What makes a great book? 

A great book is more than just a well-written story. A great book is a treasure trove of humanity so that no matter how often you open a page and start reading, there is still something new to be discovered. 

JVSO Book Club is open to all members. We meet once a month on the last Wednesday of each month. All members are welcome to join in on any book club discussion whether you have read the book or not.

If you have a favorite book you think the group would like, please share it with us. All books are voted on during our meetings.

The book club meets the last Wednesday of the month at 3 p.m. at Jersey Meadows Golf Course.  All JVSO members are welcome, whether you have read the book or not. 

Looking for an interesting book to read?  The JVSO book club rates the books they read each month.  The highest-rated book in 2021 was the nonfiction book, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou.  It was rated 4.6 out of 5 and chronicles the story of the silicon valley startup, Theranos, and its founder Elizabeth Holmes, who recently was found guilty of 4 counts of wire fraud.  The second highest-rated book was The Last Train to Key West by Chanel Cleeton, rated 4.1 out of 5.  

October 25th - Defending Jacob by William Landay Defending Jacob is an American crime drama novel written by novelist William Landay. The book was published in January 2012 by Random House. It tells the story of a father dealing with the accusation that his 14-year-old son is a murderer.

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September 27th - The Fishermen and the Dragon By Kirk Wallace Johnson A gripping, twisting account of a small town set on fire by hatred, xenophobia, and ecological disaster—a story that weaves together corporate malfeasance, a battle over shrinking natural resources, a turning point in the modern white supremacist movement, and one woman's relentless battle for environmental justice.

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August 30 - Share a book!

Share the title and a short synopsis with the group of up to two books you have read and would recommend.

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July 30, 2023 - Lightning Strike by William Kent Krueger An instant New York Times bestseller, this prequel to the acclaimed Cork O’Connor series is “a pitch-perfect, richly imagined story that is both an edge-of-your-seat thriller and an evocative, emotionally charged coming-of-age tale” (Kristin Hannah) about fathers and sons, small-town conflicts, and the events that shape our lives forever. Aurora is a small town nestled in the ancient forest alongside the shores of Minnesota’s Iron Lake. In the summer of 1963, it is the whole world to twelve-year-old Cork O’Connor, its rhythms as familiar as his own heartbeat. But when Cork stumbles upon the body of a man he revered hanging from a tree in an abandoned logging camp, it is the first in a series of events that will cause him to question everything he took for granted about his hometown, his family, and himself. Cork’s father, Liam O’Connor, is Aurora’s sheriff and it is his job to confirm that the man’s death was the result of suicide, as all the evidence suggests. In the shadow of his father’s official investigation, Cork begins to look for answers on his own. Together, father and son face the ultimate test of choosing between what their heads tell them is true and what their hearts know is right.

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\2023 JVSO Reads:

• January - The Boys by Ron Howard
• February - Dust Bowl Girls by Lydia Reeder
• March - Need to Know by Karen Cleveland
• April - Share a book
• May - The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner
• June - The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
• July - Lightning Strike by William Kent Krueger
• August - Share a book
• September - The Fishermen and the Dragon by Kirk Wallace Johnson
• October - 
• November - 
• December - Share a book

Recommendations:

The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict / The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict / Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty / Books by author Abraham Verghese (The Covenent of Water, Cutting for Stone, My Own Country: A Doctor's Story, The Tennis Partner) / Right Thinking for a Culture in Chaos by John F MacArthur Jr. and Nathan Busenitz . The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz / The Whalebone Theater by Joanna Quinn / Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin / The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth / The Golden Couple by Greer Hendricks  / The Hotel Nantucket by Elin Hilderbrand /  The Saturday Night Ghost Club by Craig Davidson / To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee / Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell / Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan / All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr / The Fifth Column by Andrew Gross / The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger / Tom Lake by Ann Patchett / Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth by Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson and Jason Stanford / The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea by Jack Emerson Davis / Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir / Horse by Geraldine Brooks / Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller / The It Girl by Ruth Ware / GI Joe and Lillie by Joe Bonsall / Little Souls by Sandra Dallas / The Measure by Nikki Erlick / All My Knotted-Up Life by Beth Moore / Mystic Tea by Rea Nolan Martin / I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jeannette McCurdy / The Silver Star by Jeanette Walls / Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson / Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano / Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult / A Girl Called Samson by Amy Harmon / Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt / Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan

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2022 JVSO Reads:

• January - The Children's Blizzard by Melanie Benjamin
• February - Little Secrets by Jennifer Hillier
• March - Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau
• April - Share a book
• May - The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson
• June - Down Range by Taylor Moore
• July - Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman
• August - Share a book
• September - The Mother-In-Law by Sally Hepworth                                                                                                Fountains of Silence by Ruta Septetys
• October - The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James
• November - Last Dance on the Starlight Pier by Sarah Bird
• December - Share a book

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2021 JVSO Reads:

• January - Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger
• February - The Red Address Book by Sofia Lundberg
• March - Read a biography, autobiography or memoir and share with the group
• April - Once Upon A River by Diane Setterfield
• May - Read any book you want and share with the group
• June - Summer of '69 by Elin Hilderbrand
• July: The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey
• August - Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
• September - Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons
• October - The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal
• November - Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Gulf Coast Reads Selection)
• December - Bring your favorite book you have read this year and share with the group

Recomendations: Hidden Valley Road by Robert Coker / Ten Lessons for a Post Pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria / Call Your Daughter Home by Deb Spera / The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett / Comfort and Joy by Kristin Hannah / The Selective Poems of Langston Hughes / Middlemarch by George Eliott / Library Wars by Kiiro Yumi / Loving Frank by Nancy Horan / Final Girls by Riley Sager / Before and After by Lisa Wingate and Judy Christie / The Evening and the Morning by Ken Follett /  If The Devil Had a Wife by Frank Mills

2019 JVSO Reads:

• January - Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
• February - Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton
• March - Hondo by Louis Lamour
• April - Read any self-help book and share with the group
• May - The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
• June - A Woman of Independent Means by Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey
• July - The Dead Queens Club by Hannah Capin
• August - In Farleigh Field by Rhys Bowen
• September - The Library Book by Susan Orlean
• October - The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
• November - Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• December - Bring your favorite book you have read this year and share with the group

2018 JVSO Reads:

• February - Tumbling Turner Sisters by Juliette Fay
• March - The Dry by Jane Harper
• April - Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
• May - Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
• June - All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
• July - Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple
• August - The Book of Polly by Kathy Hepinstall
• September - All the Ever Afters by Danielle Teller
• October - Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke
• November - Almost Famous Women by Megan Mayhew Bergman
• ​December - Bring your favorite poetry to share with the group.

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