to search out words for her own dictionary: the Dictionary of Lost Words. To do so she must leave the sheltered world of the university and venture out to meet the people whose words will fill those pages.

Set during the height of the women’s suffrage movement and with the Great War looming, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. Inspired by actual events, author Pip Williams has delved into the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary to tell this highly original story. The Dictionary of Lost Words is a delightful, lyrical, and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words and the power of language to shape the world.

From the book jacket:  "Trip. My parents started using that word about a year ago--'one day, you'll take a trip to be with us. Like an adventure.' Javier's adventure is a three-thousand-mile journey from his small town in El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, and across the U.S. border. He will leave behind his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with a mother who left four years ago and a father he barely remembers. Traveling alone except for a group of strangers and a "coyote" hired to lead them to safety, Javier's trip is supposed to last two short weeks. At nine years old, all Javier can imagine is rushing into his parents' arms, snuggling in bed between them, and living under the same roof again. He cannot foresee the perilous boat trips, relentless desert treks, pointed guns, arrests and deceptions that await him; nor can he know that those two weeks will expand into two life-altering months alongside a group of strangers who will come to encircle him like an unexpected family. A memoir as gripping as it is moving, Solito not only provides an immediate and intimate account of a treacherous and near-impossible journey, but also the miraculous kindness and love delivered at the most unexpected moments. Solito is Javier's story, but it's also the story of millions of others who had no choice but to leave home."

From Amazon: Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. She dreams of a fresh start at college, but when family tragedy strikes, Daunis puts her future on hold to look after her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team.

Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, she senses the dashing hockey star is hiding something. Everything comes to light when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, thrusting her into an FBI investigation of a lethal new drug.

Reluctantly, Daunis agrees to go undercover, drawing on her knowledge of chemistry and Ojibwe traditional medicine to track down the source. But the search for truth is more complicated than Daunis imagined, exposing secrets and old scars. At the same time, she grows concerned with an investigation that seems more focused on punishing the offenders than protecting the victims.

Now, as the deceptions―and deaths―keep growing, Daunis must learn what it means to be a strong Anishinaabe kwe (Ojibwe woman) and how far she’ll go for her community, even if it tears apart the only world she’s ever known.

From Amazon: 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.

Fenna Vos has learned to focus on her own survival with the Second World War raging in faraway countries. She works on-stage as the assistant to an unruly escape artist-behind the curtain as the mastermind of their act. After all, her honed ability to control her surroundings and elude entrapments, physical or otherwise, reliably suppresses the trauma and tragedy of her youth. For all her calculations, however, Fenna neglects to foresee being called upon by British Intelligence. Tasked with creating escape tools to thwart the Germans, MI9 seeks those with specialized skills for a war nearing its breaking point. Fenna reluctantly joins an unconventional group of inventors, but delving deeper into the fray means a confrontation with her past and the stakes are more treacherous than she ever imagined.

Kristina McMorris discusses The Ways We Hide (54:45).

View images, documents, and other supporting items in this book club guide from author Kristina McMorris. These items are also included in the print book.

View photographs from the 1913 Italian Hall Disaster - a Michigan Christmas Eve tragedy courtesy of MLive - Michigan.

"Who killed Lord Inverkillen? It's the 1930s and a mysterious illness is spreading over Scotland. But the noble and ancient family of Inverkillen, residents of Loch Down Abbey, are much more concerned with dwindling toilet roll supplies and who will look after the children now that Nanny has regretfully (and most inconveniently) departed this life. Then Lord Inverkillen, Earl and head of the family, is found dead in mysterious circumstances. The inspector declares it an accident but Mrs MacBain, the head housekeeper, isn't so convinced. As no one is allowed in or out because of the illness, the residents of the house - both upstairs and downstairs - are the only suspects. With the Earl's own family too busy doing what can only be described as nothing, she decides to do some digging - in between chores, of course - and in doing so uncovers a whole host of long-hidden secrets, lies and betrayals that will alter the dynamics of the household for ever.

Loch Down Abbey Character List

The September/October 2022 read is All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.

From Amazon: Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.

The August/September 2022 read is Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens.

From Amazon: For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life—until the unthinkable happens.

The June/July 2022 read is Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann.

From Amazon: In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.

Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. One of her relatives was shot. Another was poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more Osage were dying under mysterious circumstances, and many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered.

As the death toll rose, the newly created FBI took up the case, and the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including a Native American agent who infiltrated the region, and together with the Osage began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.

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Here are some interesting things I've found while learning more about this title and the Osage murders:

• "The Rare Archival Photos Behind 'Killers of the Flower Moon" from Atlas Obscura, written by David Grann
  • Includes some photos not featured in the book, and brief info about Grann's research in Oklahoma
• David Grann interview from PBS NewsHour

She was a fierce dissenter with a serious collar game. A legendary, self-described “flaming feminist litigator” who made the world more equal. And an intergenerational icon affectionately known as the Notorious RBG. As the nation mourns the loss of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, discover the story of a remarkable woman and learn how to carry on her legacy.

In July 1913, twenty-five-year-old Annie Clements had seen enough of the world to know that it was unfair. She's spent her whole life in the coal-mining town of Calumet, Michigan where men risk their lives for meager salaries--and had barely enough to put food on the table and clothes on their backs. The women labor in the houses of the elite, and send their husbands and sons deep underground each day, dreading the fateful call of the company man telling them their loved ones aren't coming home. When Annie decides to stand up for herself, and the entire town of Calumet, nearly everyone believes she may have taken on more than she is prepared to handle. 

This is a book about letting go of who we think we should be and embracing who we are. Unlike other books that teach you how to practice new behaviors until they become rote, The Gifts of Imperfection asks us to bust through any routine that allows us to live our lives without engaging a full spectrum of emotions, both positive and negative. Wholehearted living requires digging deep into our psyche and uncovering the parts of ourselves that we want to keep hidden. It requires embracing ourselves and all of our imperfections, all of our fears and all of our inadequacies and learning to work through the shame of these aspects of ourselves. Shame is the true enemy of whole-hearted living. Why? Because it is the little voice inside of us that tells us we're are not enough, that we're are not worthy.

Chance meeting with a Sussex beekeeper turns into a pivotal, personal transformation when fifteen-year-old Mary Russell discovers that the beekeeper is the reclusive, retired detective Sherlock Holmes, who soon takes on the role of mentor and teacher.

Book #1 in the Mary Russell series.

From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, this is a powerful account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America's white working class. 

Celebrate Women's History Month -

After German Luftwaffe bomb London, Maggie Hope--trained in math and code breaking, but only able to find a job as Winston Churchill's secretary--uses the access her position demands to try to unravel an assassination plot.

The novel follows Lizet Ramirez as she becomes the first person in her family to attend college.  According to the author (a faculty member at the University of Nebraska) the book is about, "big things and small things: family and identity; class and access and privilege..."  Cruset wrote the book with the intention of providing a roadmap for first-generation college student's experiences.  Perhaps the lessons learned within will provide us with insight as we help our students navigate the college experience here in northern Michigan.