October's Book

 

Book club for October will be held on October 22 at Johanna Carlston Markworth's house. We will review "What Alice Forgot" by Liane Moriarty. The meeting will start at 7:00 PM.

RETREAT will be held in November this year. We will go over to the cabin on November 10-11. We will be reviewing our own books in November so come prepared to share a book with the group. We will have more info on retreat coming later.

Alice Love is twenty-nine, crazy about her husband, and pregnant with her first child.

So imagine Alice’s surprise when she comes to on the floor of a gym (a gym! She HATES the gym) and is whisked off to the hospital where she discovers the honeymoon is truly over — she’s getting divorced, she has three kids, and she’s actually 39 years old. Alice must reconstruct the events of a lost decade, and find out whether it’s possible to reconstruct her life at the same time. She has to figure out why her sister hardly talks to her, and how is it that she’s become one of those super skinny moms with really expensive clothes. Ultimately, Alice must discover whether forgetting is a blessing or a curse, and whether it’s possible to start over…

March 2014

Our book this month is Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

They had nothing in common until love gave them everything to lose . . .

Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life—steady boyfriend, close family—who has barely been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex–Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after an accident. Will has always lived a huge life—big deals, extreme sports, worldwide travel—and now he’s pretty sure he cannot live the way he is.

Will is acerbic, moody, bossy—but Lou refuses to treat him with kid gloves, and soon his happiness means more to her than she expected. When she learns that Will has shocking plans of his own, she sets out to show him that life is still worth living.

A Love Story for this generation, Me Before You brings to life two people who couldn’t have less in common—a heartbreakingly romantic novel that asks, What do you do when making the person you love happy also means breaking your own heart?

Book club will be on March 28, at Ann's house, at 8:00 PM. Please post on Facebook if you have a copy of the book that you can pass around. Thanks!

February's Book Club pick

The Rent Collector by Camron Wright gives a look into the life of trash pickers living in a huge dump of Cambodia.

Their daily life is roasting hot, dirty from the discarded articles, muddy from the rains, dangerous because of the smoldering piles, files and vermin. What they retrieve from the dump is not a living but sometimes enough to sell to buy rice and if they are lucky. They are forbidden to build houses so they look for materials from the dump to build three walls and use a canvas cover to block the rain. Their clothing, cooking pots and all other possessions came from the dump.

Sang Li is poor but is not aware of what people take for granted outside of the dump. This is her world. Her baby boy, Nissay is constantly sick with diarrhea and can't keep any food down so he doesn't grow. This is a constant worry of his parents. Sang Li's husband is Kim Lim, a hard working picker and loving father and husband.

You would think that the pickers wouldn't have to pay rent because of where they live and the fact that they build their own day shelters. But Sopeap Sin, aka the Cow collects the rent every month. She seems to be just a very angry old drunk woman who hates everything except her high grade wine. But because of what Kim Lim find in the trash one day, all of their lives change including the rent collector.

This story is much than what it is a life of daily survival in the dump; it is the story of hope, understanding, redemption and secrets dating back the Pol Pots' devastating regime.

Book club will be held on Wednesday February 26, 7:00 PM at Linda's house. I look forward to seeing you there!

January Book Club

Shanna's House (I am switching Leah) Wednesday January 29th @ 7:00 pm
THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER by Stephen Chbosky

Charlie is a freshman. And while he's not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his years yet socially awkward, he is a wallflower, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it. Charlie is attempting to navigate his way through uncharted territory: the world of first dates and mix tapes, family dramas and new friends; the world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite. But he can't stay on the sideline forever. Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a deeply affecting coming-of-age story that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up.

Monthly Assignments for 2014

January: Leah
February: Linda
March: Ann
April: Becca
May: Krista
June: Shanna
July: Caron
August: Missy
September: Angie
October: Johanna
November: book reviews
December: Mindy

These are random assignments. Let me know if you want to change up your month. It would be really helpful if you can pick your book as soon as possible. This way people can get a hold of the books and even get ahead on the reading if they want to. Let me know what you choose and I will update the blog. Thanks!

December 2013: Christmas Party!!

Amazon Best Books of the Month, June 2012: In Tell the Wolves I’m Home, Carol Rifka Brunt has made a singular portrait of the late-‘80s AIDS epidemic’s transformation of a girl and her family. But beyond that, she tells a universal story of how love chooses us, and how flashes of our beloved live through us even after they’re gone. Before her Uncle Finn died of an illness people don’t want to talk about, 14-year-old June Elbus thought she was the center of his world. A famous and reclusive painter, Finn made her feel uniquely understood, privy to secret knowledge like how to really hear Mozart’s Requiem or see the shape of negative space. When he’s gone, she discovers he had a bigger secret: his longtime partner Toby, the only other person who misses him as much as she does. Her clandestine friendship with Toby—who her parents blame for Finn’s illness—sharpens tensions with her sister, Greta, until their bond seems to exist only in the portrait Finn painted of them. With wry compassion, Brunt portrays the bitter lengths to which we will go to hide our soft underbellies, and how summoning the courage to be vulnerable is the only way to see through to each other’s hungry, golden souls.

Book club/CHRISTMAS PARTY will be held on Thursday, Dec 19 at Mindy's house. We will start at 7:00 PM.

We will be doing the chocolate fountain. Yay! Please sign up to bring one of the following items or something of your choosing.  Feel free to bring whatever you want. The following items are just suggestions.

Chocolate: Mindy
Marshmallows: Becca
Pineapple: Krista
Strawberries:
Potato chips: Ann
Cinnamon bears: Johanna
Pretzels: Caron
Peanut butter something:
Brownie bites: Shanna
Angel food cake/pound cake: Missy
Bananas:

Let me know if you have any questions. I'm excited to see you all!

November 2013

As always, thank you for a wonderful retreat. I had such a fantastic time with each of you....and some much needed therapy. I sure do love all you ladies!

Our book for November is The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman. Here is a synopsis off of Amazon:
After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.

Tom, who keeps meticulous records and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel insists the baby is a “gift from God,” and against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.

This is a fantastic read and should make for great discussion at book club. Our meeting will be held at Johanna's house on Thursday, November 21 at 8:00PM. Please note that this is different from our usual date. We changed this month because of conflicts with Thanksgiving and RS activities that some of us have to attend.  Also, Johanna had the great idea to make cards while we discuss the book. So bring your card-making supplies and we will get our craft on. I'll bring card blanks in case anyone needs them.
Please let me know if you have questions or concerns.

Again, thanks for a great retreat. I look forward to seeing you all in a month!

July 2013 "Desert Flower" by Waris Dirie

By age 6, Waris Dirie was herding her family's sheep and goats, fending off hyenas and wild dogs as the family carved a path through Africa. She was just twice that age when she ran off into the vast furnace of the Somali desert to escape an arranged marriage to a much older man. Traveling for days without food and water, she made her way to Mogadishu and later to London as a servant to her uncle, the Somalian ambassador. There she wrestled with culture shock and got her first taste of the modeling life that eventually brought her into the public eye. Dirie is resilient, having survived drought, hunger, and the ritual female genital mutilation that marks a step toward womanhood among some traditional Moslems but, argue critics, steals or ruins many girls' lives. "As we traveled throughout Somalia," says Dirie, "we met families and I played with their daughters. When we visited them again, the girls were missing. No one spoke the truth about their absence or even spoke of them at all." As a special ambassador to the United Nations, Dirie has spoken out loudly on this subject and championed environmental causes, too. How much of her sometimes breathless story is gospel truth and how much embellished is hard to say. Like Dirie herself, though, the combination is intriguing, powerful, and unique.

Book club will be held at Missy's house, July 31, at 8PM.  Let mw know if you have any questions. Can't wait to see you all!

May 2013: Austenland by Shannon Hale

Thirty-three-year-old Jane Hayes, who has a fairly serious addiction to the Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice, inherits a trip to Pembrook Park, Kent, England, the location of a resort where guests dress, talk, think, and act in ways that Jane Austen would approve. Refusing to lie about her age, even on vacation in a place right out of Austen's England, Jane finds herself quickly overcoming the obsession with Mr. Darcy that may very well have jeopardized her 13 "relationships" over the years. Left to walk in last to dinner, mildly obsessed with one of the hotel's gardeners, and annoyed by another guest's overeager attempts to bag a man, Jane is eager to return to Manhattan. Then she decides to give it all one more chance, since Great-Aunt Carolyn did see fit to pay for the entire vacation. Hale does a lovely job with the tale of a single woman who would appreciate a genuine shot at love. The book is well written, quite readable, and the myriad characters, especially those working at the resort, are quirkily funny. Given the immense popularity of Jane Austen's novels among teen girls, this book definitely has cross-over appeal.

Book club will be held on May 29th, 8PM at Leah's house. Looking forward to seeing you all there.

Monthly Assignments 2013

January: Amy "Language of Flowers"
February: Becca "North and South"
March: Linda "Saving CeeCee Honeycutt"
April: Angie "Proof of Heaven"
May: Leah "Austenland"
June: Caron
July: Missy
August: Krista
September: Ann
October: Shanna
November: Johanna "The Light Between Two Oceans"
December: Mindy "One Hundred Years of Solitude"

Book Club Retreat Spring 2013!

Yay, EVERYONE is in the picture! We love you and will miss you so much Amy!

October 2012

Our book this month is If You Could See Me Now by Cecelia Ahern. It was chosen by Krista. Here is a brief description of the book taken from Amazon.com:

Readers and critics alike adore Cecelia Ahern for her lighthearted yet insightful stories about modern women and their often unusual situations. In If You Could See Me Now, she takes that theme a step further, offering us a heroine who is entirely believable, and the new man in her life who is, well, slightly less so.
Elizabeth Egan's life runs on order: Both her home and her emotions are arranged just so, with little room for spontaneity. It's how she counteracts the chaos of her family -- an alcoholic mother who left when she was young, an emotionally distant father, and a free-spirited sister, who seems to be following in their mother's footsteps, leaving her own six-year-old son, Luke, in Elizabeth's care. When Ivan, Luke's mysterious new grown-up friend, enters the picture, Elizabeth doesn't know quite what to make of him. With his penchant for adventure and colorful take on things large and small, Ivan opens Elizabeth's eyes to a whole new way of living. But is it for real? Is Ivan for real?
If You Could See Me Now is a love story with heart -- and just a touch of magic.

RETREAT is this month! This book will be reviewed at retreat. Dates are October 26-27. More details coming soon.

September 2012

What would possess a gifted young man recently graduated from college to literally walk away from his life? Noted outdoor writer and mountaineer Jon Krakauer tackles that question in his reporting on Chris McCandless, whose emaciated body was found in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness in 1992. Described by friends and relatives as smart, literate, compassionate, and funny, did McCandless simply read too much Thoreau and Jack London and lose sight of the dangers of heading into the wilderness alone? Krakauer, whose own adventures have taken him to the perilous heights of Everest, provides some answers by exploring the pull the outdoors, seductive yet often dangerous, has had on his own life.

Book club will be Sept 28th, 7:00 PM at Leah's house. Let me know if you have any questions. Can't wait to discuss this book!

June 2012

OK ladies, book club in June will be held at my house. Give me a few days to figure out the date. There is a youth conference going on during our normal week which would affect quite a few of us. I may move it up or back a week. Comments and suggestions?
Our book this month is State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. My copy is roaming around. If you are done with it please post so we can get it to the next person. This book is just recently out in paperback and can be purchased on Amazon. If you want to do that let me know, I have free 2-day shipping on all my orders. This is a REALLY good book so please make an effort to get a hold of it and get it read. I think we will have some great discussion with this book. I'll post the date for book club in a couple of days. Love you all!

Another Good One!

Thanks again Johanna! Retreat was a blast.

Shanghai Girls by Lisa See

This is the book for May (at Shanna's house)
There are 8 copies floating around from the bookclub kit, so if you need one ask around:).

In 1937, Shanghai is the Paris of Asia, a city of great wealth and glamour, the home of millionaires and beggars, gangsters and gamblers, patriots and revolutionaries, artists and warlords. Thanks to the financial security and material comforts provided by their father’s prosperous rickshaw business, twenty-one-year-old Pearl Chin and her younger sister, May, are having the time of their lives. Though both sisters wave off authority and tradition, they couldn’t be more different: Pearl is a Dragon sign, strong and stubborn, while May is a true Sheep, adorable and placid. Both are beautiful, modern, and carefree . . . until the day their father tells them that he has gambled away their wealth and that in order to repay his debts he must sell the girls as wives to suitors who have traveled from California to find Chinese brides.

As Japanese bombs fall on their beloved city, Pearl and May set out on the journey of a lifetime, one that will take them through the Chinese countryside, in and out of the clutch of brutal soldiers, and across the Pacific to the shores of America. In Los Angeles they begin a fresh chapter, trying to find love with the strangers they have married, brushing against the seduction of Hollywood, and striving to embrace American life even as they fight against discrimination, brave Communist witch hunts, and find themselves hemmed in by Chinatown’s old ways and rules.

At its heart, Shanghai Girls is a story of sisters: Pearl and May are inseparable best friends who share hopes, dreams, and a deep connection, but like sisters everywhere they also harbor petty jealousies and rivalries. They love each other, but each knows exactly where to drive the knife to hurt the other the most. Along the way they face terrible sacrifices, make impossible choices, and confront a devastating, life-changing secret, but through it all the two heroines of this astounding new novel hold fast to who they are–Shanghai girls.

This Month's Book: Flowers for Algernon

This month's book is Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes.

"With more than five million copies sold, Flowers for Algernon is the beloved, classic story of a mentally disabled man whose experimental quest for intelligence mirrors that of Algernon, an extraordinary lab mouse. In poignant diary entries, Charlie tells how a brain operation increases his IQ and changes his life. As the experimental procedure takes effect, Charlie's intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis. The experiment seems to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance--until Algernon begins his sudden, unexpected deterioration. Will the same happen to Charlie?" -- via Amazon.com

I chose this book because I discovered that it is a crazily high-rated book that apparently everyone has read. I haven't. And according to Goodreads, none of you have either. So we should. It's not my typical flavor of book, but it's also not a common flavor amid our book club choices. I thought it might be a refreshing change, a nice addition to our flavor pallet if you will. I'm excited to read it (I already peeked via the Amazon's "Look Inside" feature, and I was intrigued). I hope I like it as much as the rest of the world seems to. And I hope you all do too!

It's available for as little as $4 (used) via Amazon. The Kindle edition is about 9 bucks. L library has two copies; the NL library has a couple as well. And S library has one. I hope this availability will be enough. So get reading! You won't regret it.

*We will be reviewing this book at Book Club Retreat in April (which will likely be the 20th and 21st). See you then!

Book club meeting this Thursday, 3/22!

Hey, girls.

Just a reminder that we have BOOK CLUB this Thursday, 3/22.

It will be at 7pm at Missy's house.

Book: The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck (It's a good'un.)

Hope to see you all there!

"Unbroken" by Lauren Hillenbrand

Our book for this month is "Unbroken" by Lauren Hillenbrand. The following review was taken for amazon.com:
On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood.  Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared.  It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard.  So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.

The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini.  In boyhood, he’d been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to ride the rails.  As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile.  But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.

Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater.  Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion.  His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will.

In her long-awaited new book, Laura Hillenbrand writes with the same rich and vivid narrative voice she displayed in Seabiscuit.  Telling an unforgettable story of a man’s journey into extremity, Unbroken is a testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit.

So far I am riveted by this book. I can't wait to discuss it with all of you. We will meet at Amy's house on February 23rd at 7:00 PM. Please comment if you have questions or need a copy of the book. See you all there!

"Running Out of Time" by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Our book for January is Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix:

Jessie lives with her family in the frontier village of Clifton, Indiana, in 1840 -- or so she believes. When diphtheria strikes the village and the children of Clifton start dying, Jessie's mother reveals a shocking secret -- it's actually 1996, and they are living in a reconstructed village that serves as a tourist site. In the world outside, medicine exists that can cure the dread disease, and Jessie's mother is sending her on a dangerous mission to bring back help.
But beyond the walls of Clifton, Jessie discovers a world even more alien and threatening than she could have imagined, and soon she finds her own life in jeopardy. Can she get help before the children of Clifton, and Jessie herself, run out of time?

Copies are floating around, and also available at the local libraries. Please leave comments if you have a copy available or need a copy.
Book club will be held on January 26th, 7:00 PM at Johanna's house. Please do your best to be on time. Let Mindy know if you have any questions.