On Saturday Aug. 20 at 3:30 p.m. at the Captiva Memorial Library, there will be an adult book discussion of Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s classic novel, Dearly Beloved. “A June wedding sets the scene for Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s bestselling novel, Dearly Beloved. The ceremony is a great moment during which the “gathered together” survey not just this couple, this occasion, but their own lives, hopes, and fears. As the family and guests follow the familiar marriage service, they are stirred to new insights – on love, on marriage, and on all the stages of development involved. For the young and eager bridesmaid and best man, marriage still lies ahead; but for the mothers of the bride and groom, and for friends and relatives, the sight of the young couple and the words of the minister evoke more troubling thoughts and deeper questions. Anne Morrow Lindbergh wisely chose the framework of a wedding as a meditation on togetherness to contrast the questions she contemplated on solitude in her bestselling classic Gift from the Sea. The novel’s structure also gave her scope for her reflections – some of them autobiographical – and intuitions about the most crucial of human relationships, reflections she calls “a theme and variations.” This classic book, first published in 1962 and long out of print, illuminates the truths behind marriage, not with easy optimism, but with perception, compassion, candor and courage.” *

If you wish to join the discussion , or just want to read the book on your own, there are copies available to check-out.

If you enjoy literary fiction, these new titles may be to your taste as well:

The Secret History of Costaguana by Juan Gabriel Vasquez

“A bold historical novel from ‘one of the most original new voices of Latin American literature’ (Mario Vargas Llosa, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature). In the early 20th century, a struggling Joseph Conrad wrote his great novel Nostromo, about a South American republic he named Costaguana. It was inspired by the geography and history of Colombia, where Conrad spent only a few days. But in Juan Gabriel Vasquez’s novel The Secret History of Costaguana, we uncover the hidden source- and one of the great literary thefts. On the day of Joseph Conrad’s death in 1924, the Colombian-born Jos Altamirano begins to write and cannot stop. Many years before, he confessed to Conrad his life’s every delicious detail – from his country’s heroic revolutions to his darkest solitary moments. Conrad stole them all. Now Conrad is dead, but the slate is by no means clear – Nostromo will live on and Altamirano must write himself back into existence. As the destinies of real empires collide with the murky realities of imagined ones, Vasquez takes us from a flourishing 20th century London to the lawless fury of a blooming Panama and back. Tragic and despairing, comic and insightful, The Secret History of Costaguana is a masterpiece of historical invention. It will secure Juan Gabriel Vasquez’s place among the most original and exuberantly talented novelists working today.” *

King of the Badgers: A Novel by Philip Hensher

“Hanmouth, situated where the Hand River flows into the Bristol Channel, is usually quiet and undisturbed. But it becomes the center of national attention when an eight-year-old girl vanishes. This tragic event serves to expose the range of segregated existences in the town, as spectrums of class, wealth, and lifestyle are blurred in the investigation. Behind Hanmouth’s closed doors and pastoral faade, the extraordinary individual lives of the community are laid bare. The undisclosed passions of a quiet international aid worker are set against his wife, seemingly a paragon of virtue to the outside world, while a recently widowed old woman tells a story that details her late discovery of sexual gratification. And a group of gay men, known as the Bears, have a drug-fueled party. As the search for the missing girl continues, the case is made for increased surveillance, and old notions of privacy begin to crack. King of the Badgers is a powerful study of the vital importance of individuality and the increasingly intrusive hand of political powers. It is another devastating – but frequently very funny – portrait of England from one of its finest novelists.” *

Light from a Distant Star: a Novel by Mary McGarry

“It is early summer and Nellie Peck is on the cusp of adolescence gangly, awkward, full of questions, but keenly observant and wiser than many of the adults in her life. The person she most admires is her father, Benjamin, a man of great integrity. His family’s century old hardware store is failing and Nellie’s mother has had to go back to work. Nellie’s older half-sister has launched a disturbing search for her birth father. Often saddled through the long, hot days with her timid younger brother, Henry, Nellie is determined to toughen him up. And herself as well. Three strangers enter Nellie’s protected life. Brooding Max Devaney is an ex-con who works in her surly grandfather’s junkyard. Reckless Bucky Saltonstall has just arrived from New York City to live with his elderly grandparents. And pretty Dolly Bedelia is a young stripper who rents the family’s small, rear apartment and becomes the titillating focus of Nellie’s eavesdropping. When violence erupts in the lovely Peck house, the prime suspect seems obvious. Nellie knows who the real murderer is, but is soon silenced by fear and the threat of scandal. The truth, as she sees it, is shocking and unthinkable, and with everyone’s eyes riveted on her in the courtroom, Nellie finds herself seized with doubt. No one will listen. No one believes her, and a man’s life hangs in the balance. A stunning evocation of innocence lost, Light from a Distant Star stands as an incredibly moving and powerful novel from one of America’s finest writers.” *

The Ballad of Tom Dooley by Sharyn McCrumb

“A literary triumph – what began as a fictional re-telling of the historical account of one of the most famous mountain ballads of all time became an astonishing revelation of the real culprit responsible for the murder of Laura Foster Hang down your head, Tom Dooley The folk song, made famous by the Kingston Trio, recounts a tragedy in the North Carolina mountains after the Civil War. Laura Foster, a simple country girl, was murdered and her lover Tom Dula was hanged for the crime. The sensational elements in the case attracted national attention: a man and his beautiful, married lover accused of murdering the other-woman; the former governor of North Carolina spearheading the defense; and a noble gesture from the prisoner on the eve of his execution, saving the woman he really loved. With the help of historians, lawyers, and researchers, Sharyn McCrumb visited the actual sites, studied the legal evidence, and uncovered a missing piece of the story that will shock those who think they already know what happened – and may also bring belated justice to an innocent man. What seemed at first to be a sordid tale of adultery and betrayal was transformed by the new discoveries into an Appalachian Wuthering Heights. Tom Dula and Ann Melton had a profound romance spoiled by the machinations of their servant, Pauline Foster.Bringing to life the star-crossed lovers of this mountain tragedy, Sharyn McCrumb gifts understanding and compassion to her compelling tales of Appalachia, and solidifies her status as one of today’s great Southern writers.” *

* = Indicates book jacket/publisher description