Women Who Love Books Club

Monday, August 9, 2010

This entry will have no timelines or rules. We are trying to put together a list of all the books we have read as a book club. The book club has been together since about December 1994. While there have been a number of people who have come and gone and come back again, the four original members are still a part of the group.

As we remember a book it will be added to the list. Here goes:

Island Beneath the Sea - Isabel Allende

http://www.amazon.com/Island-Beneath-Sea-Isabel-Allende/dp/0061988243/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281395753&sr=1-1

Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese

http://www.amazon.com/Cutting-Stone-Vintage-Abraham-Verghese/dp/0375714367/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1281126336&sr=8-1

What is the What - Dave Eggers

http://www.amazon.com/What-Vintage-Dave-Eggers/dp/0307385906/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1281386022&sr=8-1

The Shipwreck that Saved Jamestown - Lorrie Glover and Daniel Blake Smith

http://www.amazon.com/Shipwreck-That-Saved-Jamestown-Castaways/dp/0805090258/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281396058&sr=1-1

The Caligrapher's Daughter - Eugenia Kim

http://www.amazon.com/Calligraphers-Daughter-Novel-Eugenia-Kim/dp/0805092269/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281395698&sr=1-1

Man Gone Down - Michael Thomas

http://www.amazon.com/Man-Gone-Down-Michael-Thomas/dp/0802170293/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281396130&sr=1-1

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing - Traitor to the Nation - M. T. Anderson

http://www.amazon.com/Astonishing-Octavian-Nothing-Traitor-Nation/dp/0763636797/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281396331&sr=1-1

Half a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

http://www.amazon.com/Half-Yellow-Chimamanda-Ngozi-Adichie/dp/1400095204/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281396205&sr=1-1

A Yellow Raft in Blue Water - Michael Dorris

http://www.amazon.com/Yellow-Raft-Blue-Water-Novel/dp/0312421850/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281396257&sr=1-1

Loving Frank - Nancy Horan

http://www.amazon.com/Loving-Frank-Novel-Nancy-Horan/dp/0345495004/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281396283&sr=1-1

The Book of Negroes/Someone Knows My Name - Lawrence Hill

http://www.lawrencehill.com/the_book_of_negroes.html

The Pirate's Daughter - Margaret Cezair-Thompson
http://www.amazon.com/Pirates-Daughter-Novel-Margaret-Cezair-Thompson/dp/0812979427/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228558569&sr=8-1

Jesus Land: A Memoir - Julia Scheeres
http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Land-Memoir-Julia-Scheeres/dp/1582433542/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228558908&sr=1-1

Saturday, December 6, 2008

December's book selection

The Pirate's Daughter by Margaret Cezair-Thompson

Cezair-Thompson conjures the tragic glamour of golden age Hollywood against the backdrop of lusty, turbulent Jamaica in her dual generational coming-of-age saga. Ida Joseph is 13 years old when Errol Flynn is nearly shipwrecked off the coast of her hometown of Port Antonio in 1946. Flynn instantly loves Jamaica and, eager to find a refuge from stateside scandal, purchases an island across from the port.

Navy Island becomes the setting for his glittering parties, movie projects and affair with Ida in her senior year of high school. Flynn refuses to take responsibility for the resulting child, May, and after trying to make a go of it in Jamaica, Ida leaves May and heads to New York City, where she marries a wealthy baron friend of Flynn's who purchases the island after Flynn dies.

May grows to adulthood on Navy Island, develops something more than a crush on a married family friend 40 years her senior and indulges in drugs and free love. Jamaica's tumultuous progression toward self-governance—with the violent chaos it unleashes on Navy Island—reveals certain hidden truths about the baron.

For all the high drama, the reader never feels fully privy to Ida or May, but Cezair-Thompson otherwise succeeds magnificently in evoking a world distant in both time and place.

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

A novel novel

I recently discovered that Alexander McCall Smith (author of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, amongst others) is writing a book one chapter a day and it is being published on line by the Telegraph.

I am enjoying the story and invite you to read it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/exclusions/alexandermccallsmith/chapters/nosplit/chapter1.xml

Is this the future of publishing?

Aderonke.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Membership has its privileges

Here are some pictures of the members who attended the last book club meeting.

Monday, October 6, 2008

October's book selection

The next book has been selected - The Jesus Land: A Memoir by Julie Scheeres

From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. Journalist Scheeres offers a frank and compelling portrait of growing up as a white girl with two adopted black brothers in 1970s rural Indiana, and of her later stay with one of them at a Christian reform school in the Dominican Republic. The book takes its title from a homemade sign that Scheeres and the brother closest to her in age and temperament, David, spot one day on a road in the Hoosier countryside, proclaiming, "This here is: JESUS LAND." And while religion is omnipresent both at their school and in the home of their devout parents, the two rarely find themselves the beneficiaries of anything resembling Christian love. One of the elements that make Scheeres's book so successful is her distanced, uncritical tone in relaying deeply personal and clearly painful events from her life. She powerfully renders episodes like her attempted rape at the hands of three boys, the harsh beatings administered to David by her father and the ceaseless racial taunting by schoolmates; her lack of perceivable malice or vindictiveness prevents readers from feeling coerced into sympathy. The same can be said for Scheeres's description of their Dominican school, where humiliation and physical punishment are meant to redeem the allegedly misguided pupils. Tinged with sadness yet pervaded by a sense of triumph, Scheeres's book is a crisply written and earnest examination of the meaning of family and Christian values, and announces the author as a writer to watch.

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Get to know the women who love books

Each member was asked to answer a series of questions about themselves. Here are their responses in the order they were received.

Member profile - Aderonke

Approximately when did you join the book club?
I am one of the original members of the group. We started in the fall of 1994.

What was the first book you remember reading?
It was an Enid Blyton book – Folk of the Far Away Tree, or something like that. I had gotten it as a Christmas gift from an elderly great aunt.

Who is your favorite author?
There are many. One is Maya Angelou. I read my first book by her in college – “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”. I couldn’t put it down, I laughed and cried and laughed again.
Another is Isabelle Allende. I want to read all her books, I’ve read about five so far.

What book has stayed with you long after you read it?
Sacajawea by Anna L. Waldo. Before I brought the book I had never heard of this courageous woman – she guided Lewis and Clarke as they forged their way across the US to find the Pacific Ocean. She survived starvation, freezing temperatures and Indian attacks all while carrying her baby son on her back. What a woman!

Another is “A Lesson Before Dying” by Ernest J. Gaines. I started crying as I read the last sentence in the book as I reflected on the path the young man’s life had to take in order for him to learn some valuable lessons.

Which book(s) have you read more than once?
I tend not to read books more than once.

What type of books do you enjoy reading?
If I had had to answer this question about seven years ago I would have said thrillers, spy novels and a good mystery. Now I am interested in reading about relationships between people. I especially enjoyed “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan” by Lisa See. It touched me because it explores the relationship between two women during a period of time and about a culture I know nothing about – 18th Century China. The book transcended time and culture and I was able to connect with the women on many levels.

If you were stranded on a desert island what are the five books you would like to have with you?
The Bible
The Koran
Anything by Khalil Gibran
Does my ebook count because I would have tons of titles on it?

What is your favorite quote from a book?
“Oh reason not the need our basest beggars are to the purest thing superfluous”. I think that is how the quote goes, from King Lear by William Shakespeare. It’s one of the few quotes I remember. Please don't quote me on it because my memory isn't as good as it used to be.

If you were to write a book what would it be about?
Grief and mourning as a young widow.

Feel free to add a paragraph about yourself.
I love books and have done since I can remember. There was a time in my life I would never have left the house without a book, just in case I had a spare minute to read. I remember being almost panic-stricken after I left the book I was reading at a friend’s house in Seattle and I was about to get on a plane. Even though I was running late, I took the time to find a newsstand and purchased another book. Then I had her courier the forgotten book to me. It would have been cheaper to buy another but I, more importantly, wanted to finish the one I had started. I have another story of going fishing and getting squid juice over a book I was engrossed in. Every time I think of that book I remember the summer heat, humidity and the smell of that story.

Member profile - Frances

Approximately when did you join the book club?
At the beginning.

What was the first book you remember reading?
Are you kidding? It is a stretch to remember the last book.

Who is your favorite author?
At the moment Ekhart Tolle and I doubt we will select his works for book club reading.

What book has stayed with you long after you read it?
Would you believe Captain Corelli's Mandolin. It could be because I read it twice - once, guessing what all the strange words meant and second, with a dictionary.

Which book(s) have you read more than once?
See above.

What type of books do you enjoy reading?
Books that take me to other cultures and give me a new perspective on life and the world than I had previously.

If you were stranded on a desert island what are the five books you would like to have with you?
Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth, Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsh, a fat, waterproof, bound and lined diary, Fearless living by Rhonda Britten and maybe this would be a good time to read the Torah as I'd have plenty of time and Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom.

What is your favorite quote from a book?
You must be joking! I don't have favourite anything except a beach and the sparkling shoes I got in Argentina.

If you were to write a book what would it be about?
What it is like being mixed race in a racially divided environment.

Feel free to add a paragraph about yourself.
I live a life that is envied by some and terrifying to others.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Books we have read along the way