Book Club

A RELAXING TIME

FIRST PRES Evanston BOOK CLUB

A long-standing tradition at FPCE, the Community Nurse Book Club has been meeting for over a decade.

Meeting every 6 to 8 weeks, the book club has read an incredible variety of titles, from classics like “A Catcher in the Rye” to spy thrillers and even the occasional young adult title.

No invitation is necessary to take part. Just read the book and show up!

At the end of each meeting, new books are nominated and one is chosen by consensus.

Previous Book Club Books:

The Women – Kristin Hannah

Mao’s Last Dancer – Li Cunxin

The Reading List – Sara Nisah Adams

Olay for Now – Gary Schmidt

Wednesday Wars – Gary Schmidt

The Sweetness of Forgiving – Kristin Harmel

Abide with Me – Elizabeth Stout

Peace Live a River – Leif Enger

The Lincoln Highway – Amor Towles

The Ride or her Life – Elizabeth Letts

Remains of the Day – Kazou Ishiguro

The Last Flight – Julie Clark

Oh, Caldonia – Elspeth Barker

Clark and Division – Naomi Hirahara

Last Book Shop in London – Madeline Martin

The Personal Librarian – Heather Terrell and Victoria Chrstopher Murray

The Kitchen Front – Jennifer Ryan

Elephant Company – Vicki Constantine Croke

Anxious People – Fredrik Backman

Midnight Library – Matt Haig

Code Name Helene – Ariel Lawhon

Becoming – Michelle Obama

I am Malala – Malala Yousaufsei

The Book of Lost Friends – Lisa Wingate

Redhead by the Side of the Road – Anne Tyler

Meet Me at the Museum – Anne Youngson

The Vanishing ½ – Brit Bennett

Ordinary Grace – William Kent Krueger

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk – Kathleen Rooney

The Daughters of Yalta – Catherine Katz

The Dutch House – Ann Patchett

This Tender Land – Kent Krueger

The Red Address Book – Sofia Lundgren

Clara and Mr. Tiffany – Susan Vreeland

Lady Clementine – Marie Benedict

The Giver of Stars – JoJo Moyes

Daughter of Moloka’i – Alan Brennert

Where the Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens

The Personal History of Rachel Dupree – Ann Weisgartner

The Secrets Between Us – Thrity Umrigar

Becoming Mrs. Lewis – Patti Callahan

Educated – Tara Westover

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress – Dai Sijie

Pachinko – Min Jin Lee

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman

Before We Were Yours – Lisa Wingate

Moloka’i – Alan Brennert

As Bright as Heaven – Susan Meissner

Snow Falling on Cedars – David Guterson

The Kitchen House – Kathleen Grissom

Year of Wonders – Geraldine Brooks

Teatime for the Firefly – Shona Patel

The Alice Network – Kate Quinn

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane – Lisa See

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry – Rachel Joyce

An Invisible Thread – Laura Schroff

La’s Orchestra Saves the World – Alexander McCall Smith

Commonwealth – Ann Patchett

Seven Women and the Secrets of their Greatness – Eric Metaxas

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot

Be Frank with Me – Julia Clairborne Johnson

The Last Chinese Chef – Nicole Mones

When Breath Becomes Air – Paul Kalanthi

The Rosie Project – Graeme Simsion

Desert Queen-The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell – Janet Wollach

My Name is Lucy Barton – Elizabeth Strout

Baking Cakes in Kigali – Gaile Parkin

The Miniaturist – Jessie Burton

A Man Called Ove – Fredrick Backman

The New Jim Crow – Michelle Alexander

All the Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doerr

Mary Coin – Marisa Silver

Empty Mansions – Bill Dedman

Little Bee – Chris Cleve

The Boys in the Boat – Daniel James Brown

An Unnecessary Woman – Rabih Alameddine

The Paris Wife – Paula McRain

Orphan Train – Christina Bake Kline

Nothing to Envy – Barbara Demick

Olive Kitteridge – Elizabeth Strout

Americanah – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

How it all Began – Penelope Lively

A Woman in Berlin – Anonymous

The Art of Hearing Heartbeats – Jan Philipp Sendker

The Lemon Tree – Sandy Tolin

Plainsong – Kent Haruf

The Namesake – Jhumpa Lahiri

Ordinary Grace – William Kent Krueger

Me Before You – Jojo Moyes

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand – Helen Simonson

The Samurai’s Garden – Hail Tsukiyama

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society – Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

The Book Thief – Marcus Zuzak

The Space Between Us – Thrity Umrigar

The Art of Racing in the Rain – Garth Stein

The Elegance of the Hedgehog – Muriel Barbery

The Kitchen Boy-Robert Alexander Unbroken – Laura Hillenbrand

The Gift of Years – Joan Chittisler

Our Current Book:

Book club to discuss “Next Year in Havana”

January 7, 2025 @ 1:30 pm - 3:00 pm

Our next book club meeting will be on Tuesday, January 7, 1:30-3 p.m. We will be reading Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton. Summarized by Amazon, the book tells the story of a Cuban American woman who travels to Havana after the death of her grandmother. There, she discovers the roots of her identity—and unearths a family secret hidden since the revolution.