The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
by David Wroblewski

Don’t pick up this book because Oprah told you to. Don’t read it because it’s one of the best reviewed books of 2008. Read it because you haven’t read and American novel this great in a very long time. Read it because it’s not every day you get Hamlet meets Where the Red Fern Grows or characters so richly drawn that your heart aches for them. most of all, read it because it’s a book filled with wonder and beauty that you will hold in your heart long after you read the last page.

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky
by Heidi W. Durrow

While my next reading assignments languished on my bookshelf, I read this debut novel compulsively, start to finish, not expecting to be consumed by the story to the extent that I was. But like Rachel, I fell and couldn’t stop. The timely, painful truths of Rachel, her parents, and her society are much too credible: poverty, the angst of racial conflict and identity that kids are made to feel, the schism between loyalty to family and survival. I wanted to write to Rachel – “Don’t give up! You can make it.” Every book club should read this one. (P.S. – And it won Barbara Kingsolver’s Bellwether Prize)

A Country Called Home
by Kim Barnes

Young newlyweds abandon the comfort of upper-class Connecticut and stake their claim in 1960s Fife, Idaho. This wrenchingly gripping novel of passion, loyalty and consequences also captures the rugged beauty of the Idaho landscape. Kim Barnes, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, is from Idaho.

Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives
by Peter Orner, Luis Alberto Urrea

Important and timely. This is perfect for bulking up your pro-immigration arguments. Featuring personal stories of undocumented immigrants from all over the world, this book is eye-opening and powerful.

The Stone Diaries
by Carol Shields, Penelope Lively

What makes a life? The people we know? The events we witness? The places we live? The illnesses we suffer? This is the theme explored in this monumental, original novel. From the moment of her calamitous birth, Daisy Goodwill Flett mesmerizes the reader with her compelling inner voice and her enticing unavailability. Because how well can we really know or trust this woman chronicling her own life? Told through a series of increasingly more interesting narrative techniques, “The Stone Diaries” is a stunning example of what good literature can be.

What are we reading in Wickedly Chic land? Recently finished “America Anonymous” by Benoit Denizet-Lewis…this non-fiction book shares the lives of 8 addicts…each with a different addiction. Right now, finishing “Love in the Driest Season” by Neely Tucker..also non-fiction..about a couple who adopt an abandoned child in Zimbabwe.