Author, Dorothy Read, to visit Coulee City. 

Cover Book Group will host a book signing on October 6, 2011 at 6:30pm in the ACH-HS Commons. Seven times published author, Dorothy Read, and Ilse Evelijin Veere Smit will discuss their newly released book, End the Silence. Mrs. Read will speak about the writing process for fiction and nonfiction, publising issues, and how End the Silence came to life through the memories of Ilse Evelijin Veere Smit. Everyone is invited to meet the author of this worthwhile book and the woman whose amazing story it tells.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett has been a popular book club selection since it was first published.  Many book groups are still patiently waiting their turn to receive the book.  Book club copies are still scheduled out to groups until November 2012!!  

The Help takes place in Mississippi in1962.  It is the story of three women who form a friendship.  Skeeter is from a well to do Mississippi family.  She is in her early 20’s and has just returned home after college graduation.  All of her friends are married, they have children, and all are from well to do families.  These young women grew up with black maids, and each now has a black maid taking care of her home and family.  Skeeter gets together with her friends, meeting at their homes, watching how they treat their maids, and she does not like what she sees.  She becomes friends with one of the maids named Aibileen, and talks her into telling her story, so that Skeeter can write a book about “the help”.  Eventually another black maid named Minnie comes forward to tell her story.  Eventually many more come forward.  Remember this is 1962 a scary time for these black women to come forward and tell their stories. Of course there is a lot more to the book, but I do not want to ruin it for anyone who has not read the book.

It is a wonderful book to read but also it was a wonderful book to make into a movie.  The movie was released this summer.  I was very excited to see it.  I was so excited that I called a friend wondering if she had read the book.  She had not.  I happen to own a copy, and lent it to her so she could read it before we saw the movie.  As all readers know the movie is never as good as the book, but I have to say I am not alone in thinking this movie is excellent and it followed the book. Comments I am hearing are : we loved it, the screen play was very accurate, casting was great, and one of the book clubs that went together to see it thought the movie was better then the book!!  If you have not read The Help, I recommend that you do and also go see the movie with your best friends. 

My name is Paula Walters and I am the Book Club Coordinator for NCRL.  I love my job.  I furnish books for over 300 book clubs in our region.  With an average of ten people in each club, wow that is a lot of readers.

NCRL had an exciting Spring.  We had four authors speak at the Wenatchee Library in the month of May.  Every year we invite some of the authors that are involved in Write on the River to speak at the Wenatchee Library.  This year the authors that spoke were Chelsea Cain, Sarahlee Lawrence, Naseem Rakha and Terri Dulong.

Chelsea Cain writes thriller novels about the detective Archie Sheridan. Chelsea is a local author living in Portland Oregon, where the novels take place.  "The Night Season" is her fourth novel in the series.  I do not read thrillers, but Chelsea was such an entertaining speaker, that I now have her on my list of authors to read.  She was extremely funny.  We had a great audience with lots of questions and she had us laughing the entire time.  If you have never attended our author events, please do!!  Chelsea's program was on a Friday afternoon. What a nice way to spend a sunny Spring afternoon.

Naseem Rakha is also a local author living in Oregon. Her novel "The Crying Tree" is amazing. It tells the story of a mother who must overcome the hate, grief and secrets that surround the murder of her 15 year old son. I am pretty good at guessing what is going to happen in a book, but this time I was blown away by some of the secrets that developed.  I highly recommend this novel.  Naseem does an excellent job wriitng about the legal system, the prison system and dysfunctional families.

Sarahlee Lawrence claims that she is not an author but I disagee.   My book club read her memoir, "The River House" and we had a great discussion about the book.  It was her thesis project and she was lucky enough to get it published as a best selling memoir.  It is the story of her return home to her parents ranch in central Oregon.  She and her father work together to build her log home.  It is a story of their frustration and joy as they work together.  She was a delightful speaker.  She was on the same Sunday afternoon program with Naseem Rakha, and she was blown away by Naseem's talk.  She was a little overwhelmed when she began but pulled it together and was  great.  But she did keep demanding that she is not really an author!! I do hope she continues to write!!

Terri Dulong was the last author speaking on Tuesday evening.  Terri was involved with Write on the River, but she came to us because of a relationship she has with one of our Quincy Book Clubs.  One of the members of the Coffee Cup Reader's met Terri on a trip to Florida.  The group read her novel, and then skyped Terri, and a relationship began.  Terri is the author of the Cedar Key Series which takes place in Florida where she lives.  At the Wenatchee program she read from and discussed her second novel in the series, "Casting About".  The first novel is "Spinning Forward".  This series is about the relationships between mother and daughers, sisters and friends and of course knitting!  Terri was an interesting speaker.  She told the story of how she began writing and the story is amazing.  If I remember correctly she was instantly published without even one rewrite.  Correct me Coffee Cup Readers if I am wrong. She has been asked to write at least two more novels in the series.  A big thank you to this book club for suggesting that she speak in Wenatchee.  They had a whirlwind week with her the previous week in Quincy.

I would love to hear from anyone who has read any of these books.  Also  I would love ideas on which authors you would like us to bring to your library.