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Women's Circle: Book Group

Thursday, March 9, 2023 16 Adar 5783

7:00 PM - 9:00 PMPrivate Home | Address will be given when RSVP

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste NgOur Missing Hearts
by Celeste Ng
Published: October 2022 | Pages: 347
Facilitator: Laura Birns
Hostess: Laura Birns, Carmel Valley, CA

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve “American culture” in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic—including the work of Bird’s mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old.
Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn’t know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn’t wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken, and finally to New York City, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change. 
Our Missing Hearts is an old story made new, of the ways supposedly civilized communities can ignore the most searing injustice. It’s a story about the power—and limitations—of art to create change, the lessons and legacies we pass on to our children, and how any of us can survive a broken world with our hearts intact.

 

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Upcoming Books:
Date Book Title Host Area
04.13.2023 These Precious Days
By Ann Patchett
TBD
05.11.2023 Horse
by Geraldine Brooks
Carmel Valley
06.08.2023 Lessons in Chemistry
by Bonnie Gamus
TBD
07.13.2023 Small Things Like These
by Claire Keegan
TBD

 

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Thu, March 28 2024 18 Adar II 5784