Cover to Cover Book Club: Good Night, Irene

Join the library's for this month's Cover to Cover Book Club. We'll be reading Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea. Pick up your copy at the upstairs desk!

Book description: In 1943, Irene Woodward abandons an abusive fiancé in New York to enlist with the Red Cross and head to Europe. She makes fast friends in training with Dorothy Dunford, a towering Midwesterner with a ferocious wit. Together they are part of an elite group of women, nicknamed Donut Dollies, who command military vehicles called Clubmobiles at the front line, providing camaraderie and a taste of home that may be the only solace before troops head into battle. After D-Day, these two intrepid friends join the Allied soldiers streaming into France. Their time in Europe will see them embroiled in danger, from the Battle of the Bulge to the liberation of Buchenwald. Through her friendship with Dorothy, and a love affair with a courageous American fighter pilot named Hans, Irene learns to trust again. Her most fervent hope, which becomes more precarious by the day, is for all three of them to survive the war intact. Taking as inspiration his mother's own Red Cross service, the author has delivered an overlooked story of women's heroism in World War II. With its affecting and uplifting portrait of friendship and valor in harrowing circumstances, this book powerfully demonstrates yet again that Urrea's gifts as a storyteller are prodigious.

You may also like the following events from Sparta Free Library:

• This Saturday, 3rd May, 11:00 am, Pen & Ink Writing Group: The Grasshopper and the Ant in Sparta

Also check out other Workshops in Sparta, Arts events in Sparta, Literary Art events in Sparta.