Tuesday, January 3, 2012

January meeting

***UPDATED***
We will meet Monday, January 23 at 6:45 at Kim's house!
Our January meeting will be on Thursday, January 19 at 6:45 at Kim's house.  We will be discussing Rules of Civility by Amor Towles.  Please bring a snack to share.  See you there!

Monday, September 19, 2011

Book Club Picks

As voted on by our group, our next three books will be:
(Click on the book cover to go to the link.)

October:
 November:
December(?)/January:

Our next meeting is October 20 at Troye's house.  Please email me if you would like to hostess in November.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Book Selection

Here are the books up for voting.  Please click on the link to read the book synapsis and vote for 1 book on the poll.  The poll will close September 19th.

Running With Scissors-Augusten Burroughs
Never Let Me Go-Kazuo Ishiguro
The Late Lamented Molly Marx-Sally Koslow
Wildflower Hill-Kimberly Freeman
The Probable Future-Alice Hoffman
When We Were Friends-Elizabeth Joy Arnold
The Murderer's Daughters-Randy Susan Meyers
Girls in White Dresses-Jennifer Close
Rules of Civility-Amor Towels

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

February Book Club

Reminder!  Book Club meets tomorrow, Feb 17 at 7:00 at Susan's house.  We will be discussing Half-Broke Horses by Jeanette Walls.  Please bring your book and an appetizer to share.

PLEASE, PLEASE RSVP in the comment section.

See you tomorrow!

Monday, January 24, 2011

February Book Pick

Thanks to everyone who voted in the book poll.  Our February Book pick is Half Broke Horses by Jeanette Walls.  (March and April are Sarah's Key and She's Gone Country, if you want to plan ahead.)
Half Broke Horses
Book club will be Thursday, February 17th at 7:00 at Susan's house.  

Friday, January 21, 2011

Book Picks


Bound South







Bound South by Susan Rebecca White

Louise Parker is a classic southern belle. Well-dressed and well-mannered, she can’t help but be frustrated by her daughter. Wild Caroline goes to a strict Christian prep school where she cheats in math class and can only focus on becoming an actress, until she has to leave after she’s discovered in flagrante delicto with her drama teacher. In the meantime Louise is distracted by Missy, the daughter of her housekeeper, a born-again evangelical who assists her mother in between trying to convert Louise’s gay son. Despite the consequences of Caroline’s behavior, Louise finds herself wishing she could be as careless and wondering how her life would have turned out had she chosen a different path. Even with their differences, Louise’s thoughts eventually lead her to believe that Caroline may be more of a southern dame and Louise more of a rebel than either of them thought. An elaborate, generation-spanning southern tale of family life in the vein of Rebecca Wells. 


By the Time You Read ThisBy The Time You Read This by Lola Jaye
Brit counselor Jaye offers a self-help manual dressed up as fiction in her debut. Lois's father, Kevin, died when she was five. Seven years later, she receives a book from Auntie Philomena on the day her mother remarries. The book, The Manual, is by her father and is chock-full of his advice for Lois, to be read one chapter per year, on her birthday. A list of seven rules includes a warning for Lois to not skip ahead, and she takes her dad's advice to heart, savoring the entries, the vast majority of which consist largely of standard self-help fare ( Tomorrow's not guaranteed, so live today; allow yourself the chance to really feel), while enduring the vicissitudes of life. It's decent if bland in its earnestness, and will likely find a place on more than a few bookshelves between Kübler-Ross and The Last Lecture.


Half Broke HorsesHalf Broke Horses by Jeannette Wells
For the first 10 years of her life, Lily Casey Smith, the narrator of this true-life novel by her granddaughter, Walls, lived in a dirt dugout in west Texas. Walls, whose megaselling memoir, The Glass Castle, recalled her own upbringing, writes in what she recalls as Lily's plainspoken voice, whose recital provides plenty of drama and suspense as she ricochets from one challenge to another. Having been educated in fits and starts because of her parents' penury, Lily becomes a teacher at age 15 in a remote frontier town she reaches after a solo 28-day ride. Marriage to a bigamist almost saps her spirit, but later she weds a rancher with whom she shares two children and a strain of plucky resilience. (They sell bootleg liquor during Prohibition, hiding the bottles under a baby's crib.) Lily is a spirited heroine, fiercely outspoken against hypocrisy and prejudice, a rodeo rider and fearless breaker of horses, and a ruthless poker player. Assailed by flash floods, tornados and droughts, Lily never gets far from hardscrabble drudgery in several states—New Mexico, Arizona, Illinois—but hers is one of those heartwarming stories about indomitable women that will always find an audience.


In the WoodsIn The Woods by Tana French
Rob Ryan and his partner, Cassie Maddox, land the first big murder case of their police careers: a 12-year-old girl has been murdered in the woods adjacent to a Dublin suburb. Twenty years before, two children disappeared in the same woods, and Ryan was found clinging to a tree trunk, his sneakers filled with blood, unable to tell police anything about what happened to his friends. Ryan, although scarred by his experience, employs all his skills in the search for the killer and in hopes that the investigation will also reveal what happened to his childhood friends. In the Woods is a superior novel about cops, murder, memory, relationships, and modern Ireland. The characters of Ryan and Maddox, as well as a handful of others, are vividly developed in this intelligent and beautifully written first novel, and author French relentlessly builds the psychological pressure on Ryan as the investigation lurches onward under the glare of the tabloid media. Equally striking is the picture of contemporary Ireland, booming economically and fixated on the shabbiest aspects of American popular culture. An outstanding debut and a series to watch for procedural fans. 


Sarah's KeySarah's Key by Tatiana de la Rosnay
De Rosnay's U.S. debut fictionalizes the 1942 Paris roundups and deportations, in which thousands of Jewish families were arrested, held at the Vélodrome d'Hiver outside the city, then transported to Auschwitz. Forty-five-year-old Julia Jarmond, American by birth, moved to Paris when she was 20 and is married to the arrogant, unfaithful Bertrand Tézac, with whom she has an 11-year-old daughter. Julia writes for an American magazine and her editor assigns her to cover the 60th anniversary of the Vél' d'Hiv' roundups. Julia soon learns that the apartment she and Bertrand plan to move into was acquired by Bertrand's family when its Jewish occupants were dispossessed and deported 60 years before. She resolves to find out what happened to the former occupants: Wladyslaw and Rywka Starzynski, parents of 10-year-old Sarah and four-year-old Michel. The more Julia discovers—especially about Sarah, the only member of the Starzynski family to survive—the more she uncovers about Bertrand's family, about France and, finally, herself. Already translated into 15 languages, the novel is De Rosnay's 10th (but her first written in English, her first language). It beautifully conveys Julia's conflicting loyalties, and makes Sarah's trials so riveting, her innocence so absorbing, that the book is hard to put down.


She's Gone CountryShe's Gone Country by Jane Porter
Shey Darcy, a 39-year-old former top model for Vogue and Sports Illustrated led a charmed life in New York City with a handsome photographer husband until the day he announced he'd fallen in love with someone else. Left to pick up the pieces of her once happy world, Shey decides to move back home to Texas with her three teenage sons. Life on the family ranch, however, brings with it a whole new host of dramas starting with differences of opinion with her staunch Southern Baptist mother, her rugged but overprotective brothers, and daily battles with her three sons who are also struggling to find themselves. Add to the mix Shey's ex-crush, Dane Kelly, a national bullriding champ and she's got her hands full. It doesn't take long before Shey realizes that in order to reinvent herself, she must let go of an uncertain future and a broken past, to find happiness--and maybe love--in the present.




The Wednesday SistersThe Wednesday Sisters by Meg White Clayton
Set during the summer of 1968 in Palo Alto, California, Clayton’s novel chronicles the lives of five women who conduct a weekly writing group at their neighborhood park. Frankie is an unassuming midwesterner whose inventor husband brings them to the burgeoning Silicon Valley. She meets Linda, the all-American athlete; Kath, the southern belle; Brett, the enigmatic scientist; and Ally, the shy bohemian. The women share their feelings about marriage and motherhood and together mourn the assassination of Robert Kennedy and watch as man walks on the moon and feminists protest the Miss America pageant. They support one another through illness, infertility, racism, and infidelity—and encourage each other through publishers’ rejections. Readers will be swept up by this moving novel about female friendship and enthralled by the recounting of a pivotal year in American history as seen through these young women’s eyes.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

January Meeting

Our January meeting will be Thursday, January 20th at 6:30 PM at Kim A.'s house.  We will be discussing Fly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner.  Please bring your book and an appetizer to share.

Please also bring suggestions for books to read.  I would like for us to pick our books through May.

As always, please RSVP in the comment section.

See you there!

Monday, November 29, 2010

December Meeting

Our next book club meeting will be Thursday, December 9 at 6:45 at Mirko Pasta at Hamilton Mill.  Please bring an ornament (under $10) to exchange.  Please RSVP in the comments no later than Monday, December 6 so that I can make a reservation.

Monday, November 15, 2010

November Book Club

Our next book club meeting is Thursday, November 18 at 6:45 at Lynne's house.  We will be discussing Fly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner.

Please bring your book and an appetizer to share.  We will be planning our December meeting, so be thinking about a restaurant you would like to visit!

Please RSVP in the comments.

See you Thursday!

Friday, October 29, 2010

November Book Pick

Fly Away Home
For November, we will be reading Fly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner.  Our next meeting will be Thursday, November 18 at 6:45.  (Please note the date change!)

If you would like to hostess, please let me know.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

November Book Picks

The Chisellers by  by Brendan O'Carroll
By turns funny, wise and heartbreaking, this Irish Tales of the City is O'Carroll's second book in his Mrs. Browne trilogy; the first, The Mammy, received high praise after publication in the U.S. last year. Featuring eccentric characters who are charming, irreverent and believable, the story continues in 1973 with Agnes Browne at center stage. A widow raising six sons and a daughter, whom she refers to collectively as the "chisellers," she lives in public housing in inner-city Dublin. Agnes is no angel, which makes her all the more human; she chain-smokes, likes a pint or two of an evening and has a sweet-dispositioned boyfriend, a French immigrant named Pierre, who works at a pizza joint and is endlessly patient with Agnes and her rambunctious brood. Mark Browne is the oldest; at 17, he is apprenticed to a furniture-maker whose business is failing. How Mark saves the business and wins the girl of his dreams inform the main storyline, but each of the siblings and Agnes get their fair share of attention. Frankie, the next in age, is involved with violent local skinheads. After he and his gang brutally beat his younger brother, Rory, a subsequent act further tarnishes Frankie's reputation and outrages his family. This lively novel features a wedding, a funeral and an ending that will melt the hardest heart. 
In the Woods by Tana French
*Starred Review* Rob Ryan and his partner, Cassie Maddox, land the first big murder case of their police careers: a 12-year-old girl has been murdered in the woods adjacent to a Dublin suburb. Twenty years before, two children disappeared in the same woods, and Ryan was found clinging to a tree trunk, his sneakers filled with blood, unable to tell police anything about what happened to his friends. Ryan, although scarred by his experience, employs all his skills in the search for the killer and in hopes that the investigation will also reveal what happened to his childhood friends. In the Woods is a superior novel about cops, murder, memory, relationships, and modern Ireland. The characters of Ryan and Maddox, as well as a handful of others, are vividly developed in this intelligent and beautifully written first novel, and author French relentlessly builds the psychological pressure on Ryan as the investigation lurches onward under the glare of the tabloid media. Equally striking is the picture of contemporary Ireland, booming economically and fixated on the shabbiest aspects of American popular culture. An outstanding debut and a series to watch for procedural fans. 
The Lace Makers of Glenmora by Heather Barbieri
Barbieri (Snow in July) sets her latest in a small Irish town, Glenmara, where a heartbroken American tourist, Kate Robinson, finds her one-night stay extended with the help of some motherly role models. Kate's hostess, chronically grieving widow Bernie, draws the young Seattleite into a gossipy ring of lace makers. Kate, a former fashion designer, takes to them perfectly (one of several head-scratching coincidences), inspiring them to take on an empowering but controversial project. Although the focus is always on the positive, the narrative's strongest when exploring the less charming sides of Glenmara; rich sources of missed potential include the local priest, nicknamed Father Dominic Burn-in-Hell Byrne, and Bernie's irritable best friend Aileen, the only lace society member to regard Kate with anything but syrupy goodwill. The result is a sweet novel with few surprises. Even Kate's pivotal, inspirational idea—embellishing the ladies' undergarments with lace—suffers from murky logic (as do reactions from characters like Father Byrne). Still, Barbieri's world generates convincing warmth and emotion, making it worth a look for Friday Night Knitting Club fans between sequels. 

Bound South by Susan Rebecca White
Louise Parker is a classic southern belle. Well-dressed and well-mannered, she can’t help but be frustrated by her daughter. Wild Caroline goes to a strict Christian prep school where she cheats in math class and can only focus on becoming an actress, until she has to leave after she’s discovered in flagrante delicto with her drama teacher. In the meantime Louise is distracted by Missy, the daughter of her housekeeper, a born-again evangelical who assists her mother in between trying to convert Louise’s gay son. Despite the consequences of Caroline’s behavior, Louise finds herself wishing she could be as careless and wondering how her life would have turned out had she chosen a different path. Even with their differences, Louise’s thoughts eventually lead her to believe that Caroline may be more of a southern dame and Louise more of a rebel than either of them thought. An elaborate, generation-spanning southern tale of family life in the vein of Rebecca Wells. --Hilary Hatton

Fly Away Home: A Novel
Fly Away Home byJennifer Weiner
Sylvie Serfer Woodruff is stunned when her husband, Senator Richard Woodruff, is exposed by the press for having an affair with a staffer. Though Sylvie is humiliated, she agrees to stand by Richard’s side during his mea culpa press conference. As soon as it’s over, she heads to a house in Connecticut owned by her family, not sure whether she wants to end her marriage or not. The Woodruffs’ two daughters are at similar crossroads in their lives. Diana, a physician with a young son, is carrying on an affair with a younger man after growing weary of her marriage, while her younger sister, Lizzie, a recovering addict, is trying to rebuild her life after a stint in rehab. Realizing she has always put Richard first before her children, Sylvie makes a bid to have her daughters join her out at the Connecticut house and is surprised to find their lives as tumultuous as hers has become. Weiner’s trademark blend of wit and sensitivity distinguishes this timely tale about a family in crisis. --Kristine Huntley

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

October Meeting

Book Club will meet Thursday, October 14 at Michele M's house at 7:00.  (Please note the time change!)
We will be discussing The Wednesday Letters by Jason Wright.  Please bring your book and an appetizer to share.  See you Thursday!

Sunday, September 26, 2010

October Book Pick

Just a reminder that we are reading The Wednesday Letters by Jason Wright for our October book selection.  Our next meeting is October 14.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

September Meeting


September book club will meet Thursday, September 9 at 6:45 at Tonya's house.  Please bring your book and an appetizer to share.  We will be discussing The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

September and October Book Selection

In September, we will read The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton.
Our October book will be The Wednesday Letters by Jason Wright.

Shanghai

1. What is the literal meaning of “Shanghai?”

On top of the sea

City by the sea

Flower of the sea

At sea


2. T___F___ As of 2005, Shanghai’s port was the smallest in the world.


3. What are the majority of buildings being built today?
office buildings

factories

customer service centers

high-rise apartments


4. What astronomical phenomena was visible from Shanghai in July 2009?

a comet

a total solar eclipse

a total lunar eclipse

a supernova star

5. Shanghai has the world’s most extensive:

train system

bus system

freeway system

bridge system

6. Shanghai is the largest city in:

China

Asia

The world

none of the above

7. What kind of uniquely Shangainese element is the shikumen?

Boat

temple

Townhouse

market

8. How many times has the Shanghai Museum moved since it opened in 1952?

Once

twice

Three times

never

9. As of 2006, what is the largest Christian church building in East Asia?

St. Ignatius Cathedral

The Orthodox Eastern Church

She San Cathedral

Dongjiadu Cathedral

10. T___ F___ Shanghai is the birthplace of Chinese cinema and theater.

11. For the first half of the 20th century, Shanghai was considered the:

center of trade and finance of China

the center of culture of China

the economic center of China

none of the above

12. Today, Shanghai is often considered the center of China’s:

finance and trade

culture

economy

all of the above

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

September Book Picks

Here are some suggestions for our September Book Pick. If you have any books you would like to add, please email them to me.

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

Cassandra is lost, alone and grieving. Her much loved grandmother, Nell, has just died and Cassandra, her life already shaken by a tragic accident ten years ago, feels like she has lost everything dear to her. But an unexpected and mysterious bequest from Nell turns Cassandra's life upside down and ends up challenging everything she thought she knew about herself and her family. Inheriting a book of dark and intriguing fairytales written by Eliza Makepeace - the Victorian authoress who disappeared mysteriously in the early twentieth century - Cassandra takes her courage in both hands to follow in the footsteps of Nell on a quest to find out the truth about their history, their family and their past; little knowing that in the process, she will also discover a new life for herself.

Nose Down Eyes Up by Merrill Markoe

Gil is a bit of a schlub. Nearing 50, he lives rent-free as a handyman in an elderly couple’s Los Angeles vacation home. His girlfriend, Sara, works as an animal communicator. Consequently, he can now understand all four of his dogs and is surprised to discover that the alpha dog, Jimmy, has been giving informative lectures to the neighborhood dogs about such topics as begging faces, edible shoes, and peeing inside versus outside. A chance meeting with Gil’s ex leads to his accepting a job remodeling her guesthouse, and Jimmy begs to be brought along. Soon Gil finds himself moving uncomfortably closer to his ex and further away from Jimmy, and it’s only when things get rough that Gil and Jimmy begin to reconsider the meaning of family.


The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

Harvard graduate student Connie Goodwin needs to spend her summer doing research for her doctoral dissertation. But when her mother asks her to handle the sale of Connie's grandmother's abandoned home near Salem, she can't refuse. As she is drawn deeper into the mysteries of the family house, Connie discovers an ancient key within a seventeenth-century Bible. The key contains a yellowing fragment of parchment with a name written upon it: Deliverance Dane. This discovery launches Connie on a quest--to find out who this woman was and to unearth a rare artifact of singular power: a physick book, its pages a secret repository for lost knowledge.

As the pieces of Deliverance's harrowing story begin to fall into place, Connie is haunted by visions of the long-ago witch trials, and she begins to fear that she is more tied to Salem's dark past then she could have ever imagined.

Written with astonishing conviction and grace, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane travels seamlessly between the witch trials of the 1690s and a modern woman's story of mystery, intrigue, and revelation.


The Wednesday Letters by Jason Wright

Their story begins with one letter on their wedding night, a letter from the groom, promising to write his bride every week-for as long they both shall live. Thirty-nine years later, Jack and Laurel Cooper die in each other's arms. And when their grown children return to the family B&B to arrange the funeral, they discover thousands of letters. The letters they read tell of surprising joys and sorrows. They also hint at a shocking family secret-and ultimately force the children to confront a life-changing moment of truth . . .


The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf

It happens quietly one August morning. As dawn's shimmering light drenches the humid Iowa air, two families awaken to find their little girls have gone missing in the night. Seven-year-old Calli Clark is sweet, gentle, a dreamer who suffers from selective mutism brought on by tragedy that pulled her deep into silence as a toddler. Calli's mother, Antonia, tried to be the best mother she could within the confines of marriage to a mostly absent, often angry husband. Now, though she denies that her husband could be involved in the possible abductions, she fears her decision to stay in her marriage has cost her more than her daughter's voice. Petra Gregory is Calli's best friend, her soul mate and her voice. But neither Petra nor Calli has been heard from since their disappearance was discovered. Desperate to find his child, Martin Gregory is forced to confront a side of himself he did not know existed beneath his intellectual, professorial demeanor. Now these families are tied by the question of what happened to their children. And the answer is trapped in the silence of unspoken family secrets.

August Meeting

I hope that everyone had a great first day of school!
Just a reminder that book club is this Thursday, August 13 at 6:45 at Elisa's house. We will be discussing Shanghai Girls by Lisa See.

Please remember to RSVP in the comments! It makes it much easier for our hostess to plan.See you Thursday!

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

August Book Pick

Our next meeting will be Thursday, August 12 at 6:45. We will be discussing Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
Shanghai Girls

May and Pearl, two sisters living in Shanghai in the mid-1930s, are beautiful, sophisticated, and well-educated, but their family is on the verge of bankruptcy. Hoping to improve their social standing, May and Pearl’s parents arrange for their daughters to marry “Gold Mountain men” who have come from Los Angeles to find brides.

But when the sisters leave China and arrive at Angel’s Island (the Ellis Island of the West)--where they are detained, interrogated, and humiliated for months--they feel the harsh reality of leaving home. And when May discovers she’s pregnant the situation becomes even more desperate. The sisters make a pact that no one can ever know.

A novel about two sisters, two cultures, and the struggle to find a new life in America while bound to the old, Shanghai Girls is a fresh, fascinating adventure from beloved and bestselling author Lisa See.

Friday, June 25, 2010

For our July meeting, we will be reading On Folly Beach by Karen White. Our next meeting is July 15 at 6:45 at Michelle H's house.
Please bring your book to discuss and an appetizer to share. Please RSVP in the comments!