Hi Everyone

As you all have recieved emails from Kathleen these last few months and know her well, I wanted to let you know that she has moved on to a new company. We're all very sad to see her leave as she was a wonderful part of our AbeBooks family and we all wish her the best of luck. However, I'm excited to read with you all and have some great discussions.

Just a little bit about me, my name is Heather and I'm originally a native of Halifax, Nova Scotia. While I'm far from home here on the West Coast, but I can't ask for a better place to live. I just finished my degree in Greek and Roman studies with an emphasis on languages and I hope that I can keep up Kathleen's fantastic job of bringing new and exciting books for you all to read.

I hope you enjoyed the last Avid Reader Book Club pick Strength of the Sun by Catharine Chidgey. Since I've only just taken over from Kathleen I didn't have a chance to read it. However, it looks like a great book and I'll probably pick it up.

So November is already upon us and now that Halloween is officially over, we can all start looking forward to the Holidays. While up here in Canada we've already had Thanksgiving, the Americans are yet to have theirs. Soon enough Christmas will be upon us all and I will have barely started shopping. In this new spirit of the holidays I thought we could choose from some books about family.

This month, choose between a historical fiction novel about 17th century China with Lisa See's Peony in Love. If you would prefer a book closer to home, vote for Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo set in New York. Lastly, perhaps you'd like to dive in to Jewish tradition with Chaim Potok's The Chosen, which is also set in New York during the last years of WWII. Vote for your choice now!

The vote will be open for the next pick until Friday, November 16th so you have one week to let us know what you'd like to read. I'm looking forward to reading any of these three books. They're all very different and, I hope, there is one that will appeal to you.

Cheers,

Heather
Book Club Host

P.S. If you would like to submit a suggestion for the Book Club email bookclub@abebooks.com

	November's Avid Reader Book Club Pick will be...? Peony in Love Lisa See Find it from US$9.32 Vote for it Follow Peony, a young Chinese girl from a wealthy family on her journey of love and destiny. Betrothed to a suitor she has never met, while attending an epic opera, The Peony Pavilion, from between the cracks of a screen that shields her from the world, Peony sees a handsome man and is immediately enthalled with him. See takes readers back to 17th century China, after the Manchus seize power and the Ming dynasty is crushed. Based on a true story, Peony in Love is a family saga and ultimately about love and the relationships that bind us together. Bridge of Sighs Richard Russo Find it from US$14.05 Vote for it Louis Charles (“Lucy”) Lynch has spent all his sixty years in upstate Thomaston, New York, married to the same woman, Sarah, for forty of them. Lucy is an optimist, though he’s had plenty of reasons not to be—chief among them his mother, still indomitably alive. Yet it was her shrewdness, combined with that Lynch optimism, that had propelled them years ago to the right side of the tracks and created an “empire” of convenience stores about to be passed on to the next generation. A novel about family and contradictions, this is a classic Russo. The Chosen Chaim Potok Find it from US$1.00 Vote for it First published in 1967, this novel is about two teenage Jewish boys who form a friendship although they come from very different backgrounds. Reuven Malter is an orthodox Jew while Danny is Hasidic. They first meet during baseball game that quickly becomes more than a simple game. Set in Brooklyn, their friendship is set against the backdrop of WWII, the revelation of the Holocaust in Europe and the struggle for the creation of the state of Israel.