Members of JMRL’s Brown Baggers Book Group are demonstrably adept at discussing themes, characters, and fascinating twists each month — but for December, members put those sharp minds to good use by selecting books to read for the upcoming year! As debate can be good-spiritedly raucous, this year members submitted suggestions ahead of time so their decisions could be well-informed. At our meeting, we then had time to relax, enjoy some holiday treats, and vote for favorites.

It may not seem so at first, but the group picking process does have some method to it. With a group of varying tastes and preferences, a yearly list isn’t complete until it contains a mix of non-fiction and fictional titles, books old and new, and from authors of different backgrounds. There’s still time to get cracking on our January selection, Bleak House by Charles Dickens and we have some exciting additional programs planned for our February and March selections.

A list of our titles is below, or you can always double check JMRL’s wiki for previous and upcoming selections.

February: Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
March: Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan – Big Read 2013 title
April: House of Stone: a Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East by Anthony Shadid
May: American Pastoral by Philip Roth
June: Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
July: A Train in Winter: an Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France by Caroline Moorehead
August: Canada by Richard Ford
September: A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
October: Master of the Mountain by Henry Wiencek
November: Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan
[no December selection – meet to pick books for 2014]
January 2014: Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver