Saturday Book Club
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade?s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi?s transformation from a naive medical student "possessed," as he wrote, "by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life,"  into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.What makes life worth living in the face of death? 

Mystery Book Club
The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle

As a dense yellow fog swirls through the streets of London, a deep melancholy has descended on Sherlock Holmes, who sits in a cocaine-induced haze at 221B Baker Street. His mood is only lifted by a visit from a beautiful but distressed young woman - Mary Morstan, whose father vanished ten years before. Four years later she began to receive an exquisite gift every year: a large, lustrous pearl. Now she has had an intriguing invitation to meet her unknown benefactor and urges Holmes and Watson to accompany her. And in the ensuing investigation - which involves a wronged woman, a stolen hoard of Indian treasure, a wooden-legged ruffian, a helpful dog and a love affair - even the jaded Holmes is moved to exclaim, 'Isn't it gorgeous!'

Spoilers Book Club
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
by Stephen Chbosky

The critically acclaimed debut novel from Stephen Chbosky, Perks follows observant “wallflower” Charlie as he charts a course through the strange world between adolescence and adulthood. First dates, family drama, and new friends. Sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Devastating loss, young love, and life on the fringes. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it, Charlie must learn to navigate those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up.  

Author Talk
Author Lisa K. Shapiro will discuss her new book:
No Forgotten Fronts:  An American War Story in Letters. 

At the beginning of World War II, a professor from San Diego State College asked students entering military service to write to him.  For the next five years, thousands of letters from places like Pearl Harbor, North Africa, and Normandy began with the salutation, "Dear Doc," and described vivid accounts of training, combat, and camaraderie.

Students and their families penned more than 4,500 letters to Dr. Post.  Pilots wrote about seeing planes shot down. Men in POW camps sent word about the location of other prisoners, and Dr. Post passed information on to frantic families.  Mothers, hoping for news about missing sons, clutched at the details.  WACS and WAVES hinted about bomb tests and surveillance.  Friends labored over eulogies for their classmates.  These intimate, first-person accounts captured honesty, sympathy, raw grief, and wonder.

Every month, Dr. Post mailed hundreds of newsletters to his Fighting Aztecs around the globe.  He never lost track of his students, even on the "forgotten fronts." He assured them that everyone at home was praying for their safe return.

No Forgotten Fronts: From Classrooms to Combat is the universal story of struggle and sacrifice in the fight for democracy and the preservation of American values.

Doors to the Winn Room will open at 6:15 pm.  Books will be available to purchase from Bay Books.  A Signing Reception will follow the author’s talk.