Robins AFB Library: Robins Reads-100 Pages Book Club

A young librarian and an old curmudgeon forge the unlikeliest of friendships in this charming, feel-good novel about one misfit book club and the lives (and loves) it changed along the way. Sloane Parker lives a small, contained life as a librarian in her small, contained town. She never thinks of herself as lonely...but still she looks forward to that time every day when old curmudgeon Arthur McLachlan comes to browse the shelves and cheerfully insult her. Their sparring is such a highlight of Sloane's day that when Arthur doesn't show up one morning, she's instantly concerned. And then another day passes, and another. Anxious, Sloane tracks the old man down only to discover him all but bedridden...and desperately struggling to hide how happy he is to see her. Wanting to bring more cheer into Arthur's gloomy life, Sloane creates an impromptu book club. Slowly, the lonely misfits of their sleepy town begin to find each other, and in their book club, find the joy of unlikely friendship. Because as it turns out, everyone has a special book in their heart-and a reason to get lost (and eventually found) within the pages. Books have a way of bringing even the loneliest of souls together...

"Beautifully written. . . . I'm still thinking about the women who inhabited these pages, the choices they made, and the love between them." -Lisa See, New York Times bestselling author of The Island of Sea Women "I fell in love with this jewel of a novel from the first page." -Amy Tan, New York Times bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club Indie Next List Pick | Target Book Club Pick|Publisher's Marketplace Buzz Books Selection | San Francisco Bay Time Top of Your Stack Selection | Booklist Queen Most Popular Book Releases | Bar/Heart Substack 18 New Books to Read | Literally by Scribd Best New Books and Audiobooks Inspired by her own Iranian-American heritage, the acclaimed author weaves a beautifully crafted story of mothers and daughters, secrets and lies, and defying expectations--even when those choices come with an irrevocable cost. Twelve months after her younger sister Anahita's death, Mitra Jahani reluctantly returns to her parents' home in suburban New Jersey to observe the Iranian custom of "The One Year." Ana is always in Mitra's heart, though they chose very different paths. While Ana, sweet and dutiful, bowed to their domineering father's demands and married, Mitra rebelled, and was banished. Caught in the middle is their mother, Shireen, torn between her fierce love for her surviving daughter and her loyalty to her husband. Yet his callousness even amid shattering loss has compelled her to rethink her own decades of submission. And when Mitra is suddenly forced to confront hard truths about her sister's life, and the secrets each of them hid to protect others, mother and daughter reach a new understanding--and forge an unexpected path forward. Alive with the tensions, sacrifices, and joys that thrum within the heart of every family, In the Time of Our History is also laced with the richness of ancient and modern Persian culture and politics, in a tale that is both timeless and profoundly relevant. "Luminous." - Publishers Weekly "A sprawling story of loss and healing in the immigrant experiences of an Iranian American family... This vibrant story is told in intricate, heartfelt detail." - Foreword Reviews "[An] immersive tale of a first-generation immigrant determined to blaze her own path." - Booklist

For readers of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale comes a thrilling feminist dystopian novel set in an alternative history that terrifyingly imagines what a British alliance with Germany would look like if the Nazis had won WWII.
To control the past, they edited history. To control the future, they edited literature.
LONDON, 1953. Thirteen years have passed since England surrendered to the Nazis and formed a Grand Alliance with Germany. It was forced to adopt many of its oppressive ideologies, one of which was the strict classification of women into hierarchical groups based on the perceived value they brought to society.
Rose Ransom, a member of the privileged Geli class, remembers life from before the war but knows better than to let it show. She works for the Ministry of Culture, rewriting the classics of English literature to ensure there are no subversive thoughts that will give women any ideas.
Outbreaks of insurgency have been seen across the country with graffiti made up of seditious lines from forbidden works by women painted on public buildings. Suspicion has fallen on Widowland, the run-down slums where childless women over fifty have been banished. Rose is given the dangerous task of infiltrating Widowland to find the source of the rebellion before the Leader arrives in England for the Coronation ceremony of King Edward VIII and Queen Wallis.
Will Rose follow her instructions and uncover the criminals? Or will she fight for what she knows in her heart is right?