sametimenextmonth: August Book Club 2019

Tuesday, August 13, 2019

August Book Club 2019

Many thanks to Denise for hosting the August book club. As you know, Diana and I phoned in our book report this time. She had mentioned we might be calling from Mt. Hood and she wasn't far off. We were having a hard cider at a roadside orchard and cutting garden in the shadow of the mountain. It was good hear everyone's voices and we enjoyed the discussion.

Carla Anderson did a great job of writing our update this month and I have posted it below. If anyone took any photos they would like to share, please add them to the Facebook page and I will upload.

Last night was just one more magical night of friends; women who are spiritual beings gathering together in a home filled with love, support and a safe place to be exactly who we are as individuals. Thank you, Miss Denise!

The food, as always, was absolutely wonderful. Denise made a Pasta e Fagioli soup, both vegetarian and sausage. Barb made egg and chicken salad sandwiches. Tammy brought a cheese plate. Liz made Taco salad and Carla G brought broccoli salad. Arnora brought fruit and, of course, beautiful flowers. Terry made a strawberry cobbler.

(At the time of this writing, the book had not been scored.) I am not sure how Miss D figures the score so I will send her the numbers and anyone who wants to rate it later may let Miss D know.

I know that wine, truffles and so much more were present and I apologize for not taking better notice of the who's and what's. (I totally understand - once you are in the mix of such great conversation you sometimes forget to take the notes and photos, guilty as charged!)

Leslie, Robbie, Pam, Janie, Sherrie and Diana were all missed.

Next month's book is "Where the Crawdad's Sing," by Delia Owens.

One last thing, we are all enough. We are all kind, loving and amazing women. Our higher power, or whatever each of us believes in, could not ask more or be more delighted in who we are as humans because we are enough. We are exactly who we are supposed to be.

NOTES from Sherrie.

From our end, it sounded like everyone had a good time discussing Bernadette. The story of Bernadette, is really the story of a kind coming of age story for Bernadette and her 15 year old daughter, Bee. This story is a variation on the many young adult novels where the child, on the verge of adulthood, is orphaned. In our story, it is Bee's mother who disappears rather than both parents dying. Bee is still rather abandoned by both parents even before her mother's disappearance. So, I would say she it technically orphaned. Bee's parents suffered several miscarriages before Bee was born. Even though Bee is now 15, her parents relationship has suffered from the unexpressed grief of these prior losses and retreating into their own shells. Her father, who works for Microsoft, retreats into his work and a brief affair. Bernadette, a once famous architect, becomes housebound due to agoraphobia and is a stay at home, a mom at odds with the environment around her. Due to a serious of misunderstandings and miscommunications, Bee is forced to piece together shards of information to discover who her mother really is and why she went missing.

The adult characters in this book didn't necessarily come across as very likable and often were downright irritating. Absorbed in their own pain and navigating difficult life passage of their own, they were leaving Bee to fend for herself. But, this is how we grow up. This is how we learn to navigate in that adult world.

Bernadette has taken her grief and retreated from the world around her. She ensconces herself at home and is not fulling her passion. She is no longer creating beauty in the world but, havoc. This is what happens when we think we are avoiding our pain. It just leaks out in other ways. Bernadette takes off on an exploration. She doesn't know that she is missing. But, in disappearing the way she does she started to reconnect with herself.

This sparked the discussion that all women have at some point; are we enough. Are they doing enough for their families, their community, their God. Where do you draw the lines between giving everything to others and only scraps for yourself (I added that part, I don't know that it was part of the discussion.) And, who are we comparing ourselves to?

I really enjoyed this book when I read it a while back. I enjoyed how it was told and I enjoyed the journey of the characters. For me, characters don't have to always be likable. It is those grains of sand, the irritations, the people we don't like that often teach us the most about ourselves.

The book rated a 3.86 for those who rated it.

No comments:

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

Tuesday, August 13, 2019

August Book Club 2019

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