JANUARY'S BOOK

Wednesday, January 24^th @ 10:00 am 

The January book club read is The History of Love by Nicole Krauss.  The NY Times Bestseller was a 2006 finalist for the Orange Prize for Fiction and won the 2008 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing for fiction. Krauss’s novel is filled with twist and turns that create a captivating story about love, loss, and survival.

Krauss’s main character, Leo Gursky, is a man who fell in love at the age of ten with his neighbor named Alma, and he writes a book about their love. Hiding during WWII, he places the book in his best friend’s hands for protection. When he attempts to retrieve his manuscript, he is told the book was destroyed. Sixty years later he lives in America, a heart-broken old man who taps on his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbor know he's still alive.  What Leo does not know is that his book has been published under another - his best friends name and it is inspiring readers to live and love. 

Fourteen-year-old Alma’s mother lives and breathes by Leo’s book, but when widowed she loses herself in depression and loneliness. Alma, in hopes of saving her family, undertakes the quest to find her namesake in the book – the love of Leo’s life.  
Will Alma's quest save her mother and brother?  Does Leo ever learn to love again?  You will laugh and cry as Krauss reveals the positives and negatives of love and humanity.