This month we will be reading, "The Island of Missing Trees" by Elif Shafak.
Winner of the 2022 BookTube Silver Medal in Fiction * Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction. A rich, magical new book on belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal, from the Booker shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World.
Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he's searching for lost love.
Years later a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited—- her only connection to her family's troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world.
How it Works?
Literary Book Club meets on the last Friday of the month at 11 am. We read both fiction and non-fiction. All are welcome to our discussions. Books will be available at the main desk in early December. We provide regular print, large print, and audio when it is available. If you would like an alternative format, please let us know and we’ll do our best to accommodate your request!
If you have questions or would like to be added to the Literary Book Club email list, contact Rebecca at renman@peterboroughnh.gov or call the Help Desk: 603-924-8040.
Peterborough Town Library, located downtown at the corner of Main and Concord/Rt 202, has a large meeting room, study rooms, classroom, and a board room available to the public.
