Friends of the Pacific Beach Library -- Book Discussion Group

The Pacific Beach Library Book Discussion Group is designed for all adult readers who want to talk about books, and provides an informal forum for the discussion of one selected book each month.

The Book Discussion Group normally meets in the Meeting Room/Gallery at the Pacific Beach/Taylor Library on the 2nd Thursday of every month, at 4:00 p.m.; however, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the group will meet virtually online via Zoom; please contact the Book Discussion Group Coordinator for details. At the January meeting, participants select the books that will be read by the Book Discussion Group throughout the rest of the year.

Copies of each month's selection may be picked up at the Pacific Beach/Taylor Library.

For additional information about the PB Library Book Discussion Group, please send email to our Book Discussion Group Coordinator via our Contact Us web page (==> Click Here <==).

		January 12 Meet to select titles for 2023.

		February 9 Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
	Set in Constantinople in the fifteenth century, in a small town in present-day Idaho, and on an interstellar ship decades from now, Anthony Doerr's gorgeous third novel is a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring story about children on the cusp of adulthood in worlds in peril, who find resilience, hope, and a book. In Cloud Cuckoo Land, Doerr has created a magnificent tapestry of times and places that reflects our vast interconnectedness with other species, with each other, with those who lived before us, and with those who will be here after we're gone.

		March 9 The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson
	Driven by a passion to understand how nature works and to turn discoveries into inventions, pioneering scientist Jennifer Doudna, along with her colleagues and rivals, turned a curiosity of nature into an invention that will transform the human race: an easy-to-use tool that can edit DNA. Known as CRISPR, this invention launched a revolution that will allow us to cure diseases, and fend off viruses. Isaacson explores the development of CRISPR and the race to create vaccines for coronavirus which will hasten our transition to the next great innovation revolution.

		April 13 The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War by Ben Macintyre
	The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, Oleg Gordievsky grew to see his nation's communism as both criminal and philistine. He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and became the Soviet Union's top man in London; but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6. Desperate to keep the circle of trust close, MI6 never revealed Gordievsky's name to its counterparts in the CIA, which in turn grew obsessed with figuring out the identity of Britain's obviously top-level source. The CIA officer assigned to identify him was Aldrich Ames, who would become infamous for secretly spying for the Soviets.

		May 11 The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson
	A head-to-toe tour of the marvel that is the human body. As compulsively readable as it is comprehensive, this book is a must-read owner's manual for everybody. Bill Bryson guides us through the human body—how it functions, its remarkable ability to heal itself, and (unfortunately) the ways it can fail. Full of extraordinary facts (your body made a million red blood cells since you started reading this) The Body will lead you to a deeper understanding of the miracle that is life in general and you in particular. As Bill Bryson writes, "We pass our existence within this wobble of flesh and yet take it almost entirely for granted." The Body will cure that indifference with generous doses of wondrous, compulsively readable facts and information.

		June 8 A Lovely Girl: the tragedy of Olga Duncan and the trial of one of California's most notorious killers by Deborah Holt Larkin
	Author Deborah Larkin was only ten years old when the quiet calm of her California suburb was shattered. Thirty miles north, on a quiet November night in Santa Barbara, a pregnant nurse named Olga Duncan disappeared from her apartment. When Olga's brutally beaten body is found in a shallow grave, apparently buried alive, a young DA makes it his mission to see that Elizabeth Duncan—Olga's deeply manipulative and deceptive mother-in-law—is brought to justice. Decades later, Larkin is determined to revisit the case and bring the story of Olga herself to light. Long overshadowed by sensationalism and scandal, A Lovely Girl seeks to reveal Olga as a woman in full—someone who was more than the twisted family that would ultimately ensnare her.

		July 13 Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith
	This book is a treatise on the evolution and nature of consciousness. It compares the situation in cephalopods, especially octopuses and cuttlefish, with that in mammals and birds. Complex active bodies that enable and perhaps require a measure of intelligence have evolved three times, in arthropods, cephalopods, and vertebrates. The book reflects on the nature of cephalopod intelligence in particular, constrained by their short lifespan, and embodied in large part in their partly autonomous arms which contain more nerve cells than their brains.

		August 10 Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
	A modern love story about two childhood friends, Sam, raised by an actress mother in LA's Koreatown, and Sadie, from the wealthy Jewish enclave of Beverly Hills, who reunite as adults to create video games, finding an intimacy in digital worlds that eludes them in their real lives.

		September 14 Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
	Set in 1960s California, this is the hilarious, idiosyncratic, and uplifting story of a female scientist whose career is constantly derailed by the idea that a woman's place is in the home. But it's the 1960s and despite the fact that she is a scientist, her peers are very unscientific when it comes to equality. The only good thing to happen to her on the road to professional fulfillment is a run-in with her super-star colleague Calvin Evans—the only man who ever treated her and her ideas as equal. But life is never as predictable as chemical reactions, three years later Elizabeth Zott is an unwed, single mother and the star of America's most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth's singular approach to cooking ("take one pint of H2O and add a pinch of sodium chloride") and her independent example are proving revolutionary. Elizabeth isn't just teaching women how to cook, she's teaching them how to change the status quo.

		October 12 Solito by Javier Zamora
	Javier Zamora'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, 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. 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.

		November 9 One Book, One San Diego selection to be announced
	Each year, in partnership with KPBS, the San Diego Public Library brings together our community and encourages residents to join others in the shared experience of reading the same book. This year's One Book, One San Diego selection will be announced in the summer.

		December 14 Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
	Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities. Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.

		January 11 (2024) Meet to select titles for 2024.

		February 8 (2024) The Song of the Cell by Siddhartha Mukherjee
	The discovery of cells—and the reframing of the human body as a cellular ecosystem—announced the birth of a new kind of medicine based on the therapeutic manipulations of cells. A hip fracture, a cardiac arrest, Alzheimer's, dementia, AIDS, pneumonia, lung cancer, kidney failure, arthritis, COVID—all could be viewed as the results of cells, or systems of cells, functioning abnormally. And all could be perceived as loci of cellular therapies. In The Song of the Cell, Mukherjee tells the story of how scientists discovered cells, began to understand them, and are now using that knowledge to create new treatments and new humans.

Although not selected for a Book Discussion Group meeting, voracious readers might be interested in the following book suggestions from members of the Pacific Beach Library Book Discussion Group.

Call Number	Author(s)	Title
B BERNSTEIN	Bernstein, Carl	*Chasing History*
FIC BOHJALIAN	Bohjalian, Chris	*The Lioness*
FIC BROOKS	Brooks, Geraldine	*Horse*
567.9 BRUSATTE	Brusatte, Steve	*The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs : A New History of a Lost World*
not in system	Buonaguro, Gina	*The Virgins of Venice*
338.7 CARREYROU	Carreyrou, John	*Bad blood : secrets and lies in a Silicon Valley startup*
614.59241 CHAN	Chan, Alina & Matt Ridley	*Viral : The Search for the Origin of Covid-19*
FIC COLLINS	Collins, Bridget	*The Binding*
FIC CRICHTON	Crichton, Michael	*The Andromeda Strain*
576.5 DAWKINS	Dawkins, Richard	*The Selfish Gene*
971.8 DEFEDE	DeFede, Jim	*The Day the World Came to Town : 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland*
FIC ECO	Eco, Umberto	*Baudolino*
516 ELLENBERG	Ellenberg, Jordan	*Shape : The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else*
FIC ELLISON	Ellison, Ralph	*Invisible Man*
153.9309 GOULD	Gould, Stephen Jay	*The Mismeasure of Man*
973 SIXTEEN	Hannah-Jones, Nikole (ed)	*The 1619 Project*
153.35 HARFORD	Harford, Tim	*Messy : The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives*
364.1523 KEEFE	Keefe, Patrick Radden	*Say Nothing : A true story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland*
on order	Kidder, Tracy	*Rough Sleepers : Dr. Jim O'connell's Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People*
B KNIGHT	Knight, Phil	*Shoe Dog : A Memoir by the Creator of Nike*
364.152 LARSON	Larson, Erik	*Thunderstruck*
271.90045 LAVEN	Laven, Mary	*Virgins of Venice*
not in system	Litteken, Erin	*The Memory Keeper of Kyiv*
B MARDINI	Mardini, Yusra	*Butterfly : from refugee to Olympian - my story of rescue, hope, and triumph*
SCI-FI FIC MILLER	Miller, Walter M. Jr.	*A Canticle for Leibowitz*
616.042 MUKHERJEE	Mukherjee, Siddhartha	*The Gene*
not in system	Nelson, Andrea	*Fort Unicorn & the Duchess of Knowthing*
YA FIC PATTERSON	Patterson, James	*The Girl in the Castle*
B PERRY	Perry, Matthew	*Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing : A Memoir*
581.6 POLLAN	Pollan, Michael	*This Is Your Mind on Plants*
FIC POWERS	Powers, Richard	*Bewilderment*
591.562 PRUM	Prum, Richard O.	*The Evolution of Beauty*
B GOILLOT	Purnel, Sonia	*A Woman of No Importance*
591.38 QUAMMEN	Quammen, David	*The Tangled Tree*
FIC SCHLINK	Schlink, Bernhard	*Olga*
B WINDSORL	Sebba, Anne	*That Woman, the Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor*
822.33 SHAKESPEARE	Shakespeare, William	*Hamlet*
FIC TARTT	Tartt, Donna	*The Secret History*
FIC TOIBIN	Toibin, Colm	*The Magician*
FIC TOWLES	Towles, Amor	*A Gentleman in Moscow*
FIC TOWLES	Towles, Amor	*The Lincoln Highway*