Book Cafe



Good friends, good food, good books and good conversation

 

Our next book is Out of Darkness Shining Light by Patina Gappah. Goodreads says: “This is how we carried out of Africa the poor broken body of Bwana Daudi, the Doctor, David Livingstone, so that he could be borne across the sea and buried in his own land.” So begins Petina Gappah's powerful novel of exploration and adventure in nineteenth-century Africa—the captivating story of the loyal men and women who carried explorer and missionary Dr. Livingstone's body, his papers and maps, fifteen hundred miles across the continent of Africa, so his remains could be returned home to England and his work preserved there. Narrated by Halima, the doctor's sharp-tongued cook, and Jacob Wainwright, a rigidly pious freed slave, this is a story that encompasses all of the hypocrisy of slavery and colonization—the hypocrisy at the core of the human heart—while celebrating resilience, loyalty, and love."
 
 Petina Gappah is a Zimbabwean writer with law degrees from Cambridge, Graz University, and the University of Zimbabwe. Her short fiction and essays have been published in eight countries. She lives with her son Kush in Geneva, where she works as counsel in an international organisation that provides legal aid on international trade law to developing countries.
 
This year we have scheduled all of our books at once. After reading Out of Darkness, we will be reading:
Jan 9, 2020: Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patti Callahan
March 24, 2020: The Beach House by Mary Alice Monroe
May 26, 2020: The State of Wonder by Ann Pachett

Books we have read:

 The Lost Choice by Andy Andrews

The First Phone Call From Heaven by Mitch Albom

The All Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion by Fannie  Flagg

A Storm Came Up by Doug Segriest

Innocense Lost by Beth Gregory

The Cathedral by the Sea by Ildefonso Falcones

Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen by Susan Greg Gilmore

The Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

The Left Overs by Tom Perrotta

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

The Jabbok by the Right Rev. Kee Sloan

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr 

 Middlesex by Jeffrey  Eugenides

The Tilted World  by  Beth Ann Fennelly and Tom Franklin 

In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume 

The Secret History  by Donna Tartt

The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende

Sunday Dinner by Ann Boult Walling

Swaying in the Treetops by Scott and Katherine Rosenow.

 Be Frank With Me by 

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

15 Dogs by Andre Alexis

The Whole Town is Talking  by Fannie Flagg

The Advocate  by Randy Singer

Where the Light Gets in: Losing My Mother Only to Find Her Again by Kimberly Williams-Paisley

A Little Magic by Billy Coffee

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

Sing, Unburied, Sing  by Jesmyn Ward

 The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea

Winter Garden by Kristen Hannah

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

The Bookshop of Yesterdays by Amy Meyerson