Our Book Clubs vote on their foavorites of the books discussed durning the year. Here are the Fiction Book Club's top four favorites of 2009.

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The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Paperback)

By Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows

$15.00

ISBN-13: 9780385341004
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Dial Press Trade Paperback, 5/2009

Other Editions of this Title

First place went to The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer  Every once in a while a special book comes along that you just do not want to end.  The Fiction Book Club should enjoy this discussion. Julia spent the war years watching for fires from the rooftops of London apartments.  Now it is time to get her life back on track.  A letter reaches her while she is on a book tour for her latest book.  Dawsey found her address on the bookplate of a book he purchased at a jumble sale.  He does not wish to inconvenience  her, but no bookstores have survived Nazi occupation near his home on Guernsey.  Does Julia know the address of any London bookstores who might be willing to sell him more of the author’s work?  Letters zip back and forth.  All sorts of quirky characters enter the story.  Pretty soon they all feel like old friends and you do not want to bid goodbye.

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Crescent (Paperback)

By Diana Abu-Jaber

$13.95

ISBN-13: 9780393325546
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: W. W. Norton & Company, 5/2004

Other Editions of this Title

Second place went to Diana Abu-Jaber’s award winning book, Crescent.  Sirine, a 39 year old Iraqi-American, is happy with her life as chef cooking in a Lebanese restaurant.  She lives with her uncle, a professor, and her adoring dog. I liked having a main character who was a 39 year old, confident, content woman.  Her uncle introduces her to a gorgeous fellow professor, an Iraqi refugee who turns her life upside down.  The book is set in California and Iraq, and it uses its setting well.  Diana has a beautiful writing style, lively and engaging.  She is also very inventive. At the beginning of each chapter is a continuing fable.  Eventually the fable includes Omar Sharif, speaking of gorgeous, Omar is serious eye candy. 

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Hannah's Dream (Paperback)

By Diane Hammond

$13.95

ISBN-13: 9780061568251
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: William Morrow Paperbacks, 9/2008

Other Editions of this Title

Third place winner is Hannah’s Dream  by Diane Hammond.  Is it possible for a man and an elephant to share a dream?  Can they both imagine the same lush meadow, cool ponds, and the trumpeting of elephants?  Maybe they can.  Sam has been Hannah’s keeper for over 40 years, since he came home from the Korean war.  Sam found work on Max Biedelman’s opulent estate.  Max traveled the world, bringing back animals from her sojourns in Africa and Southeast Africa.  She created a little piece of paradise right here in the northwest, living her dream.  Max wanted her animals to go right on living in the same style, she left her estate to the city to be used as a zoo.  Forty years later the opulence is long past, the zoo is a labyrinth of concrete, vendor’s carts and enclosures.  Hannah spends her days with Sam and her nights locked in the barn alone, standing on the cold concrete floor.  Sam is worried about Hannah.  He is getting on in years, diabetes is taking its toll on his health.  He fears he will soon have to retire, then who will care for Hannah?  At nights his dreams of lush meadows and other elephants haunt him, in the morning the only comfort he can bring Hannah is a bag of Dunkin donuts.  Sam knows elephants belong with their kind, wandering in spacious fields.  Hannah’s feet are a testament to the inadvisability of placing a large elephant on concrete.  He knows the new zoo director, Harriett, does not have a clue about Hannah’s needs.  She was hired to turn the zoo around, profit she understands, the needs of an elephant are a bit more hazy.  When Harriett hires a new assistant keeper Sam begins to believe dreams can come true.  

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Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (Paperback)

By Fannie Flagg

$15.00

ISBN-13: 9780449911358
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Ballantine Books, 1/1997

Other Editions of this Title

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café by Fannie Flagg is a wonderful choice for fourth place.  Evelyn Couch is a beleaguered, woefully overwhelmed, powerless woman.  Visiting her mother in law at a nursing home out of a sense of duty, the woman hates her, she meets Ninny Threadgoode.  Ninny tells her stories from the 1930’s and listens to her woes.  Eveyln begins to feel more empowered more in charge of her life.  Ninny’s stores center on Ruth and Idgie.  Ruth marries Frank, a handsome man who gives her a son, then beats her.  Idgie rescues Ruth and her son from her abusive husband. Idgie and Ruth open the Whistle Stop Café.  There are dark secrets, lifelong friendship, and strange justice in the story. The characters are beyond lively; they are drawn with humor, a zesty spirit, and compassion. This is one of those books you will not want to put down.

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