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Oshtemo Book Group

Oshtemo Book Group

Dates, Location

  • Meetings held on the second Tuesday of each month
  • 1 pm at the Oshtemo Branch Library
  • Phone 269-553-7986 for more information

Join us at the Oshtemo Branch to discuss best-sellers and little known gems with other book lovers. The Oshtemo Book Group meets the the second Tuesday of each month for a lively discussion of thought-provoking fiction. Oshtemo Branch lead librarian Martha Lohrstorfer leads the discussion.

To get the most from the discussion, please read the book before we discuss. Come join us!

Current Schedule

March 9, 2010 - Mercy by Toni MorrisonMarch 9, 2010 - Mercy
Morrison, Toni
2008
Starred Review. Nobel laureate Morrison returns more explicitly to the net of pain cast by slavery, a theme she detailed so memorably in Beloved. Set at the close of the 17th century, the book details America's untoward foundation: dominion over Native Americans, indentured workers, women and slaves. A slave at a plantation in Maryland offers up her daughter, Florens, to a relatively humane Northern farmer, Jacob, as debt payment from their owner. The ripples of this choice spread to the inhabitants of Jacob's farm, populated by women with intersecting and conflicting desires. Jacob's wife, Rebekka, struggles with her faith as she loses one child after another to the harsh New World. A Native servant, Lina, survivor of a smallpox outbreak, craves Florens's love to replace the family taken from her, and distrusts the other servant, a peculiar girl named Sorrow. When Jacob falls ill, all these women are threatened. Morrison's lyricism infuses the shifting voices of her characters as they describe a brutal society being forged in the wilderness. Morrison's unflinching narrative is all the more powerful for its relative brevity; it takes hold of the reader and doesn't let go until the wrenching final-page crescendo.
April 13, 2010 - Dewey: the small-town library cat who touched the world by Vicki MyronApril 13, 2010 - Dewey: the small-town library cat who touched the world
Myron, Vicki
Call Number: 636.80929 M9984
2008
 One frigid Midwestern winter night in 1988, a ginger kitten was shoved into the after-hours book-return slot at the public library in Spencer, Iowa. And in this tender story, Myron, the library director, tells of the impact the cat, named DeweyReadmore Books, had on the library and its patrons, and on Myron herself. Through her developing relationship with the feline, Myron recounts the economic and social history of Spencer as well as her own success story despite an alcoholic husband, living on welfare, and health problems ranging from the difficult birth of her daughter, Jodi, to breast cancer. After her divorce, Myron graduated college (the first in her family) and stumbled into a library job. She quickly rose to become director, realizing early on that this was a job I could love for the rest of my life. Dewey, meanwhile, brings disabled children out of their shells, invites businessmen to pet him with one hand while holding the Wall Street Journal with the other, eats rubber bands and becomes a media darling. The book is not only a tribute to a cat anthropomorphized to a degree that can strain credulity (Dewey plays hide and seek with Myron, can read her thoughts, is mortified by his hair balls) it's a love letter to libraries.
May 11, 2010 – Readers Choice: bring your favorites to share! by May 11, 2010 – Readers Choice: bring your favorites to share!