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!