Book Club Update

We finally met in October to discuss The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.  It was a great discussion led by Sarah Gravelle.  Dari picked our next book, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead.  

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, the #1 New York Times bestseller from Colson Whitehead, a magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.
     In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.
     Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre–Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.

We will be meeting at Debby's house on Tuesday December 5 at 7pm to discuss the book.  Stay tuned for information about a Christmas book exchange too!

Book Pick For Our September Discussion

Our book pick for our September book club discussion is The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.  Here is some information about the book:

The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it—from garden seeds to Scripture—is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.

We will meet at Debby's house at 7:00 pm on Tuesday September 19 to discuss the book.  Hope to see you there.  Even if you don't finish reading the book, you are welcome to come join in our discussion.  If you have a suggestion for our book club to read, let us know.  

Happy Reading!

Book Pick for August

We had a great discussion about The Zookeeper's Wife led by Sarah.  It was interesting to see how we all had similar thoughts as we read.  Sarah also made some yummy s'mores bars for our treat.

Debby selected Wonder by R.J. Palacio for our August book club meeting.

Here is some information about the book:
Over 5 million people have read the #1 New York Times bestseller WONDER and have fallen in love with Auggie Pullman, an ordinary boy with an extraordinary face. 

The book that inspired the Choose Kind movement.

I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse. 

August Pullman was born with a facial difference that, up until now, has prevented him from going to a mainstream school. Starting 5th grade at Beecher Prep, he wants nothing more than to be treated as an ordinary kid—but his new classmates can’t get past Auggie’s extraordinary face. WONDER, now a #1 New York Times bestseller and included on the Texas Bluebonnet Award master list, begins from Auggie’s point of view, but soon switches to include his classmates, his sister, her boyfriend, and others. These perspectives converge in a portrait of one community’s struggle with empathy, compassion, and acceptance. 

"Wonder is the best kids' book of the year," said Emily Bazelon, senior editor at Slate.com and author of Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy. In a world where bullying among young people is an epidemic, this is a refreshing new narrative full of heart and hope. R.J. Palacio has called her debut novel “a meditation on kindness” —indeed, every reader will come away with a greater appreciation for the simple courage of friendship. Auggie is a hero to root for, a diamond in the rough who proves that you can’t blend in when you were born to stand out. 

The book has been made into a movie which will be released in November.  Here is a trailer for the movie.  Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson star in the movie.

Hope to see you on Tuesday August 15 at 7pm at Debby's house for our book discussion.

Book Pick for July

Sarah picked our book for July.  We are reading The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman.  Her is a blurb about the book:

A true story in which the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands.

After their zoo was bombed, Polish zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski managed to save over three hundred people from the Nazis by hiding refugees in the empty animal cages. With animal names for these "guests," and human names for the animals, it's no wonder that the zoo's code name became "The House Under a Crazy Star." Best-selling naturalist and acclaimed storyteller Diane Ackerman combines extensive research and an exuberant writing style to re-create this fascinating, true-life story―sharing Antonina's life as "the zookeeper's wife," while examining the disturbing obsessions at the core of Nazism. Winner of the 2008 Orion Award. 

We will have our book discussion on Tuesday, July 18 at 7:00pm at Debby's house. Hope to see you there. 

Book Club in June

Last night we had a great discussion about our June book pick Ms. Bixby's last day.  Since it was Alecia's book pick, she lead the discussion and supplied a yummy treat.  In keeping with the theme of the book, we had cheesecake and sparkling Italian soda. We had a great time discussing the book and reminiscing about our favorite teachers and what we would do on our last day.  It is a great book and a quick read.  If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.

Book Pick for June

Alecia has selected our book for June. We will be reading Ms. Bixby's Last Day by John David Anderson.

Here is a synopsis of the book: 

Everyone knows there are different kinds of teachers. The boring ones, the mean ones, the ones who try too hard, the ones who stopped trying long ago. The ones you'll never remember, and the ones you want to forget. Ms. Bixby is none of these. She's the sort of teacher who makes you feel like school is somehow worthwhile. Who recognizes something in you that sometimes you don't even see in yourself. Who you never want to disappoint. What Ms. Bixby is, is one-of-a-kind.

Topher, Brand, and Steve know this better than anyone. And so when Ms. Bixby unexpectedly announces that she won't be able to finish the school year, they come up with a risky plan, more of a quest, really, to give Ms. Bixby the last day she deserves. Through the three very different stories they tell, we begin to understand what Ms. Bixby means to each of them—and what the three of them mean to each other.

We will meet on Tuesday June 13, at 7:00 pm at Debby's house to discuss the book.  Hope to see you there.

Fun Discussion at Book Club This Week!

   

Nola made these yummy and beautiful cupcakes for our treat at book club on Tuesday night.  

The book we read was A Fall of Marigolds by Susan Meissner.  

I enjoyed the book and we had a great discussion too.  

Thanks Nola for a great book pick and discussion. 

The Lunar Chronicles

Chelsea has picked our next book for the month of May.  

She selected Cinder by Marissa Meyer.  It is the first book in The Lunar Chronicles.  At the end of each book there is an interview with the author talking about the book.  

Here is some information about the book:

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth's fate hinges on one girl. . . . 

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She's a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister's illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai's, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world's future. 

Here are the books in the series. 

Here is an interview with the author. 

Marissa Meyer on Cinder, writing, and leading men

Which of your characters is most like you?
I wish I could say that I'm clever and mechanically-minded like Cinder, but no―I can't fix anything. I'm much more like Cress, who makes a brief cameo in Cinder and then takes a more starring role in the third book. She's a romantic and a daydreamer and maybe a little on the naïve side―things that could be said about me too―although she does find courage when it's needed most. I think we'd all like to believe we'd have that same inner strength if we ever needed it.
Where do you write?
I have a home office that I've decorated with vintage fairy tale treasures that I've collected (my favorite is a Cinderella cookie jar from the forties) and NaNoWriMo posters, but sometimes writing there starts to feel too much like work. On those days I'll write in bed or take my laptop out for coffee or lunch.
If you were stranded on a desert island, which character from Cinder would you want with you?
Cinder, definitely! She has an internet connection in her brain, complete with the ability to send and receive comms (which are similar to e-mails). We'd just have enough time to enjoy some fresh coconut before we were rescued.
The next book in the Lunar Chronicles is called Scarlet, and is about Little Red Riding Hood. What is appealing to you most about this character as you work on the book?
Scarlet is awesome―she's very independent, a bit temperamental, and has an outspokenness that tends to get her in trouble sometimes. She was raised by her grandmother, an ex-military pilot who now owns a small farm in southern France, who not only taught Scarlet how to fly a spaceship and shoot a gun, but also to have a healthy respect and appreciation for nature. I guess that's a lot of things that appeal to me about her, but she's been a really fun character to write! (The two leading men in Scarlet, Wolf and Captain Thorne, aren't half bad either.)

We will meet at Debby's house at 7pm on May 16.  Hope to see you there. 

Book Pick for April

Nola has picked our book for April.  We are reading A Fall of Marigolds by Susan Meissner.  Here is a blurb about the book.  

September 1911. On Ellis Island in New York Harbor, nurse Clara Wood cannot face returning to Manhattan, where the man she loved fell to his death in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Then, while caring for a fevered immigrant whose own loss mirrors hers, she becomes intrigued by a name embroidered onto the scarf he carries…and finds herself caught in a dilemma that compels her to confront the truth about the assumptions she’s made. Will what she learns devastate her or free her? 

September 2011. On Manhattan’s Upper West Side, widow Taryn Michaels has convinced herself that she is living fully, working in a charming specialty fabric store and raising her daughter alone. Then a long-lost photograph appears in a national magazine, and she is forced to relive the terrible day her husband died in the collapse of the World Trade Towers…the same day a stranger reached out and saved her. Will a chance reconnection and a century-old scarf open Taryn’s eyes to the larger forces at work in her life?

We will be meeting on Tuesday April 18 at 7pm at Debby's house to discuss the book.  Hope to see you there.  

Book Club

Book Club is tomorrow night at 7 pm at Debby's house.  We are discussing The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.

Sarah Gravelle will be leading our book discussion.  Hope to see you there.  Even if you haven't read the book you are welcome to join us.  

For our February book choice, Dari has chosen The Orphan Keeper by Jason Wright.