Welcome to the KPL Book Club Blogspot

Welcome to the internet home of the Kilbourn Public Library (KPL) Book Club. The KPL Book Club meets at the library once a month. A book is chosen for each month and then members of the book club meet the last Monday and Wednesday of every month for lively discussion and treats. While we can’t offer you treats via the internet, this KPL Reads blog was designed for those of you who would like to participate in the book club but don’t have time to join us at meetings. Each month KPL staff will post discussion topics and questions to get you “talking”. Join in the discussion by adding a post to the blog. Click on the word comments below the post you want to "talk" about and write your comment. Be sure to check back often to see feedback and comments.

Friday, April 10, 2015

The Kilbourn Public Library Book Club is reading Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger for April.

New Bremen, Minnesota, 1961.  The Twins were playing their debut season, ice-cold root beers were selling out at the soda counter of Halderson's Drugstore, and Hot Stuff comic books were a mainstay on every barbershop magazine rack.  It was a time of innocence and hope for a country with a new, young president.  But for thirteen-year-old Frank Drum it was a grim summer in which death visited frequently and assumed many forms.  Accident. Nature.  Suicide.  Murder.

Told from Frank's perspective forty years after that fateful summer, Ordinary Grace is a brilliantly moving account of a boy standing at the door of his young manhood, trying to understand a world that seems to be falling apart around him.  It is an unforgettable novel about discovering the terrible price of wisdom and the enduring grace of God.

Think about the characters of Ruth and Nathan Drum, the narrator's mother and father.  How would you describe them and, especially, their marriage?

What do you think of Emil Brandt and his sister?

How would you describe Gus?  What is the bond between Gus and Nathan based on?  What do you think was the event during the war that the two refer to obliquely as they sit together in the darkened church?

Why is Ruth so angry with Nathan after Ariel disappears?  How would you respond to such a horrific loss:  would you respond as Ruth does, in anger?  Or would you be more like Nathan?

How would you define grace?  What, specifically, does "ordinary grace" refer to in the story, and what is the larger religious significance of the term "ordinary grace"?

Why is the grace spoken by Jake so extraordinary...and how does it affect members of his family?

What do you think happened to Bobby Cole?  Why might the author have left that mystery unresolved?

Let us know what you think of Ordinary Grace.

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