Get on the Same Page in Carroll County

This is the second year for the Carroll County on the Same Page project, in which everyone in the county is invited and encouraged to read the same book. Our 2007 selection is The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. It is a memoir written by a successful young woman who overcame some very unusual odds. She was raised in a highly unconventional family, with a daredevil father and an excitement-addicted mother, neither of whom was well equipped to raise and support a family. The author writes candidly of her parents, not with anger or resentment, but with love and empathy. It is a story of survival, in a way. Rave reviews are coming in from the many people who have already read it in our community. Copies are available at the Delphi, Flora, and Camden public libraries. Even if you don't have a library card, come in and request a copy. We'll loan it to any county resident. We want to make sure everyone gets on the Same Page! (Book discussions will be scheduled throughout July. Delphi's book group will talk about The Glass Castle on July 27, at 9 a.m.)

Fighting the Fog

Michelle Richmond's The Year of Fog is a real page-turner, but not in the typical murder-suspense-whodunnit sense. It is so achingly real and heartbreaking that you must keep turning pages to see what happens next. During a morning walk on a foggy beach, a child disappears. Emma vanishes into the fog. Abby spends the next year searching through the fog--the literal fog that shrouds San Francisco, the analogous fog that shrouds her memory of that day, and the fog of sorrow that causes everyone except Abby to give up the search. The book takes us through the painful year of Abby's search. In flashbacks to her past, we are shown the full range of Abby's self and come to understand and emphathize with her. She is a professional photographer who is trained to view things analytically, so she returns again and again to her last views of Emma, searching for a clue that will lead to the lost girl. You'll have to read the book to discover whether Abby's persistence pays off.