Dec Book Club 2023

 

Blog 197 - Books 258

And that's a "wrap" on our 2023 reading year! We had our traditional Book Club and sleepover (for those who could) at Laura's.  We missed Denise but we know she was having a good time in Bentonville and were glad that Leslie could join us.  We were also greeted by Doug, Meagan, Nolan, and Hardy. That was a nice surprise! Lis brought along Jackie for a special appearance. 

We had a beautiful spread of food for our tea; Chicken Salad sandwiches, cheese and crackers, a pineapple cheese ball, deviled eggs, Spanakptia, and several desserts including a Gingerbread Cake.  Arnora brought a beautiful Christmas-themed bouquet and we had an assortment of beer and wine. We never go away hungry from book club!

After dinner, we played a new-to-us version of Dirty Santa introduced by Arnora. It was fun and we

enjoyed our gift and card exchange. A really nice touch was that Laura found the stamp with Mary McLeod Bethune's photo and gifted us each one.  And, Diana's gift was a picture of our 10th anniversary photo as a puzzle. Intended for each of us to get a chance to work the puzzle and pass it on through 2024.

I just realized that we are ending our year the way we started.  Our January book was The Personal Librarian written by Heather Benedict Terrell and Victoria Christopher Murray. And, we are finishing the year with The First Ladies by the same authors. I am not sure that has ever happened before.  We all loved the Personal Librarian. It was definitely none of us had heard and it was one worth knowing.  

The First Ladies is the story of an unlikely, for the times, friendship between First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune who was known as The First Lady of Negro America. The summary and our review are below. 

The First Ladies
co-authored by 
Heather Benedict Terrell and Victoria Christopher Murray

Born in 1875, Mary McLeod Bethune was the daughter of formerly enslaved parents. As an adult, she was an educator and activist who refused to back down when white supremacists attempted to thwart her work. As she became more widely known, even Eleanor Roosevelt was awestruck and eager to make her acquaintance. Drawn together by their shared interest in women's issues, education, and civil rights they became close friends sharing triumphs and tragedies. When Franklin Roosevelt became president the women worked together to impact his policies. This is a story of two different, yet equally formidable women and how their friendship formed the foundation for the modern civil rights movement.

Among Mary's many accomplishments, she founded the National Council of Negro Women, established the Afro-American Women's Journal, and was President of the National Association for Colored Women. She was appointed as a National Advisor to FDR whom she worked with to create The Black Cabinet. She started a private school for African-American students in Daytona Beach that eventually became Bethune-Cookman University. She was the sole African-American woman on the delegation that created The United Nations Charter. First Lady Eleanore Roosevelt is more widely known for her accomplishments and humanitarian efforts that continued long after died and she left the White House. Unfortunately, Mary McLeod Bethune's story was mostly lost to the wider audience until our co-authors brought her back into the narrative. 

Everyone loved the book and it rated a 4.5.

Lis will kick off our January 2024 meeting with our traditional Pajama Party Brunch.  Our book for January is North Woods: A Novel by Daniel Mason. 

November Book Club 2023

 

Blog 196 - Books 257

Our intimate November book club meeting was hosted by Pam on a warm fall afternoon. We missed Lis, Janie, Barb, and Arnora. Having just had our first hard frost for the fall, it was nice to enjoy a sunny day.

Our meal was lightly themed around the book whose setting was a Cherry Orchard. Pam provided a hearty pot pie and roasted vegetables. She also had some delicious cheese and herb-flavored jellies. Denise brought a delicious salad, and Carla G. brought olives, tomatoes, and cheese. Diana provided a Cherry Crisp for dessert and I brought the vanilla ice cream to top it off. Laurie brought a delicious Apple Cider cocktail. We missed the lovely bouquet that Arnora usually provides. 

Arlo and his compadres greeted everyone warmly. I didn't get a chance to get a photo of all of them but I did get a good shot of Arlo. 

Tom Lake 

Written by Ann Patchett- Audible narrated by Meryl Streep

Described as a meditation on love at various stages and the lives parents led before their children were born. It is meant to be a hopeful but serious reflection on what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. Ann Patchett is described as writing a compelling narrative with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety. Did the book club agree? 

Lara, Joe, and their three adult daughters are riding out the pandemic on their Cherry Farm. Everyone is helping with the harvest because the regular workers are prevented from working. To entertain them Lara tells, in installments, about the time she dated Peter Duke, now a successful actor. Actually, the daughters demand to know the story and then they have to struggle with the details. They are disturbed by the fact that, when she was a young woman, their mother had an affair with a married man. 

Maybe because it was narrated by Meryl Streep, I found myself making comparisons to Bridges of Madison County. Similar but different. Both women choose farm lives and their children discovering and coming to terms with their mother's "secrets." Also, though I don't think she meant it to be, the "Cherry Trees" was just a little too en pointe... like the story of George Washington who couldn't tell a lie about cutting down one. 

I didn't find the narrative compelling enough to keep me coming back. I had to force myself to pick it up each time. It's not a story that is going to haunt me and I didn't feel emotionally moved by it. I didn't hate it but it fell flat for me. 

That seemed to be the general consensus. We have read three other Ann Patchett novels and liked them a lot. Several of us had researched her information on the book and I watched several interviews with her talking about it. We could understand what she was trying to accomplish and the fact that it was written during and about a pandemic accounted for the slowness of the story. It mimics the way we all felt when the world stopped for a time. Overall the book rated 3.5 for those attending. Leslie and Arnora called in that they loved the book. That might bring the rating up but they didn't give me a number. 

Next month at Laura's we will be discussing The First Ladies. This book is co-authored by the women who wrote The Personal Librarian which we all loved so much. 

I included this photo of the author because I thought it bore an uncanny resemblance to Laura! 

Blog 195 - Books 256

October Book Club has come and gone. We only have two more meetings to close out 2023.  This time of year always feels like it speeds up for me. 

We met at Carla Gibbs for the discussion of The Covenant of Water.

by Abraham Verghese. Everyone was present and accounted for except for Barb who took this opportunity for a camping weekend. 

The setting for our book was primarily India. Carla used that as the theme for our main dishes of Chicken Curry and Chicken Masala. Diana provided the Basmati rice, and Pam the Naan bread and yogurt. Carla G. also made Peppers with Cream Cheese and Laura made stuffed Dates and a yogurt lime drink called Lessi. Both Denise and Lis brought veggies and dips and Lis also brought a Cucumber/Avocado Salad and Janie finished off the meal with delicious brownies. As always, no one left hungry and most of us left with leftovers! Arnora brought mixed nuts and not one, but two, beautiful fall floral bouquets. 

Many thanks to Denise who found some very thought-provoking discussion questions. Like the meal, the book offered us a lot to "chew" on! This book was 736 pages, three generations, 45 characters, covered 77 years, and took 18 years to write. While the book covers a multitude of topics the main thread that runs through the book is the "condition" that leads to death by drowning by many of the male members. The family members live in fear of water but the protective measures they take often fail. 

The inspiration for this book was the writer's own family. His mother had written down her personal recollection of her life in India at the request of a granddaughter. It took three generations to finally discover that the "condition" was indeed an inherited medical condition and not some kind of family curse. The book is just so full of characters, relationships, drama, trauma, and history that there is no way to recount our discussion of it all here. Everyone loved the book. Arnora and Barb had not quite finished but for those who did it rated a 4.71, an "I thought it was brilliant," and an "I loved it with all my heart."

Our November book is Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. If you are interested in Audible, it is read by Meryl Streep and we will meet at Pam's  

 

September Book Club 2023

 

Blog 194 - Book 255

We met at Denise's home this month.  The weather was beautiful. Finally, we are getting a bit of a break from the heat. 

We had a Jimmy Buffett theme going on as he passed on September 1. Denise and Don played Buffet music and Don was making us the perfect margaritas. We toasted Jimmy and shared some of our favorite memories of his music and concerts. For all that his music was about relaxing beach time, lots of fun drinks, and things like dogs... he might have been the hardest-working musician in showbiz. And, he certainly was one of the most successful. 

We talked a bit about how you mourn someone you never knew but who impacted your life. Much like the authors that we read.  And, after all, Jimmy put music to his storytelling. 

I think we were only missing Tammy, and of course, Leslie. Tammy might have been on her boat toasting Jimmy with us! And, Leslie told me she saw a house she loved and it has a perfect porch for a book club! 

We want to give Don a special "thank you!" After mixing our delicious margaritas he stuck around and served us water and cleaned up in the kitchen. I snapped a pic of him taking a break when he thought we weren't looking. 

                                                                Running with Sherman  

                                                                 Christopher McDougal

Our book this month was a non-fiction memoir about a family that rescues a donkey they call Sherman. Chris and his wife had, on a whim, bought a farm in Amish country not knowing anything about farm life. They learned as they went with the help of the people in the community. At one point, his daughter decided she wanted a donkey for her birthday, and at the same time, he knew someone who was trying to homes for several animals who were being neglected by an animal hoarder. And, this is how they came to meet Sherman. 

This book reminded me of parts of The Elephant Whisperer, Dirty Chicks, and West with Giraffes. All of the books are about how we think we are rescuing animals but they end up rescuing us as well. 

Though the book isn't spiritually based, I felt that the meeting of this donkey and this family was somehow divinely guided. Chris is a runner and has already written one book about barefoot running. And, it turns out, that donkeys need a job to do. They needed a purpose and Sherman became a runner and ended up running the Burro Races in Leadville, Colorado. 

How they got Sherman to the farm reminded me of the transportation of the elephants to Thula Thula. Learning about donkeys and their care, some of which I could have done without, was similar to the family in Dirty Chicks learning how to care for their farm animals. And, transporting Sherman to Colorado from Pennsylvania was a bit like transporting the giraffes to California. Similar but different. Caring for Sherman as he recovers from the worst kind of neglect and integrating him into the farm family required the help of the whole community. Each person or family that got involved with Sherman had particular emotional needs and, in the end, an entire community was healed. 

I had never heard of the Burro races before but Diana's friend, Nancy Burgess, had lived in Leadville and attended many of the races. 

I would say this was a charming and heartwarming story that I am happy to have read. Carla Andeson updated us on the more recent events in the McDougal family. During the pandemic, they decided to live in Hawaii where his wife is from. Sherman and the other animals are together and serve their purpose as therapy animals. On a final note, I thought it might be fun to find a wine with a Donkey logo. Two very nice young people at the Spirit Shop helped me out and the Donkey even had a bandaid on it! The book rated a 4.3. 

Our next book is The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese. This book is quite long - 30 hours to read and most of us have been working on it already. 

Running with Sherman by Christopher McDougall 

A heartwarming story about a family that trains a rescue donkey to run one of the most challenging races in America and the process of discovering the life-changing power of the human-animal connections.

Chris and Mika McDougal, on what seems like a whim, decide to live on a farm in Amish country. Having no experience with agrarian life, they rely on their neighbors' knowledge and support. 

The first part of this story, the transfer of the traumatized donkey reminds me of Elephant Whisperer. Transferring the donkey might not have been quite as dramatic as a truck full of rogue elephants, but it was nonetheless difficult. The poor donkey had been kept by an animal hoarder and had been severely neglected and abused. 

I also thought the story also had similar elements to Dirty Chicks. Initially, when Chris and Mika buy the farm, they have no experience with farm animals. What follows are some very visually graphic details of the feeding and care of these animals. 

The first issue that needed immediate care was Sherman's hooves. His very existence was touch and go for days. Surprisingly, one of their goats adopted Sherman and gave him his attention and affection. Soon. Sherman was improving and taking some first tentative steps toward the road. From this poor specimen of an animal, Sherman ends up running with two other donkeys and three people on a very challenging race. The healing that happens between animals and humans in this story is truly inspiring, uplifting, and humorous. 

August Book Club 2023

 

194 Blogs - 254 Books

Leslie hosted this month's book club at Blu. She reserved the lounge that was set up with sofas, chairs, and tables. We had a lovely meal and refreshing drinks. Several of us ended the evening having ice cream at the local Dairy Queen in deference to the book. 

This was a rare meeting where all of our local members were present and Lou was visiting from Florida. That meant we were all present except for Tammy and Darby, whom we missed! 

While we had a delightful time, we were all mindful that this was Leslie's last meeting before moving to Tulsa in the middle of the month. We know that she will join us when she can and we plan to travel to Tulsa for an occasional meeting. We wish them all the best but will miss having her close. 

Not only did Lou join us but her husband, Gene, dropped by for a few minutes when he picked her up. We caught up with him on what he is doing now and he gave us his comments on the book. He and Lou listened on their long drive. His comments mirrored those of the group. 

"Finding Salvation at the Dairy Queen" by Susan Gregg Gilmore

The book is set in a small Georgia town of less than 2,000 people in 1972-75. Catherine Grace is the daughter of Ringgold, Georgia's third-generation Baptist Preacher of the only church in town. Her mother died unexpectedly when she was six in a tragic accident. Catherine and her sister are trying to navigate what's left of their childhood without their mother. Catherine is quick-witted, more than a little stubborn, and desperately trying to figure out a way to escape her small-town life. She is on the eve of graduating and every Saturday afternoon, she sits at the Dairy Queen, eating Dilly Bars and plotting her getaway to Atlanta. 

Like many small towns, everyone knows everyone. Church is an important part of the community. It provides a spiritual and moral base and is a community of support and socialization. But, it can also be a breeding ground for judgment and gossip. Not everyone is who they seem on the surface. The book's central theme seems to be how the characters work their way to forgiveness as the many secrets and lies of the characters are revealed. A secondary theme was that of mothers and mothering. After Catherine's mother dies, the girls are mothered by a variety of people they know in the community and come in contact with. 

The book generated an interesting discussion but did not rank, overall, as one of our favorites. Everyone agreed that it did fill our need for something on a lighter note for the summer. The author treated a lot of serious and dark subject matter with humor. The book ranked 3.2. 

Our September 10 meeting will be at Denise's home. The book of the month is "Running with Sherman." Carla G has volunteered to host in October. Our book is the latest from Abraham Verghese, "The Covenant of Water." This is a new, hot off-the-shelf book.  At 736 pages, it is longer than most of our books and might be hard to come by at the Library so, we're suggesting an early start. 

July Book Club 2023

193 Blogs - 253 Books

Horse by Geraldine Brooks

Arnora is our July hostess and she made the best French Dip Sandwiches I have ever had. Our theme was Sunflowers from Diana and Arnora's gardens along with some garden fresh tomatoes and cucumbers thanks to Carla G and Leslie. Leslie also brought cheese and olives. Caral Gibbs turned her tomatoes and cucumbers into a salad. Along with the French Dip Arnora also had Terry's strawberry salad. Lis brought a Blueberry dessert from her day picking them fresh. The meal was delightful as always. We missed Pam, Janie, Laura, Tammy, Denise, and our out-of-town members.  We had a great discussion about this month's book. The book summary discussion points are below. Everyone unanimously loved the book and it rated a 5.

Next month, we will either meet at Sweet Basil or Leslie's and our book is Finding Salvation at the Dairy Queen. We are switching September's book to Running with Sherman as the other book is not available at the Library. 

Horse by Geraldine Brooks 

Summary

"Horse" is a historical fiction novel told from the perspective of six characters over three time periods. The novel interweaves the story of the Black equestrians who made their white owners fabulously wealthy in the mid-1800s,  with those of contemporary young professionals struggling to form relationships despite racial tensions in 2019. What connects the timelines is the racing horse, Lexington, the painter who chronicled his journey, and the art dealer, Martha Jackson, who came into possession of one of the paintings in the 1950s and bequeathed it to the Smithsonian.

The author did a masterful job of fluidly shifting between the timelines and making the fictional characters as real as true-to-life people. 

The story of the horse, Darly-Lexington starts in Lexington, KY just prior to the Civil War and follows the horse and his groom, Jarrett, through the war and after until the horse's death. Lexington is still one of the most famous horses in the history of racing. He won six of his seven races and came in second once. He was the third-best moneymaker at that time. And, for 20 years held the record as the fastest racehorse in the world. After he was retired due to his eyesight he sired 575 foals and to this day no racehorse has produced as many champions. 

The book is complex and layered and too much to retell here.

I will say I would put this book alongside The Personal Librarian as two of my favorite historical fiction novels.

Everyone thought the author did a great job of moving through the various timelines and characters. Some stories with multiple timelines can be confusing and hard to follow but this author told the story in a very fluid manner. She informed us of a history of horseracing none of us knew while giving us compelling characters we could relate to. She made history relevant to current situations and brought to our attention again how our history informs the present and though things have changed, we still have a long way to go in our human evolution. 

June Book Club 2023

192 blogs - 252 books 

We have now reached the halfway point in 2023. Our hostess for this month, Barb, served tender and crispy buttermilk fried chicken. Laura brought amazing Collard Greens. Diana brought biscuits and Peach Cobbler. Janie brought both Deviled Eggs and Guacamole Deviled Eggs. Lis brought Watermelon Salad, and Carla brought cheese, olives, and crackers. Arnora brought the beautiful flowers and mixed nuts and we had our usual assortments of wine and tea. We missed Pam, Denise, and our long-distance members. Speaking of our out-of-town members, Leslie announced that she'll soon be moving to Tulsa! While we are excited about her opportunity, we are sad to see her leave town. However, Tulsa is close enough that we think we can still make the meetings happen. 

Actually, Barb co-hosted our book club this month with Asia and Sammy. They were equally welcoming and affectionate throughout our visits. 

Klara and the Sun is written by Kazuo Ishiguro, the Nobel Prize for Literature for his book Remains of the Day. The setting is a dystopian future in which some children are genetically engineered, or "lifted" for enhanced academic ability. As schooling is provided entirely at home by on-screen tutors, opportunities for socialization are limited and parents who can afford it often buy their children androids as companions. They are referred to as A.F.'s or, Artificial Friends. This book was longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize. 

In her review for The New York Times, Radhia Jones notes that Klara and The Sun returns to the theme of The Remains of the Day as "Ishiguro gives voice to: not the human, but the clone, not the lord, but the servant. This book complements his brilliant vision, though it doesn't reach the artistic heights of his past achievements. 

The book was recommended by Barb and was well liked receiving a rating of 3.52. The group agreed that the author did a good job of communicating A. F.'s emotional life. And, we were sad at the end when Klara was "put on the shelf" to slowly fade away. Much like the older generation of people are somewhat "put out to pasture" when they have served their duty in the workforce. There was a lot of comparison to other dystopian literature such as Brave New World or Blade Runner. The ending where Josie grows up and goes to college leaving Klara behind, reminded me of Toy Story. Laura pointed out that one of the themes in the book is "faith." Klara puts her faith in the sun to heal Josie and tries to convince others to believe with her. 

It was disturbing that in this future environment, parents have taken their efforts to see their children succeed so desperately they are willing to not only have them genetically modified but to replace them with A.F.'s when the modification goes wrong and the child dies. 

This book made for a lively discussion and forced us to think about where the current advancements in Artificial Intelligence are taking us. 

July's book is "Horse" by Gwendolyn Brooks. We will meet at Anora's on July 9 at 4:00 p.m. 

For the next couple of months, we have opted for, hopefully, lighter reading. We have chosen "Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen" by Susan Gregg Gilmore. 

And, for September, we travel vicariously to Europe for some adventure with "The Getaway Girls" by Dee MacDonald.