Submitted by bookshelf on Wed, 01/23/2013 - 2:36pm
London attorney ML Stedman’s debut novel is a book club must-read.
So here’s the dilemma: Lighthouse keeper marries a young bride and brings her to a secluded island where he keeps the light. Wife longs for family. After wife loses baby, a boat washes ashore with a dead man and a healthy baby. Wife, still with milk from her latest stillborn birth, takes the baby to her breast and raises it as her own. Husband, a rule follower, feels inclined to tell somebody but can’t break his wife’s heart.
Does the baby need to be turned into the proper authorities?
The Light Between Oceans has been one of our favorite book club recommendations because the moral dilemmas provide such fodder for discussion. As the story progresses and you see the bigger picture, the right decision becomes more and more elusive. Like the characters in the novel, your sympathies will be swayed by human experience and black and white becomes grayish.
I’m tempted to crash all the book club discussions of this book so I can hear all the interesting conversation about the role of rules, the strength of maternal bonds, the effects of seclusion, and the existence of moral absolutes. Let us know what gets washed ashore in your book club discussion!
On April 23, readers around the world will take their favorite books and pass them out to people who might not otherwise get the chance to read them, maybe because they can't typically afford books, or they watch too much television, or they just haven't found a book that fits them yet. The best part? The books are free, and all you avid readers have to do is sign up to be givers.
Aside from gifting someone a library card, World Book Night might be the easiest way to share books with your friends and neighbors, with the people in your community who might never have laughed at David Sedaris or scrambled to finish Salvage the Bones.
The Bookshelf is a designated distribution point for the world-wide event -- meaning givers pick up their books from us -- but honestly? As readers, we'd be telling you to sign up for World Book Night anyway. It's a simple way to share the love, to spread the joy of reading to your communities and neighborhoods. Basically, we're big fans. And we think you should be too.
