Doris Bass Memorial Library & Book Club
Doris Bass, a beloved member of Israel Congregation, was a dedicated lover of books and literature. After a long career beginning in the Brooklyn Public Library and progressing to publishing, Doris moved to Vermont in 1996. Her passion for life was contagious and her passing has left us with a large hole in our lives. We have dedicated our extensive library in her memory. Today we are fortunate to have devoted congregants stewarding the library Doris championed.
The Doris Bass Library is currently overwhelmed with books that need to be catalogued and shelved with more coming in all the time and only two part time volunteers to do the work to sort through the donations. We deeply appreciate the huge effort our volunteers, are doing to accomplish this task having found some truly beautiful and special books among the donations received. We want to be able to continue to welcome the donation of engaging and educational books, but we need your help:
- Please box books or tie book donations—pre-approved by the library volunteers—with twine before dropping them off in the office, not in the library.
- If you would like your name or the name of your family member on a book plate in the book, please give us the pertinent information.
- Please consider making a donation to the Merkado Library Fund to help us in our work of making this a more user-friendly place for our congregation.
Thank You!
Join the Doris Bass Book Club!
Start your day off right with a good book. . .
On the 3rd Wednesday of each month participate in a lively and engaging conversation about
wonderful books of Jewish interest.
The next meeting of the Doris Bass Book Club is on Wednesday evening, September 17th at 7:00 pm.
Join the club as we meet via Zoom to discuss this month's title.
August/September Reading recommendation
and Book Club title: North Woods
When two young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and nonhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to growing apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths an ancient mass grave—only to discover that the earth refuse to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a sinister con man, a stalking panther, a lusty beetle: As the inhabitants confront the wonder and mystery around them, they begin to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.
This magisterial and highly inventive novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason brims with love and madness, humor and hope. Following the cycles of history, nature, and even language,
North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we’re connected to our environment, to history, and to one another. It is not just an unforgettable novel about secrets and destinies, but a way of looking at the world that asks the timeless question: How do we live on, even after we’re gone?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daniel Mason was born and raised in Northern California. He studied biology at Harvard, and medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. His first novel,
The Piano Tuner, published in 2002, was a national bestseller and has since been published in 27 countries. His other works include
A Far Country,
The Winter Soldier, and
A Registry of My Passage Upon Earth, and his writing has appeared in
Harper’s Magazine and Lapham’s Quarterly. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
In Praise of North Woods:
A New York Times Book Review Top Ten Book of the Year
A Washington Post Top Ten Book of the Year
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award
Finalist for the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award
“[A] magisterial mosaic . . . Truly triumphant.”—Booklist, Starred Review
“It’s a dazzling high-wire act—and it’s thrilling to read . . . There are a lot of great books coming out this fall but, if I were you, I’d start with this one.”—The Star Tribune
“Dazzling . . . a brave and original book, which invents its own form. It is both intimate and epic, playful and serious. To read it is to travel to the limits of what the novel can do.”—The Guardian (US)
“A time-spanning, genre-blurring work of storytelling magic . . . Each chapter germinates its own form while sending out tendrils that entwine beneath the surface of the novel . . . As [Mason] floats through thrillers, a bit of comic noir, erotic paranormal fiction and other genres, it’s hard to imagine there is anything he can’t do . . .”—The Washington Post
“Gorgeous . . . a tale of ephemerality and succession, of the way time accrues in layers, like sedimentary soil.”—NPR
“Brilliantly combines the granularity of realism with the timeless, shimmering allure of myth . . . Sui generis fiction . . . The forest and the trees: Mason keeps both in clear view in his eccentric and exhilarating novel.”—The New York Times Book Review
“It seems almost a magic trick, the way in which Mason knits his lives into a single tale.”—Erica Wagner, The Sunday Times
“A treatise on forest management (and mismanagement), a hallucinatory dream sequence, and an anthropologist’s life’s work all rolled into one. North Woods fires on all cylinders by engaging all the senses as it transports readers through history.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“A tender lament for our vanishing earthly paradise. . . . it’s hard not to come away feeling a bit wistful, seeing what we’ve lost and imagining what lies ahead in our probably dystopian future.”—The Boston Globe
“[A] magisterial mosaic . . . Truly triumphant.—Booklist, Starred Review”
“Mason depicts all of [the] stories with sympathy, sensitivity, and affectionate humor. Epic in scope and ambitious in style, this book succeeds on all counts. Highly recommended.”—Library Journal (starred review)
“Readers, too, will find themselves in an entrancing fictional realm . . . Like the house at its center, a book that is multitudinous and magical.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Each arc is beautifully, heartbreakingly conveyed, stitching together subtle connections across time. This astonishes.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“North Woods is a love poem to the human and natural history of Western Massachusetts . . . wise, profound, chilling, carnal and funny.”—BookPage
Hardcover and paperback editions are available from the Northshire Bookstore
Or check out your local library!