Mom’s Book Nook – September 2015

by Meghan

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Happy Labor Day, y’all!  September has totally crept up on me, and so much is happening this month: school starts this week, Big M is turning 4… oh yeah, and technically, M3 is due this month too (but my babies never show up on time).  But it is the first Monday of the month and time to announce the book selection for Mom’s Book Nook, our virtual book club co-hosted each month with our fellow book-lover Laura at Sunny Day Family.  We had an awesome turnout last week for our second Facebook discussion for the group, and hope you all will be back to read with us again!

Mom's Book Nook - September 2015


Mom’s Book Nook – A Virtual Book Club

Last month’s book was Orphan Train by Christina Baker.  It tells the story of a wealthy widow and a teenage juvenile delinquent, both children of the foster system of their time with far more in common than one might think.  The story is fiction, but based on actual historical events that took place in the early 1900s here in the United States, when orphans were shipped via train from the East Coast to the Midwest.

The book was brilliantly written, and provided for a lively discussion via our monthly Facebook event last week.  I really enjoyed reading this interview with the author that Laura shared during our discussion, especially the author’s take on why Vivian gave up her own daughter for adoption.

September 2015 Book

As always, we got lots of great recommendations for books.  Since this one is now being made into a movie (and I love historical fiction), Laura and I chose The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah for September’s book.  One of my favorite reads of the last few years was Firefly Lane, also by Kristin Hannah, so I am eager to start this one!

About the Book

Set in France during WWII, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France … but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.

Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old girl, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gäetan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can … completely. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others.

About the Author

Kristin Hannah is an award-winning and bestselling author of more than 20 novels including Winter Garden, True Colors, and the blockbuster Firefly Lane.

Kristin was born in September 1960 in Southern California and grew up at the beach, making sand castles and playing in the surf. When she was eight years old, her father drove the family to Western Washington which they called home.

After working in a trendy advertising agency, Kristin decided to go to law school. “But you’re going to be a writer” are the prophetic words she would never forget from her mother. Kristin was in her third-and final-year of law school and her mom was in the hospital, facing the end of her long battle with cancer. Kristin was shocked to discover that her mother believed she would become a writer. For the next few months, they collaborated on a novel.  After her mom’s death, she packed up all those bits and pieces of paper and research they’d collected and put them in a box in the back of her closet. Kristin got married and continued practicing law.

Then Kristin found out she was pregnant and was on bed rest for five months. By the time she’d read every book in the house and started asking her husband for cereal boxes to read, she knew she was a goner. That’s when her husband reminded her of the book she’d started with her mom. Kristin pulled out the boxes of research material, dusted them off and began writing. By the time their son was born, she’d finished a first draft and found an obsession.

Monthly Mom’s Book Nook Discussion and Giveaway

Each month, we announce our book for the month on the first Monday of the month and host a virtual book club discussion via Facebook event on the last Monday of the month at 9PM ET.  All discussion participants can enter to win a $10 gift card to their choice of Barnes & Noble or Amazon to get next month’s book selection FREE!  We hope you all will join us for another month of great reading and fun book banter!

We are also now on Goodreads!  See all the books we’ve already read, what we thought, and invite your friends to join us.

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1 comment

1 comment

Mom's Book Nook - November 2015 ⋆ Playground Parkbench November 2, 2015 - 7:26 am

[…] a few months of heavier reading with Orphan Train in August and The Nightingale in September, we opted for an easier read and mystery for October, with Girl on a Train.  It did not […]

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