Summer 2025 Book ClubUpdate By Cathie Singer
July 8: The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife by Anna Johnston:
Sue Herbold will present. Anna Johnston is a “former baby, aspiring octogenarian and emerging Australian author with a love for the heartfelt and hilarious”. This is a warm, life-affirming debut novel about a zany case of mistaken identity which allows a lonely old man to be part of a family.
July 22: Recipe for a Good Life and Nosy Parker by Lesley Crewe: *At Irene’s cottage and boat-pools will be arranged.
Irene Chambers and Carol Stratton will present. Lesley is a Canadian writer who has settled in Cape Breton and is the writer of several novels. Recipe for a Good Life is set in rural Nova Scotia during the 1950’s and follows Kitty, a popular mystery writer, who is sent off from Montreal to Cape Breton to write. She learns about the appeal of a simple and peaceful life and must work to balance this new life with her life in Montreal. Nosy Parker is set in 1967 Montreal and follows 10 year old Audrey Parker who has just moved into a new neighbourhood full of different kinds of people to spy on. Humour and sadness are expertly balanced in this book. We wonder if some of our teenage daughters or grandchildren may also enjoy reading this book and come along to discuss it!
August 5: The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters
Sharon Earle-Meadows will present. Amanda Peters is the winner of the Andrew Carnegie medal for excellence in literature and many other awards. The story is about a Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia whose daughter goes missing from the berry fields in Maine and of another young girl growing up in affluent Maine. Her search for truth and the persistence of love across time is riveting and poignant.
August 19: Horse by Geraldine Brooks: Barb Cerny will present. Geraldine Brooks is an Australian writer who has worked as a foreign correspondent and has also won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her novel, March. Horse begins in Kentucky in 1850 and follows a horse and his enslaved groom named Jarret through their lives which carries the horse to record-setting victories in the south and through the civil war. However, there are several threads of this story – the story of an itinerant young artist, a mid-20th century gallery owner and a 21st century scientist and art historian in Washington. So many fascinating themes are tied together in this remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington – love and obsession, art and science and the unfinished reckoning with racism.
The above book list has been sent to Parry Sound books and Cathie will endeavor to do a Zoom at each meeting.
Please contact SSCA Member, Cathie Singer, to get on the mailing list for further details of meetings as places and times may change due to weather or other factors.
Cathie Singer
416-409-5264
2024 SSCA BOOK CLUB
Organizer: Cathie SingerAs the Long Weekend approaches, many of us have already been up to check out our cottages. It won’t be long before we are meeting at the Community Centre to discuss some excellent books!We have now confirmed the dates for our authors coming to join us this year and hope this schedule will remain more or less intact. Of course unexpected events or weather may force some adjustments and I hope to have Zoom up and running again (although it is less than perfect in a group setting out of doors!). I would plan to send out the Zoom invites a week or so before the meeting.
July 2: Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons; The Lives of Jennie Jerome Churchill and Sara Delano Roosevelt by Charlotte Gray and presented by Phyllis Lill.
This is a double biography of two strong-willed women, both born in New York in 1854, whose sons would help shape the world we live in. It was published simultaneously in Canada, U.K. and U.S., in September 2023. We discussed Murdered Midas by the same author last year.
July 16: Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands – A graphic Novel by Kate Beatonand presented by Jacquie Green.
This is a memoir of Kate’s experiences working in the Athabasca Oil sands and has been described as political, personal, monumental, intimate, generous, upsetting, surreal and disarmingly human. A warning that there is a scene of sexual assault which may be difficult for some and they may want to avoid this book. However the new format of a graphic novel and the environmental and economic issues are important.
July 30: Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice. Presented by the author Waub Rice with Libby Stratton and Sally Braun
We are delighted that Waub has offered to join us again and he is making a special trip out to be with us. You may recall that he joined us a few years ago to present Moon on Crusted Snow.
Moon on Turning Leaves is a sequel to this post-apocalyptic novel as a brave scouting party of hunters and harvesters must venture into unknown and dangerous territory to find a new home for their close-knit but slowly starving Northern Ontario Indigenous community more than a decade after a world-ending blackout.
August 13: The Paris Deception by Bryn Turnbull. Presented by the author Bryn Turnbull and Cathie Singer
Bryn is an internationally bestselling author of historical fiction and has also written The Woman Before Wallis and The Last Grand Duchess.
Bryn focuses on finding stories of women lost within the cracks of the historical record. The Paris Deception is an exciting novel about art theft and forgery in Nazi-occupied Paris and two brave women who risk their lives rescuing looted masterpieces from Nazi destruction. I met Bryn when she presented this book in February – she was compelling and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing her share her experiences of her research and writing process. She is a Honey Harbour cottager and has agreed to join us on August 13. We are fortunate as she has a book launch on August 27 and is quite busy!
August 27: The Covenant of Water By Abraham Verghese. Presented by Dawn Drayton and Janet Burt.
Abraham Verghese also wrote Cutting for Stone. This book, The Covenant of Water, is a huge epic of love, faith and medicine set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret. It is a wonderful read. I recently listened to it and the author is the narrator and that recording is very well done.
Thank you so very much, everyone for their interest and to our presenters, Phyllis Lill, Jacquie Green, Libby Stratton, Sally Braun, Dawn Drayton and Janet Burt. We have a very interesting summer ahead of us with some terrific reads!!
Please contact me if you have any questions, or know of someone interested in joining us.
See you on July 2!
Cathie
Organizer: Carolyn Edwards
The SSCA Flashlight Readers kid’s book club invites you to participate in our Summer Reading Challenge! Please see the below chart for the challenge details of your age group and number of books needed to complete each award level. Once you have completed an award level (e.g. Quartz), please send an email to sscaprograms@gmail.com and tell us a little bit about one of the books you read (maybe we can suggest the book to other SSCA readers!).
You will be given a clue to find a hidden treasure box on the SSCA property. The treasure box has lots of fun prizes for the cottage – squid divers, ball returns, high flyers, sparkling hair barrettes, spray chalk paint, etc. Sign up today, and start your summer reading adventures!!!
Sans Souci and Copperhead Association