sametimenextmonth: August 2021

Wednesday, August 4, 2021

July Book Club 2021

The weather mild weather continues to hold as we move into summer. In May, it rained 27 out of 31 days. We continued to have rain, though not as much, and milder than normal temps in June. And, it was still lovely enough for us to dine on Diana's patio this month, though we moved our discussion inside.

We had a double miracle this month as EVERY in state member was present and 100% of members read the book. This month, Carla's granddaughter, Bailee, also joined us. I don't think we bored her too much!

We had a lovely, light dinner that included chicken salad sandwiches as well as other cold sandwiches, and a cobbler with ice cream for dessert! Perfect for a summer's night.

Our book for July was the Rose Code by Kate Quinn. She is another recurring author for the group as we recently enjoyed her book, "The Alice Network."

The Rose Code is another story set in WWII England. The story is about three female code breakers; Osla, Mab and Beth at Bletchley Park during the war. The women form a friendship and a book club over the years, but a betrayal and traitor among their colleagues lands one of them in a locked up asylum in the years after the war. But, through a letter carefully smuggled out, she's able to issue a cry for help from her confinement.

I thought the author did a particularly good job with her descriptions putting me, in my imagination, right in the thick of the action sequences.

The book rated a 4.5.

June Book Club 2021

Blog Post # 172 Book #234

Barb hosted us on her lovely patio for June and her friend Debra joined us. We had a wonderful meal that included smoked salmon. The weather was perfect and we were joined by a very interested Firefly that made her presence known. This Firefly flew into the middle of our circle and then proceeded to come face to face with each one of us hovering in front of our eyes for several seconds each. And, she did it twice. Unanimously, we agreed that Terry was making her presence known! And, what a perfect book to coincide with this synchronicity as Barbara Kingsolver writes so poetically about nature.

Ms. Kingsolver has been a favorite author of this group almost since its inception. And, Prodigal Summer has rated the favorite of all books among several of our members. It was decided to revisit this book at the beginning of summer as a refreshing for some and a new read for others.

This story is told of a small Appalachian town during a single, humid summer when three interweaving stories of love, loss and family unfold against a backdrop of the lush wildness of the Virginia mountains. The story follows Deanna, a solitary woman working as a park ranger, Lusa, a recently widowed entomologist at odds with her late farmer husband's tight-knit family, and Garnett, an old man who dreams of restoring the lineage of the extinct American Chestnut Tree.

Kingsolver's extensive education in biology is on display in this book. Her writing also exhibits her knowledge of rural Virginia, where she grew up.

The rating for this book was off our usual chart of 1-5 as some gave it a 5.5 and even a 6.

May Book Club 2021

Blog Post #171 Book #233

Pam hosted May's book club on her patio. This found us meeting for dinner on a beautiful Friday night. Tammy and Lily were able to join us this month and we were excited to see them!

This month we were missing Janie, Carla G, Leslie. We always miss Lou and Darby who live away and Terry will be forever missed.

Our book for May was The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. The story is about Nora, a 30-something woman who is regretful about her life and feels alienated and unneeded in this world. In the depths of her wallowing, she comes across the Midnight Library. In it, each book represents a portal into another variation of what her life could have been. As she reads each volume, they allow her access to different versions of her life; relationships she could have stayed with, careers she could have pursued and so on.

As she jumps in and out of these alternate realities, Nora's journey of self-discovery results in a life-affirming and reflective story about the choices we make, the paths we've chosen and each our places in the world.

The book was well received and rated a 3.95.

April Book Club 2021

Blog Post #170 Book #232

April finds us continuing a new tradition of meeting in outdoor spaces as the Corona Virus is still an issue. Last month, all but two of us had received our vaccines. This month, we are fully vaccinated and the guideline is safe for vaccinated people to meet in small groups in outdoor spaces without our masks!

Carla Gibbs hosted us on her patio this month and the promised warmer temperatures have arrived. We met again on Sunday afternoon with our lighter snacks and drinks.

This months book is Lisa Wingate's, "The Book of Lost Friends." In the past, we really enjoyed her book, "Before We Were Yours."

Both of her books were inspired by true events that have happened in history.

The author is telling the story of actual advertisements that appeared in Southern newspapers after the end of the Civil War, as newly freed slaves desperately searched for loved ones who had been sold away.

The common story trope of two different timelines is used but there are three different perspectives. The first of the two storylines traces the adventures of three women who, a decade after the Civil War, undertake a dangerous journey from war-ravaged Louisiana to the open frontier of Texas in an effort to reclaim to prove paternity and gain an inheritance. Miss Lavinia, Juneau Jane and Hannie Gossett are in a race against time to find William Gossett before he dies. William has fathered his daughter Miss Lavinia with his white wife. But, also fathered Juneau Jane by his black mistress. Hannie is a "freed" slave, who now at 18 is on a mission to find the family she was separated from when they were sold off the plantation.

The second storyline follows the efforts of a first year high school English teacher, Benedetta Silva, in a rural Louisiana town. While trying to engage her students, she stumbles onto an abandoned Antebellum home with two adjacent cemeteries. One for the white people who lived in the home and a separate one for the slaves.

The two timelines are brought together as the Gossett Grove Planation is the setting for both but in different times. Benedetta is able to spark the interest of her students in uncovering of the names of people in the slave cemetery and as they do, the secrets of the Gossett family come to life and threaten some of the current day residents who still maintain power in the town.

The book was well received and rated a 4.5 for those who read it

March Book Club 2021

Blog Post #168 Book #230

For the first time in a full year, we met in person! Weather was predicted to be nice and Laura volunteered her patio. We broke with our tradition of a Friday night book club and met on Sunday afternoon. We decided on a menu of light snacks as we were meeting in the middle of the afternoon.

The promised warm temperatures didn't quite materialize but, we had cozy blankets and the firepit going.

This was also the first meeting we have had in person since Terry's passing. We missed her but, we felt like she was making her presence through the birds that came to visit.

Our book this month was Jodi Picoult's "The Book of Two Ways." We have read several of her books and liked them, for the most part.

The protagonist of our story is Dawn Edelstein. Dawn is a Death Doula living with her physicist husband and teenage daughter. Before she married she was a graduate student living in Egypt with a fellow graduate named Wyatt.

The story opens with Dawn surviving a plane crash. As the accident is unfolding she finds she is not seeing her current life flash before her eyes but, her past life in Egypt with Wyatt. She finds herself not going home but to Egypt. The unfolding story could be a bit confusing as the time lines of the past merged with the present.

The Book of Two Ways was actually an ancient Egyptian funerary text that provided a map to the path that one takes in the afterlife. There are two roads that one can take, one by land and the other by water. This is the frame the author uses for Dawn to contemplate the two paths in her life; where they have taken her, where they are taking her. Dawn's present day profession as a Death Doula also mirrors her interest in the way the Ancient Egyptians dealt with death.

The book rated a 3.9 with one "I loved it" and one, "I almost loved it."

February Book Club 2021

Blog Post #167 Book #229

This month finds us still meeting by Zoom. The blog is shorter when we don't have photos of our gathering, food and drinks!

Our book this month was suggested by Leslie.

The Bird family lives in an picturesque Cotswolds village in England. That is until a tragedy strikes one weekend that tears the family apart. Years pass as the children grow up and move on with their separate lives.

Eventually, something happens that brings the family back to their childhood home and to what really happened on that fateful Easter weekend. It is the story of one family's desire to restore long-forgotten peace and to unearth the many secrets hidden within the nooks and crannies of home.

The book rated 3.85 among those who read it.

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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?

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