sametimenextmonth: September 2017 Book Club

Sunday, September 10, 2017

September 2017 Book Club

August was a beautiful month for us here in the Midwest as we watched a full solar Eclipse in the Northern Hemisphere. While fires rage on the west coast and hurricanes pummel the Gulf and Atlantic, Oklahoma experienced one of the wettest and coolest Augusts on record in recent history. We moved into September with the huge, orange Corn Moon and very fall-like weather.

We convened at Carla Gibb's home for another great meal, book discussion on the patio and to celebrate her birthday! Carla provided two delicious pizzas, tea and wine. To complement the pizza we opted for summer salads:

Janie - Cauliflower salad

Denise - Fruit salad

Lis - Kale Salad and wine

Terry - Pear Salad

Tammy - Cabo Ceviche

Laura - Seasonal Beer

Sherrie - Texas Choc Cake/Cupcakes

Diana - Fresh whipped cream to top the cupcakes

Arnora - Fresh flower centerpiece

As different as all the salads were, the flavors worked exceptionally well together and demanded second helpings from most of us.

We know how to have a good time!

Randy was on hand nearby and we appreciated his taking a moment to snap an updated group photo. This month we missed Barb, Pam, Lou, Darby. We were happy that Leslie was able to drop by at the end of the evening after her son's football game.

There have been 30 years of
cover art for this book.

This month's book was The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. The premise of the story is a totalitarian society in an unknown part of the United States. It is ruled by a fundamentalist regime that treats women as property of the state. This place is faced with environmental disasters and a plummeting birth rate. In a desperate attempt to repopulate, the few remaining fertile women are forced into sexual servitude. The novel is the story of one of these "Handmaid's Tales."

All but two or three of us finished the book and it rated a 3.5. Published in 1985, this book is a considered dystopian and cautionary tale. Laura remembers studying this novel in her college course and enjoyed rereading her original book that included her notes of the time.

Lis pointed out that Atwood was writing this book around the time of events and effects of the overthrow of the Shah of Iran. Most recently, we've seen this very thing carried out by the Taliban in Afghanistan. We like to think that it would be impossible for something like this to happen to women in the United States but, that is part of what makes this a cautionary tale. The overthrow of the Shah in Iran, for example was considered a peaceful revolution with many women at the heart of it. However, their desire to put the Ayatollah in place did not produce their desired effects.

Laura said that the novel was skillfully crafted as Margaret Atwood does not give any contextual history for the setting and story. You are never fully certain where the story takes place. Is this happening in a specific area of the U.S.? Or, is it happening throughout the country? The timeframe is also somewhat ambiguous. The book depressed Diana but, she gave it high marks for writing skill.

There was quite a bit of discussion about the current political climate. Denise mentioned the fact that recently, a dress code was imposed by the Speaker of the House that requires an appropriate dress code for women that includes not baring their shoulders or wearing open toed shoes. Most businesses have some sort of basic dress code. I don't have a problem with that. I've seen companies that relaxed dress codes to "casual" and you really do have to tell some people not to wear tank tops, cut offs or, flip flops to work. But, telling a professional woman that she can't wear a sleeveless dress into a House meeting starts to cross some tricky lines that worry me. Many laws and freedoms can be taken away from you bit by bit while you aren't noticing. In both Iran and Afghanistan - the wearing of the niqab, hijab and burkas rise and rise and fall with regimes.

Leslie said that she listened to the book on Audible and that the author's voice, as well as the narrator, sounded just like Darby. I'm sure this will please Darby to no end and Atwood is one of her favorite authors.

Next month we will meet at Arnora's home. By then, she will be Arnora Kearns and we all congratulate her and Stan on their marriage and wish them much happiness. Our book will be The Haunting of Hill House in honor of Halloween. Denise will host in November and we will have our annual Christmas book club at Laura's.

1 comment:

Diana said...: Sherrie, great blog and I so appreciate your taking time to do this for us! Thank you!! Diana; September 11, 2017 at 8:47 PM

2015 Hosts and Books

Jan 9 - Pam Boeck - All the Light We Cannot See
Feb 6 - Lou Christian - Alif the Unseen
March 6 - Terry Cummings - Kind of Kin
April 3 - Janie Tisdale - The Girl on the Train
May 1 - Arnora Parish - The Stolen Child
Jun 5 - Barb Barrow - The Elephant Whisperer
July 10 - Diana Beal - Lone Wolf
Aug 7 - Denise McGough - The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
Sept 11 - Sherrie Phillips - H is for Hawk
Oct 2 - Arnora Parish - The Boy Who Drew Monsters
Nov 6 - Sherrie Phillips
Dec - Laura Madden - A Child's Christmas in Wales & Christmas Day in the Morning

The Honey Tree - Mary Oliver

And so at last I climbed

the honey tree, ate

chunks of pure light, ate

the bodies of bees that could not

get out of my way, ate

the dark hair of the leaves,

the rippling bark,

the heartwood. Such

frenzy! But joy does that,

I'm told, in the beginning.

Later, maybe,

I'll come here only

sometimes and with a

middling hunger. But now

I climb like a snake

I clamber like a bear to

the nuzzling place, to the light

salvaged by the thighs

of bees and racked up

in the body of the tree.

Oh, anyone can see

how I love myself at last!

how I love the world! climbing

by day or night

in the wind, in the leaves, kneeling

at the secret rip, the cords

of my body stretching

and singing in the

heaven of appetite.

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Lis and Diana's Review of Isaac's Storm

Lis said: This book centers around the devastating hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas, in 1901 and is blamed for the death of over 4500 people. Although the story wasn't a page-turner for most, it was full of interesting historical and scientific data while building up to describing accounts of the devastation and aftermath that the storm created. In my opinion, it is debatable whether the book should be considered a true fiction or a non-fiction. Hand in hand with the storm description, the book tells about the creation of the National Weather Service and the struggle that the organization went through to earn the people's trust. When looking back over the disaster, the author identifies areas of misuse and false pride - in the bureaucratic sector as well as the people's personal lives - that, if it had been overcome, might have averted some of the lost lives. Building up to the storm, the author touches on many historical facts surrounding the era, such as the state of Arkansas passing legislation a few decades earlier to legalize the proper pronunciation of its name to be "Arkansaw." Into this background, the author creates the characters that he was able to find in his research that made up the early Weather Service and some of the residence of Galveston, their spouses and children, making us shiver with dread over successful and unsuccessful rescue efforts. After bringing to life the unimaginable aftermath, with whole neighborhoods destroyed and bodies at every step, the book concludes with Galveston's recovery and a large chapter of Acknowledgements for the extensive support and research that the author relied on. I for one enjoyed the book immensely and, after the first third, found it difficult to put down till the end. Elisabeth Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven't thought about it, don't have it on their schedule, didn't know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine. I got to thinking one day about all those women on the Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back. From then on, I've tried to be a little more flexible.

Diana said: The old saying, "hind sight is 20/20" comes to mind while reading the hurricane account of Galveston, Texas in 1901. Author Eric Larson's story reminded me of his first book we read, Devil in the White City, as he combined historical facts and real people while piecing together a plausible tale of personalities and lives. I have huge respect for writing historical fiction, as the writer not only has to devise an interesting story but also works as an investigator and researcher in the process. The first third of the story was slow and at times I found myself skimming the pages waiting for action. I think this may have been purposeful by Larson. As a reader I was going about my daily business and uninvolved like the townspeople of Galveston noting the changing winds and heading off to work. I took occasional notice of Isaac's trip to the American west by stage and his appearance as a "dandy", the use of telegraph as the primary form of communication from on location to another and it was surprising to find out the American and Cuban weather men held so little regard for each other. Americans found the Cuban forecasters primitive, romantic and unreliable. But once the hurricane was upon Galveston, I was spellbound for the remainder of the book. With the exception of once when I had to put the story down due to the brutal descriptions of decaying bodies which I found overwhelming. For me the story telling mimicked the event itself. Galveston and the rest of the U.S. were going along with business as usual, and then wham! A hurricane the magnitude no one expected or had experienced before bursts forth with action and drama and left no one untouched including me.

Lis' review of A Thousand Splendid Suns

The story playing in Afghanistan made it another compelling read and a walk through a different culture, very foreign to most of us. I had the fortune to have also read the book The Kite Runner by the same author and found that the two stories make great companion books, almost a must-read duo. Our month's selection takes us into the Arabic culture through the life of two women, one of them a servant girl's bastard child - and yes, I used the old fashioned term for illegitimate child on purpose to stay with the tone of the novel. The other woman is depicted as a well-educated, emancipated young woman from a progressive, westernized family. Through the turmoils surrounding Afghanistan's recent 30-year history, their lives intertwine with the same abusive husband and their attempt to deal with the changes brought on by the Russian occupation, the takeover of the Mujahedin and, eventually, the Taliban. The companion book, The Kite Runner, deals with the same political and social upheavals in Afghanistan but is told through the life of a man and his very devoted male servant. A Thousand Splendid Suns evoked a lot of emotion for most of us, feeling comfortable as well educated American women that have rights and can expect a certain social standing that greatly exceeds the animal-like treatment of our female Afghan counterparts under Taliban rule. Needless to say, we had a lively discussion about Afghanistan's troubles, the interactions of both women's parents' influences, their different upbringing, and how it made them relate to each other. We found similarities to the book Shanturam in this author's use of the cinema, especially Bollywood movies. One thing we did not discuss though that I found enticing, was the advantages of being able to skip hair and make-up treatments through the use of a Burka! Blue was, after all, the favored color of my youth, although I always preferred much darker shades. What do you think, ladies, Burkas in our future?

sametimenextmonth

Sunday, September 10, 2017

September 2017 Book Club

1 comment:

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