First Thursday

Born in a village in the heartland of India, Balram, the son of a rickshaw puller, is taken out of school by his family and put to work in a teashop. As he crushes coals and wipes tables, he nurses a dream of escape--of breaking away from the banks of Mother Ganga, into whose depths have seeped the remains of a hundred generations.  The White Tiger is a tale of two Indias.  Balram's journey from the darkness of village life to the light of entrepreneurial success is utterly amoral, brilliantly irreverent, deeply endearing and altogether unforgettable.  Winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize.

Set in a small Wisconsin farming and manufacturing town still crumbling a decade after the depression of the 1890s, A Reliable Wife tells the story of Ralph Truitt, a wealthy businessman who advertises for "a reliable wife" in newspapers across America.  The woman he chooses describes herself as a "simple, honest woman," but in truth she is both complex and devious.  Catherine's plan in accepting the marriage offer is simple: she will win this man's devotion, and then she will poison him and leave Wisconsin a wealthy widow.  What she has not counted on is the passion she finds in this seemingly solid, forthright man.

Be prepared to meet three unforgettable women in Mississippi in 1962: twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss; Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child; and Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk.

Please note that the First Thursday book group will be meeting on the second Thursday for December's meeting.