June 2014 Book Club

This day finds us at the halfway mark of 2014. This is the Chinese Year of the Horse and it is certainly galloping past us. It has been a beautiful spring with no storms to speak of and temps that have not veered over into summer just yet. June's book club found us congregating on Pam's patio. It was so nice outside that we spent most of our evening there enjoying the lighter summer salads, and chicken and veggies off the grill. Lou made blueberry cheesecake pops and Laura brought peanut butter mouse.

Arnora made it back from her trip to the UK in one piece and we were glad to have her back. We missed Janie because her surprise birthday party earlier in the day went longer than expected and Terry could not be with us.

July's book club book is "Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter" by Tom Franklin at Barb's. Carla G pointed out that in August we will be reading our 150th. In August, we'll be at Denise's house for a sleepover to celebrate. Bring your suggestions for August's book. We may want to revisit a favorite book in honor of this momentous event.

Our book this month was The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro. The synopsis of the story is that our protagonist is a struggling artist who copies the master art works for a reproduction company.  A previous relationship went south when she let her married-artist boyfriend take credit for a painting she did. She is black-balled in the Boston art community when she tries to set the record straight and he denies it. Sometime later she is approached by a gallery owner and art dealer to make a copy of a Degas painting called "After the Bath". This painting was one of 13 stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum in 1990. The painting has now surfaced and the idea is that Claire will copy the painting for an interest buy and the original will be returned to the museum.

The story is told from three vantage points; Claire's present day circumstances, Claire's past relationships with Issac and the letters of Isabella Stewart Gardner's letters to her niece chronicling her relationship with Degas.

The mystery begins when immediately Claire recognizes that the Degas is a very good forgery and she begins a relationship with the gallery owner Aidan Markel.

For this month, we had set out to find a fun book that was lighter in subject matter than our past couple of selections. I believe we succeeded.  The consensus that it was entertaining but not great literature. It was a light mystery with a lot of interesting information about art, forgeries and copies.  Before I read the book I didn't realize the difference. It is not against the law to copy an original painting or event to sell it, as long as you are clear it is a copy. The forger tries to pass his work off as an original and that is where the problem lies. According to the book about 40% of paintings sold into private collections are forgeries.

We all agreed that Claire was naive in her relationships with men and that got her into trouble both times. Some of the dialogue was a little "cheesy" and in the end she solved the mystery and was on her way to becoming a famous artist - "All's well that ends well," comes to mind. The book rated 3.72.

I will not be with you in July - so I will be looking for a guest blogger ....

May 2013 Book Club

In the news "if it bleeds - it leads!" Thankfully, there isn't any bloodshed in my "lead" story but it's still worth reporting. I was having lunch with Arnora this past week and she informed me that her car had been broken into. Well, not so much broken into as entered in the middle of the night because she left it outside and unlocked and items were missing! The rascally thief had run off with her book on CD from the Library and a small hardcover notebook I'd given her at Christmas before last (the irony!) However, the last laugh is on our thief. He/She neglected to hit the eject button on the CD player and will be mightily confused by the story. The Library was willing to work with her and will simply report the book missing. Considering the caliber of the thief, my guess is they will return the CD's to the Library book drop under cover of darkness. All is well, that ends well. 

Another happy ending was the ending to the work week and a book club sleep over at Laura's! We had a very tasty assortment of salads, served with Gazpacho, breads and various cheeses and dips. Terry topped it off with a coconut cream cake. Diana made a cocktail called "Dark and Stormy" and Carla A provided us with John Collins (not Tom, he stayed home). This was graduation weekend and try as we might, we just couldn't figure out a night when everyone could be there. We missed Lou, Denise, Barb, Pam, Janie.

Being out at Laura's made us feel like we were spending a weekend away in a wooded lodge. It was lovely to wake up to the trees and the birds at the feeder. We had a late breakfast of scrambled eggs, homemade scones and assorted fruits with our morning coffee. But, all this comes after our discussion of this months book, The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri. We had previously read her book of short stories "Interpreter of Maladies." 

The Lowland is about two brothers, Subhash and Udayan, who are growing up in the 1960's in India. They are teenagers as Indira Ghandi takes office and the "Naxalite" movement is taking shape. A group of people whose intent it is to eradicate inequity and poverty. But as all rebellions are - they are considered subversive. The two brothers are opposite in their temperament but inseparable.That is until Subhash goes to America to study and Udayan becomes more and more involved in the movement and marries a girl not approved of by his parents. Udayan's death brings Subhash home. As the ever dutiful son and brother he arranges to marry his brother's widow and to raise her unborn child as his own. "Udayan is a victim of his own self-made political violence and Subhash becomes a victim of his own goodness." quoted from Amazon's review.  The rest of the book is about how the family copes with the death of this favored son, brother and husband. 

One of the central themes, as Darby pointed out, was time. The author takes care to describe the internal relationship that the characters have with time. Their different perspectives and how they use time in various ways that help them cope with their loss. The book comes full circle at the end with Udayan and Gauri's daughter, Bela, combining the restless nature of her parents with her desire to become as good a mother as her uncle was a father to her. Another review I read pointed out that, while this is a multi-generational family story and these characters live in close proximity, the book is about their aloneness and how they try to avoid those closest to them. 

The book was well received. All nine present had finished the book (or were within a few pages.) The book rate a 3.93275 (or something like that, haha, it rated a little better than pi).

June's book club will be at Pam's. A late breaking development. We opted to put off The Invention of Wings as some were tired of the subject of slavery and others were hoping for a novel with a lighter tone for the summer. Instead, we will read The Art Forger.

April 2014 Book Club

April's Book Club found us outside at Lou's enjoying our dinner as a nearly full moon rose up high in the sky. A "light breeze" kept the temperature at just right! We enjoyed a kind of make-your-own Gyro, vegetable casserole, salad, Hummus, Baba Ganoush, and German cheesecake. Carla A made a variation on a Whiskey Sour for those who wanted a cocktail, and always wine and coffee. We missed Denise, Arnora and Janie this month.

Since we last met, I am sad to report that both Lou's father and Denise's mother have passed away. Our deepest sympathies to them both and their families. Also, since we last met; Pam has been to Argentina, Darby went to Chicago, Laura to Disney World and I just got back from my first visit to Washington, DC. 

There was a lot to catch up on! 

Our book this month was The Salt Road by Jane Johnson. It definitely got mixed reviews. Of the 5 who completed the book, it rated high at 4.1  I believe three were still reading it, enjoying and with intent to finish. Three could not get into it at all. 

Our protagonist, Isabelle, is the daughter of archaeologist parents; an English father and French mother who do not understand her. Parents who probably had no business having a child. The father leaves the family about the time she is 14 and Izzy grows from a wild "savage" tomboy to a refined, educated and successful Tax Accountant. Although successful she is mostly alone and unfulfilled. The story starts in England but takes us to Morocco when Izzy's father dies and leaves her a box in the attic full of difficult to decipher clues about her origins.  

There is also a parallel story happening about a girl in the Moroccan desert named Mariata. She is being pursued by the Chieftain's son who is, shall we say, less than kind. He tries to rape her one night and she escapes to another village. She is helped by a woman who believes Mariata has special powers to help her son, Amastan, who has fallen into a psychological pit of despair. The book is written in such a way that we know Izzy is living in our present time. But, we cannot tell what era Mariata is living in. Most of us had the impression it was thousands of years ago. Until a a plane flies overhead and a tank full of soldiers with guns start chasing her. It turns out that Mariata's story has taken place just one generation back from Izzy. Eventually, the two stories collide. In this photo, we have the cover of our book and a photo of the Lion's Face rock that Izzy attempts climb with her friend Eve. Of those who completed the book, all agreed the second part of the book made the read exciting and worthwhile. 

Due to graduation next month, book club has been changed to May 9 and will be a sleepover at Laura's with a game night in honor of Darby's birthday. Our book will be the Lowlands by Jhumpa Lahiri - very highly recommended by Laura who gives it a "two arms and both legs in the air" rating.  Our book for June (tentatively) will be Sue Monk Kidd's new book "The Invention of Wings".

Happy Spring everyone! 

March Book Club 2014

Looking In....

March Book Club apparently snuck up on several of us. I, for one, thought I had another week to read the book and I so I didn't get it done this month. Darby, Barb, Lou, Denise, Carla G, and Janie could not be with us and we missed them! Diana welcomed us with a glowing fire, grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato basil soup and apple pie. I actually brought bacon wrapped, cream cheese filled Jalapenos and they were so good I will be doing that again (compliments of IGA, I just put them in the oven.) Carla brought chicken noodle soup, Terry brought a lemon/pineapple upside down cake, Pam and Lis brought chocolates. Some good wines, coffee and tea complemented the meal.

Our book this month was The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt and it sparked quite a conversation. Everyone agreed that the book was too long. But there was some disagreement with the parts that should have been cut. Even a review I read by Stephen King agreed it should have been better edited in that respect. With that, the book was fairly well received. It rated a 3.25 with one "I liked it" and one "I liked it okay".

Everyone seemed to have the same problems with the book. The first part of the book deals with the protagonist, Theo, dealing the sudden and accidental death of his mother in an explosion when he is about 13. He gets taken in by the family of a school friend. The father,who abandoned the family several years earlier, shows up later. A good deal of the book is about adolescent drug use. And most everyone felt that dragged on too long. Diana didn't enjoy so much of Theo's internal dialogue.

There was some discussion as to whether Theo could be counted on as a reliable narrative. Theo had post traumatic stress and bouts of amnesia because of drug use. And everyone agreed he had attachment disorder. Laura felt this made him unreliable. However, I offered that everyone has blind spots in their life and I don't think anyone is really a completely reliable narrator of their own life. "Perspective" was a word that came up quite a bit in the discussion as a theme as did "addictions". Most of the characters in the story had addictions of some kind.


I can say for myself, that it's usually easy for me to tell if an author is emotionally connected to their characters or not. And, if an author is writing about someone who is emotionally disconnected from their own life, it can be hard to connect to the story.

Laura said that some of the prose was philosophical and literary genius. But the story just wrung everyone out.  The group agreed the book had elements of The Girl with the Pearl Earring, Great Expectations, The Outsiders, The DaVinci Code and The Great Gatsby.

Diana felt that one of the messages of he book was that "life is survival".  Her list of survivors included; Theo, Pippa, Hobe, Popchick and The Goldfinch. The painting itself is the first survivor in the story since it is one of the few surviving paintings from 1645. Several people mentioned that they just kept waiting for things to get better for Theo. However, one of the paragraphs toward the end of the book that Laura read did leave a little room for hope at the end of the story.

After listening to the discussion it seems to me that this was intended as an epic story of one boy's life that was literally ignited with the explosion in the museum and the after math. It seems to have had its moments of genius but fell a little short of emotional connection for most.

Happy Valentine's Day - February Book Club 2014

And, we're off and running! Two months into a cold and snowy 2014 already. It was so nice to arrive at Janie's home with warm and glowing fire to greet us. Arnora further brightened up the evening with her red tulips! And, the warmth continued as we gathered for mashed potato martini's, sliced brisket and smoked turkey, Irish Soda Bread, two salads and Lis' delicious pineapple

sponge cake; her mother's recipe.

We were a small group this time as Pam, Lou, Laura, Terry, Darby and Carla G could not join us. We were sad that they missed out on our discussion of Malindy's Freedom. Our guest speaker, Metra Johnson, and Janie's friend and co-worker joined us. Janie knew about the book from Metra as her great-grandmother, Mildred Johnson and her aunt, Theresa Delsoin,  wrote the book about their ancestor. It was Malindy's life long wish that her life of slavery and overcoming it be remembered and told.

The story takes place between 1820 and 1865. Malinda is a freeborn Cherokee who is stolen from her family on a trip through Missouri. She is taken in by a white family but given over to the "Mammy" of the plantation to raise and lives most of her life thereafter in slavery. She eventually marries a free black man, has 5 children and works her whole like to keep heart and soul and her family together. Malindy's daughter, Ellen pays particular attention and wants the story told as much as her mother. She passes down the oral tradition and later Mildred and Theresa use census records and other sources to document the experiences they were told bringing the story to life in Malindy's Freedom.

The highlight of our evening was being able to speak to Theresa Delsoin by phone. We sat rapt and enthralled as she expanded on the story and her personal journey of writing the book. She and Mildred worked together at a distance to write the book then persevered to get it published and have it accepted into the Missouri Historical Society.

Perhaps one of the most remarkable parts of the story is that Mildred had worked as a domestic all her life for the Symington family. In the end, descendants of that family, Stuart Symington and Anne Symington edited the book.  Theresa spent many long conversations with Stuart Symington as they wrote and edited. Stuart was dealing with a deep guilt and shame about slavery and his families part. Theresa was dealing with long held anger. As they worked on the book, they worked through their emotional wounds and came to a place of love, forgiveness, and healing. In fact, one of the main themes in the book is Malindy's perseverance in believing that freedom would come and that if she didn't forgive when it did, she'd continue to be imprisoned by her own emotions.

Theresa brought us to tears and applause with her passionate plea. For much has been accomplished but there is still much work to do. Her words and her emotion brought to mind Martin Luther King, Jr.  We are all one, and we must continue these conversations so that we we see our similarities and not our differences. And we are all part of that conversation.

Theresa is a remarkable woman who has led a remarkable life. And she has written a second book with Christopher Desloge called: From Etc; An Amazing Conversation Between a Descendant of a Slave Owner and a Slave. Christopher reached out to Theresa through Stuart Symington. They had a seven month conversation that is now this book. She is turning this text into a play.  She also recommended that we read a book called Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the World by David Davis.

I for one, was very honored to have been in that room last night.  And as I write this post about slavery that takes place in Missouri, I looked up to see my Pandora playing a cool jazz number "Two for the Road" on an album titled "Missouri Sky". The musicians are Charlie Haden and Pat Metheny - both from Missouri. AND the album was released in February of 1997.  I will close with that perfect bit of synchronicity.

Diana will host our March book club and our book is The Goldfinch.

New Year - January 2014 Book Club

Happy New Year 2014. We had our annual Pajama Party at Darby's. And, it was a great night. We missed Janie, Barb and Lis. The rest of us donned our pj's, bathrobes and fuzzy slippers for a relaxed evening with a Mimosa or Mexican Hot Chocolate. As you can see from the photos, we enjoyed an evening Brunch of egg & sausage casserole, cinnamon french toast, cheese, fruits, banana nut waffles and a scrummy pineapple dessert.

We kicked off 2014 with Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. This book is considered Young Adult and a 75% autobiographical novel (the authors estimate). Arnold Spirit, Jr. is a 13 year old living on an Indian Reservation in the mid 1990's and told from his first person perspective. As Lou said, this book gave us insight into a life and lifestyle that we would not normally have had. Darby offered us a quote from her boyfriend, Nate, "Having been a 13 year old boy, this was the most authentic representation of that time in life." I may have paraphrased that a bit. Arnold, the the author, was born with too much fluid on his brain resulting in life threatening surgeries that should have left him brain damaged. However, the most damage that seemed to result was that his head was little larger than normal. Arnold is a kid with great "spirit" indeed, as his last name implies. He is resilient to the core and doesn't let family dysfunctions and tragedies do him in. He stands up to bullies, eventually making them his friends. The pivotal moment in the book is when he realizes that he is studying from the same text book that his mother had used 30 years ago. In a fit of anger, he throws the book at t his teacher. But, rather than be angry with Arnold, his teacher understands. His teacher apologizes for all the way in which he as harmed the Indians on the "res" and tells Arnold he must get of it in order to live any kind of life. The best that Arnold can do at the time is to ask his parents to take him off the reservation to the mostly white school in Rearden. To his surprise, his parents support his decision and Arnold's future is forever altered.

The book is funny and poignant. It is hard to watch one so young suffer so much loss. But, the book is also infused with humor and hope. Arnold is a very endearing character and wise beyond his years. He never gives up but he also knows when to step back and let nature take its course. As it does with his friend Rowdy. Rowdy, is angry and feels abandoned that Arnold is leaving the "res" for another school. He punished Arnold by withdrawing from the friendship. But, rather than let that hold him back, Arnold lets Rowdy take his time to process and move through his feelings. In the end, the friendship resolves.

Arnold also seems to be able to step back and look at his parents with wise observation. He sees their flaws and dysfunctions but he seems to intuitively know that he can't change them. And flawed as they are, he can love them for what they do offer him. And they do offer him love and support. They want him to have better, be better and they do make sacrifices to get him to the school in Rearden.

We didn't really touch on the fact that we still have Indian Reservations in this country.  There are 310 still in the U.S. Arnold calls them death camps, where they interred Indians and waited for them to die out as part of an "ethnic cleansing." Lou, was correct that we don't technically have reservations anymore in Oklahoma. Before statehood,  the entire Oklahoma Territory was a reservation divided up by mostly the 5 civilized tribes that were moved here in the 1830's; the end of the Trail of Tears. Before statehood, however, they were renamed as Oklahoma Statistical  Areas or given Tribal Jurisdiction. Some were event sold to non-tribal members. The difference being now that they though they still live on the "reservation "lands they are allowed to govern themselves.

Arnold's "diary" is a brief one covering the first year he went to Rearden High School. But it touches on adolescent themes of; coming of age, sexuality, disenfranchisement, Indian History, alcoholism, poverty, friendship, family dysfunctions, death, love, resilience and hope.

It packs more of a "punch" (pun intended) than one would gather from a first glance and rated a 4.2



                                                   

  

December 2013 Christmas Book Club

December Book Club found us all, plus one, at Laura's on Sunday afternoon, December 15. Denise's friend, Karen, was visiting from the Phoenix area. It is truly, "One Amazing Thing" when we are all able to be at the same place at the same time. I believe Christmas 2010 was the last Christmas Book Club where we were all together.

Laura has now been in her new home just over a year and this is the 2nd time she has hosted book club. We were greeted by her beautiful Christmas decor, lighted taper candles on the table and the smells of some really great food! Laura provided us a main course of two fish; Salmon and Tilapia. There were two salads, Spanakopita, sweet potatoes, bread, potatoes au gratin, and a butternut squash and mushroom lasagna and Darby's baked fudge.

After dinner but before book discussion we exchanged our cards and gifts.Notable among our gift this year Carla Gibbs designed a Shelfari page just for book club. It includes all 142 books we've read and their ratings. It was suggested that we also place books here for future consideration. Everyone has access to the Shelfari page through Carla's log on and password. If you lose or forget it, contact Carla or me.

This month's book was "A Tale for the Time Being" by Ruth Ozeki. Here, I am going to post the description from the website. About half of the group was able to finish the book. And, while there was discussion, those that read it didn't want to ruin it for those who hadn't so they avoided talking certain specifics and the end. I will update this discussion in a month or so. Those that read it, with one exception, loved it! Diana enjoyed parts of it, but found other parts too painful and overall it wasn't her favorite. So far, for those who read the book, it rated 4.1.

A Tale for the Time Being

“A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be…”

Spanning the planet from Tokyo’s Electric Town to Desolation Sound, British Columbia, and connected by the great Pacific gyres, A Tale for the Time Being tells the story of a diary washed ashore inside a Hello Kitty lunchbox and the profound effect it has on the woman who discovers it.