Since November is a busy month for many people, our group decided to read a novella, Binti by Nnedi Okorafor. We'll still have plenty to talk about but you won't have to spend a lot of time reading--the book is only 90 pages!

Nnedi Okorafor is an author we're quite fond of at Foggy Pine Books. Her Binti trilogy is an incredible science fiction story (it won the Hugo & Nebula awards for best novella) but she writes in other genres, as well. She has another scifi book, Lagoon, and several fantasy books: Akata Witch (a YA series), The Book of Phoenix, and Who Fears Death--which is being made into an HBO show produced by George R. R. Martin. Plus, she has written a children's picture book, Chicken in the Kitchen. You really can't go wrong with any of her works.

Let's learn a little more about Binti though. Here's the official summary:

Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs.

Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares. Oomza University has wronged the Meduse, and Binti’s stellar travel will bring her within their deadly reach.

If Binti hopes to survive the legacy of a war not of her making, she will need both the the gifts of her people and the wisdom enshrined within the University, itself - but first she has to make it there, alive.

If you want to travel to an galactic university without leaving your favorite chair, we hope you'll join us for the November meeting. This book is a favorite of Mary's and she can't wait to share it with others. 

If this sounds like something you'd like to read, you can get your copy of the book from the store with a 15% discount until the end of November. If you'd like to purchase online, we have the following the formats available:

Digital Audiobook
eBook
Paperback
Hardcover

We'll meet at Foggy Pine Books on November 24th at 7:30pm. We'll have free wine and snacks for book club members to share.  Bring a friend and come discuss the book with us, even if you weren't able to completely finish it or if you didn't like it. You can see the Facebook event & RSVP here.

Tor.com Review-- "Of Jellyfish, Otjize, and Afrofuturism: Binti by Nnedi Okorafor"
​Publisher's Weekly-- "Binti"
Nnedi’s Wahala Zone Blog-- “On That Rapid Puppies Thing and My Hugo Award-Winning Novella Binti”
Lightspeed Magazine-- “Interview: Nnedi Okorafor”

This month's choice for the Foggy Pine Book Club is One Second After by William Forstchen. A southern author, Forstchen's dystopian novel is set in Black Mountain, NC--a small mountain town not unlike Boone and only an hour and a half away. In this novel, a weapon called the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) has been activated and used, wiping out all of the planet's technologies and plunging everything into chaos. 

Here's the official summary: 
In this entertaining apocalyptic thriller from William Forstchen, a high-altitude nuclear bomb of uncertain origin explodes, unleashing a deadly electromagnetic pulse that instantly disables almost every electrical device in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. Airplanes, most cars, cellphones, refrigerators—all are fried as the country plunges into literal and metaphoric darkness. History professor John Matherson, who lives with his two daughters in a small North Carolina town, soon figures out what has happened. Aided by local officials, Matherson begins to deal with such long-term effects of the disaster as starvation, disease and roving gangs of barbarians.

Looks like we're in for a dark ride this month! ​You can get your copy of the book from the store with a 15% discount until the end of the month. If you'd like to purchase online, we have the following the formats available:

Digital Audiobook
eBook
Paperback
Hardcover
Audio CD

We'll meet at Foggy Pine Books on July 28th at 7:30pm. We'll have free wine and snacks for book club members to share.  Bring a friend and come discuss the book with us, even if you weren't able to completely finish it or if you didn't like it. You can see the Facebook event & RSVP here.

Publisher's Weekly Review--"One Second After"

Book TV Interview--"William Forstchen, author of 'One Second After'"
​
Gaia Interview--"Misconceptions About the 'Survivalist Mentality'"

This month's choice for the Foggy Pine Book Club is Girl In Disguise by Greer Macallister. We so enjoyed The Alice Network and when we found another book about female detectives/spies, we couldn't resist giving it a chance.  

Published last year, this historical fiction is set in Chicago in 1856 and has an ending inspired by true events. Kate Warne, widowed and penniless, manages to convince the great Allan Pinkerton to hire her as one of his detectives. From there, Kate fights her way to becoming one of Pinkerton's elite squad. Her talents lie in deception and manipulation, taking on the role of countless women, all in the name of getting the job done. Her work takes Kate from her former life of near-ruin to one of danger, deviousness, and trickery as she establishes herself in a man's world. From Chicago's mean streets to the battle lines of the Civil War, Kate's dangerous journey is a never-ending thrill ride. Macallister's masterly storytelling brings her characters to life, and the skillfully handled suspense never wavers. 

The Pinkerton National Defense Agency, as it was founded, was created by Scotsman Allan Pinkerton in 1850. He became famous when he claimed to have prevented an assassination attempt on then-President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln hired Pinkerton for personal security during the Civil War and, at the height of it's power, was the largest private law enforcement organization in the world. Due, in part, to this success the Pinkerton agency became the model for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States.

Copies of the book are available for purchase at the bookstore for $15.99 but you'll always get 15% off our book club selections. You can also purchase it from us online in the following formats:

We will meet at Foggy Pine Books on Saturday, June 30th at 7:30pm. We'll share free wine and a snack together. Bring a friend and come discuss the book with us, even if you weren't able to completely finish it or if you didn't like it. You can see the Facebook event & RSVP here. 

'Girl In Disguise' Is A Spunky Spy Saga
Celebrating History's Bad-Ass Women: PW Talk with Greer Macallister (interview) 

This month's book club book was chosen by the book club after we realized that our original choice isn't out in paperback until August. So, after a quick discussion, we came up with Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and other Pagans in America by Margot Adler. 

Originally published in 1979 by Viking Press, this book has seen several reprintings. Margot Adler was a reporter for NPR, a Neo-pagan, and "recognized witch." After three years of intense research, she published her book to critical and public success. The New York Times has said that the book "is credited with both documenting new religious impulses and being a catalyst for the panoply of practices now in existence" and "helped popularize earth-based religions." As the only detailed history of the Neo-Pagan subculture, this book has been hugely important in helping pagans achieve and maintain an understanding of their religious and spiritual practices within the American mainstream. 

Adler spent three years conducting interviews, doing research, attending festivals and rituals, and much more to obtain the information she passes along to her readers in this book. She attempts to paint a compassionate picture of the diverse, colorful array of practicing pagans in the United States with information about the way they believe and how they practice their religion. 

We know that knowledge of religions outside the mainstream isn't widespread and we are so excited to undergo this journey of discovery together.  We hope to open minds and share experiences with this book club choice. We welcome anyone, regardless of religion, to our book clubs but are particularly interested in hearing the thoughts and opinions of any pagans within our community who would be interested in joining in our discussion. 

Books are currently available at the bookstore for $22.00 but you always get a 15% discount on book club titles. You can also purchase it from us online in the following formats:

We will meet at Foggy Pine Books on Saturday, May 26 at 7:30pm. We'll have free wine and snacks available for our book club members. Bring a friend and come discuss the book with us, even if you weren't able to completely finish it or if you didn't like it. You can see the Facebook event & RSVP here.

This month we're meeting to discuss a bestselling nonfiction title, The City of the Lost Monkey God by Douglas Preston. I'm very excited about this book because it sounds like a real life Indiana Jones story. 

Here's the summary:

Since the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who fled there to escape the Spanish invaders, and they warn that anyone who enters this sacred city will fall ill and die. In 1940, swashbuckling journalist Theodore Morde returned from the rainforest with hundreds of artifacts and an electrifying story of having found the Lost City of the Monkey God-but then committed suicide without revealing its location.

Three quarters of a century later, bestselling author Doug Preston joined a team of scientists on a groundbreaking new quest. In 2012 he climbed aboard a rickety, single-engine plane carrying the machine that would change everything: lidar, a highly advanced, classified technology that could map the terrain under the densest rainforest canopy. In an unexplored valley ringed by steep mountains, that flight revealed the unmistakable image of a sprawling metropolis, tantalizing evidence of not just an undiscovered city but an enigmatic, lost civilization.

Venturing into this raw, treacherous, but breathtakingly beautiful wilderness to confirm the discovery, Preston and the team battled torrential rains, quickmud, disease-carrying insects, jaguars, and deadly snakes. But it wasn't until they returned that tragedy struck: Preston and others found they had contracted in the ruins a horrifying, sometimes lethal-and incurable-disease.

Suspenseful and shocking, filled with colorful history, hair-raising adventure, and dramatic twists of fortune, this novel is the absolutely true, eyewitness account of one of the great discoveries of the twenty-first century.

This is sure to be an interesting book and a fun book club. I look forward to discussing this book and I hope you'll join us on Saturday, March 31st at 7:30pm at the bookstore. Until then, you can purchase the book at our store in paperback for 15% off the list price of $15.99. You can also purchase it from us online in various formats and have it shipped to your home for free or available to download immediately. See below for links and prices. 

Paperback: $15.99
E-book: $9.99
Audiobook: $29.88 (or just $0.99 with your first month of membership on Libro.fm!)
Audio CD: $20.00