Surrey Book Club

UPDATE: I have swapped the February book out as Your Absence is Darkness is not an easy read. We will now be reading Anxious People by Fredrik Backman. See details below.

This book is available through Surrey Public Libraries with 5 copies as a book, 3 copies as e-book, 2 copies as audiobook, and Audiobook CD and large print and DAISY as options.
Genres: Fiction
Title: Fiction: Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
Approximate Reading Time: 10 hours

Synopsis: A poignant, charming novel about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined

Looking at real estate isn't usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. The captives include a recently retired couple who relentlessly hunt down fixer-uppers to avoid the painful truth that they can't fix up their own marriage. There's a wealthy banker who has been too busy making money to care about anyone else and a young couple who are about to have their first child but can't seem to agree on anything, from where they want to live to how they met in the first place. Add to the mix an eighty-seven-year-old woman who has lived long enough not to be afraid of someone waving a gun in her face, a flustered but still-ready-to-make-a-deal real estate agent, and a mystery man who has locked himself in the apartment's only bathroom, and you've got the worst group of hostages in the world.

Each of them carries a lifetime of grievances, hurts, secrets, and passions that are ready to boil over. None of them is entirely who they appear to be. And all of them—the bank robber included—desperately crave some sort of rescue. As the authorities and the media surround the premises, these reluctant allies will reveal surprising truths about themselves and set in a motion a chain of events so unexpected that even they can hardly explain what happens next.

Humorous, compassionate, and wise, Anxious People is an ingeniously constructed story about the enduring power of friendship, forgiveness, and hope—the things that save us, even in the most anxious of times.

Note: The author of this book is local to North Delta and will be joining us at this Meetup.

This book is available through Surrey Public Libraries with multiple copies available as a book and e-book. It is also available through the library in North Delta.

The holds list is quite long for the both the book and e-book. Please be sure to put your hold request in as soon as possible.

Genres: Fiction
Title: The Wedding: A Novel by Gurjinder Basran
Approximate Reading Time: 7-8 hours

Synopsis: You’re invited to The Wedding, an electrifying novel about the joining of two South Asian families, and the secrets, resentments, and unspoken truths boiling just beneath the surface.

Interweaving themes of identity, culture clashes, and the immigrant experience as found in The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri with the exuberance and sharp humour of Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians, Gurjinder Basran delivers a wide-ranging but intimate portrait of a vibrant, complex Sikh community.

Set in Vancouver and Surrey, BC, The Wedding exposes the inner lives of the wedding party, guests and event staff, in the lead-up to a lavish wedding. This novel, centered around the impending marriage of Devi and Baby, illustrates the union of two people, two families and all the ways in which an entire community bears witness, ensnares and uplifts itself.

Like all great Bollywood films, The Wedding is rife with family drama, steeped in tradition and an ode to love in all its forms. With humour, nuance and honesty, The Wedding spills the chai—exploring desire and expectation, suffering and judgment, class and race—all in search of a happy enough ever after.

This book is available at the Surrey Libraries as a book, downloadable audiobook, and e-book. There is a considerable waitlist for the e-book and audiobook formats.
Genres: Fantasy
Book: The Book That Wouldn’t Burn by Mark Lawrence
Approximate Reading Time: 22.5 hours
Synopsis: A boy has lived his whole life trapped within a vast library, older than empires and larger than cities.

A girl has spent hers in a tiny settlement out on the Dust where nightmares stalk and no one goes.

The world has never even noticed them. That's about to change.

Their stories spiral around each other, across worlds and time. This is a tale of truth and lies and hearts, and the blurring of one into another. A journey on which knowledge erodes certainty, and on which, though the pen may be mightier than the sword, blood will be spilled and cities burned.

## Details

This book is available through Surrey Public Libraries as a book, large print book, downloadable audiobook and e-book. All versions are available.
Genres: Non-Fiction, Memoir, Biography
Book: Off the Record by Peter Mansbridge
Approximate Time to Read: 9 hours

Synopsis:
Peter Mansbridge invites us to walk the beat with him in this entertaining and revealing look into his life and career, from his early broadcasting days in the remote northern Manitoba community of Churchill to the fast-paced news desk of CBC’s flagship show, The National, where he reported on stories from around the world.

Today, Peter Mansbridge is often recognized for his distinctive deep voice, which calmly delivered the news for over fifty years. But ironically, he never considered becoming a broadcaster. In some ways, though, Peter was prepared for a life as a newscaster from an early age. Every night around the dinner table, his family would debate the news of the day, from Cold War scandals and Vietnam to Elvis Presley and the Beatles.

So in 1968, when by chance a CBC radio manager in Churchill, Manitoba, offered him a spot hosting the local late night music program, Peter embraced the opportunity. Without a teacher, he tuned into broadcasts from across Canada, the US, and the UK to learn the basic skills of a journalist and he eventually parlayed his position into his first news job. Less than twenty years later, he became the chief correspondent and anchor of The National.

With humour and heart, Peter shares never-before-told stories from his distinguished career, including reporting on the fall of the Berlin Wall and the horror of 9/11, walking the beaches of Normandy with Tom Brokaw, and talking with Canadian prime ministers from John Diefenbaker to Justin Trudeau. But it’s far from all serious. Peter also writes about finding the “cure” for baldness in China and landing the role of Peter Moosebridge in Disney’s Zootopia. From the first (and only) time he was late to broadcast to his poignant interview with the late Gord Downie, these are the moments that have stuck with him.

After years of interviewing others, Peter turns the lens on himself and takes us behind the scenes of his life on the frontlines of journalism as he reflects on the toll of being in the spotlight, the importance of diversity in the newsroom, the role of the media then and now, and the responsibilities we all bear as citizens in an increasingly global world.