April 2012

How much do we owe the people we love? Is it a sign of strength or weakness to walk away from someone in need? These questions lie at the heart of Ann Packer’s intimate and emotionally thrilling new novel.


At the age of twenty-three Carrie Bell has spent her entire life in Wisconsin, with the same best friend and the same dependable, easygoing, high school sweetheart. Now to her dismay she has begun to find this life suffocating and is considering leaving it–and Mike–behind. But when Mike is paralyzed in a diving accident, leaving seems unforgivable and yet more necessary than ever. The Dive from Clausen’s Pier animates this dilemma–and Carrie’s startling response to it–with the narrative assurance, exacting realism, and moral complexity we expect from the very best fiction.

Next Meeting:

April 5th, 2012, 7:00 p.m.

Albany Public Library

2450 14th Avenue SE

Albany OR 97322

About the Author

Packer's late-blossoming career as a novelist may illustrate the adage that good things come to those who wait. She was in her twenties when she attended the prestigious Iowa Writers' Workshop, and in her early forties when her first novel was published. The Dive From Clausen's Pier, which was ten years in the writing, debuted at no. 9 on the New York Times bestseller list and was hailed by critics as "a reflective and probing first novel" (Kirkus Reviews).

The book is narrated by a young woman named Carrie, whose urge to break up with her fiancé is complicated after he is paralyzed in an accident, leaving Carrie with the choice of whether to take care of him or embark on a new life of her own. The primary theme of the novel, as Packer described it in an ABCNews.com chat, is "the interplay between the need to be true to oneself and the need and desire to be loyal to the people one loves" -- and therein may lie part of the book's broad appeal, given that everyone faces some conflicts between their own needs and those of their loved ones. The Dive From Clausen's Pier was the first pick for Good Morning America's book club, "Read This," and was featured on the front page of The New York Times Book Review.

Though most readers had never heard of Packer before Clausen's Pier, she had long since embarked on what Publishers Weekly termed a "Cadillac career": she earned her bachelor's degree in English literature from Yale, then worked in the New York publishing business (writing blurbs for paperbacks) before receiving her M.F.A. at Iowa. She also spent two years in Madison, Wisconsin, on a writing fellowship; published stories in The New Yorker, Ploughshares and other magazines; and received an O. Henry Award, a James Michener award and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. A 1994 story collection, Mendocino and Other Stories, was well-received and is being brought back into print in January 2003.

Since her first novel's publication, Packer's publicity schedule has kept her busy, but as the mother of two children, she's already adept at juggling writing with other demands. "The hard thing for me is to say no to people," she said in an interview in The Australian Women's Weekly. "Asking me to help in the classroom. Or friends saying, 'Let's have lunch.' It's hard to say, 'No, I’m not going to do that, I need to write.' But somehow I balance it all, I put it all together in a way that works. I fit in what I can. Some weeks there's no writing and some weeks are full of writing."

There's More...

Prefer to listen to a book instead? You can be "hands free" and listen to a book while you drive, clean, garden, the possibilities are endless!

Albany Public Library card holders have FREE access to thousands of audiobooks in Library2Go. Download the FREE Overdrive Software to begin your listening adventure. A list of compatible devices to listen to your book selection can be found on the Library2Go website. On the Library2Go webpage there are instructions for using Library2Go.

Do you have a ebook reader? Library2Go also offers books to download to selected ebook readers as well.

You can find a link to this FREE service on our library website, http://library.cityofalbany.net.

Another available option is Project Gutenberg. There you can download the book onto your computer, or ebook reader , Kindle, and more! Click on this link to explore your options! http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/140

Previous Book Club Titles

  • Fordlandia, The Rise and Fall of Henry Fords Forgotten Jungle City, By, Greg Grandin
  • Housekeeping, By Marilynne Robinson
  • The Places In Between, By Rory Stewart
  • The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair
  • The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls
  • The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein
  • The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
  • Freedom: A Novel, By Jonathan Franzen
  • The Ghost Map: The story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How it Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World, By Steve Johnson
  • The Housekeeper and the Professor, By Yoko Ogawa
  • The Whistling Season, By Ivan Doig
  • Don't Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight, By Alexandra Fuller
  • A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, By Michael Dorris
  • The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, By Michael Pollan
  • Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese
  • Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time and the Deadliest Hurricane in History, by Erik Larson
  • The Crying Tree, by Naseem Rakha
  • Crossing the Gates of Alaska: One man, two dogs and 600 miles off the map, by, Dave Metz
  • Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time, Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
  • Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
  • Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell
  • Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, by Jamie Ford
  • My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey, by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.
  • The curious incident of the dog in the night-time: a novel by Mark Haddon
  • The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson
  • The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, by Louise Erdrich
  • Zaatar Days, Henna Nights, by Maliha Masood
  • Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
  • Geography of Bliss, by Eric Weiner
  • Church of the Dog, by Kaya McLaren
  • The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl, By Timothy Egan
  • A Thread of Grace, by Mary Doria Russell
  • Stubborn Twig, Lauren Kessler

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Jeannette Walls Interviews

Great stuff is available on Youtube. Lots of interviews of Jeannette Walls, some with her mother.
Posted by at 1:00 PM 1 comments

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

selections for the book club

Anyone attending the book club is welcome to make suggestions for a future book selection. So if you have a favorite book that you think the club would be interested in reading and discussing, let us know and we will certainly consider it!
Posted by at 11:52 AM 0 comments
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