Book: Mao’s Last Dancer by Li Cunxin When: February 22, 2013 @ 7pm Where: Jenny’s House (see pingg invite) Synopsis: From a desperately poor village in northeast China, at age eleven, Li Cunxin was chosen by Madame Mao’s cultural delegates to be taken from his rural home and brought to…
Book: Rules of Civility by Amor Towles When: January 25, 2013 @ 7pm Where: Hayley’s House (see pingg invite) Synopsis: This sophisticated and entertaining first novel presents the story of a young woman whose life is on the brink of transformation. On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent…
Book: The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien When: November 30, 2012 @ 7pm Where: Amanda’s House (see pingg invite) Synopsis: The hobbit-hole in question belongs to one Bilbo Baggins, an upstanding member of a “little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded dwarves.” He is, like most of…
Book: Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card When: October 26, 2012 @ 7pm Where: Jenny’s House (see pingg invite) Synopsis: In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race’s next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew “Ender” Wiggin lives…
Book: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell When: September 28, 2012 @ 7pm Where: Rachel’s House (see pingg invite) Synopsis: Now that he’s gotten us talking about the viral life of ideas and the power of gut reactions, Malcolm Gladwell poses a more provocative question in Outliers: why do some people succeed,…
Book: Sarah’s Key by Tatiana Rosnay When: August 31, 2012 @ 7pm Where: TBD (See Pingg Invite) Synopsis: Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a…
Book: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle When: July 27, 2012 @ 7pm Where: Kelly’s House (See Pingg Invite) Synopsis: Everyone in town thinks Meg is volatile and dull-witted and that her younger brother Charles Wallace is dumb. People are also saying that their father has run off and left…
Book: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodges Burnett When: June 29, 2012 @ 7pm Where: Veronica’s House (See Pingg Invite) Synopsis: When orphaned Mary Lennox, lonely and sad, comes to live at her uncle’s great house on the Yorkshire moors, she finds it full of secrets. At night, she hears…
Book: Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer When: May 25, 2012 @ 7pm Where: Amanda’s House (See Pingg Invite) Synopsis: The blockbuster phenomenon that charts an amazing journey of the mind while revolutionizing our concept of memory An instant bestseller that is poised to become a classic, Moonwalking with Einstein recounts…
Book: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway When: April 27, 2012 @ 7pm Where: Ellie’s House (See Pingg Invite) Synopsis: The Sun Also Rises first appeared in 1926, and yet it’s as fresh and clean and fine as it ever was, maybe finer. Hemingway’s famously plain declarative sentences linger in the…