November 2012

Haven’t laughed so hard or had time fly so fast.  Highlight of the evening was enjoying the stories of Plain Dealer columnist Michael Heaton and his book Truth and Justice for Fun and Profit. 

A few titles were squeezed in before we got to his book discussion:

Behind the Beautiful Forevers – Katherine Boo

Website with photos, Q and A with Katherine Boo and more

Wild – Cheryl Strayed

You might like to know Reese Witherspoon just signed on to do the movie.

The Glass Castle – Jeannette Walls

The World We Found  -  Thrity Umrigar

Barack Obama The Story  - Steve Elliot and John Aman

The Yellow Room Conspiracy – Peter Dickinson

America Past and Present – Robert Divine

Marie Colvin’s Private War

Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn

The Shallows:  What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains – Nicholas Carr

Truth and Justice for Fun and Profit – Michael Heaton

Journalists at The Plain Dealer campaign to keep the daily print edition

Sign the petition to save The Plain Dealer

The Christmas Heart written by Michael Heaton premiers December 2 on the Hallmark Channel

From our sister group in OK:

Lawton Book Bunch

November 1, 2012

NOTE:  Last month we also discussed Ayers, Edward: America’s War: Talking About the Civil War and Emancipation on Their 150^th Anniversaries, which is part of the Civil War discussion program moderated by Dr. Lance Janda at Lawton Public Library.

Books

Rice, Condoleeza:  A Memoir of My Extraordinary Ordinary Family and Me

Orwell, George:  1984

Weiner, Eric:  The Geography of Bliss:  One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World

Kaplan, Robert:  The Revenge of Geography

Proust, Marcel:  Swann’s Way (trans. By Lydia Davis)

Mantel, Hilary:  Wolf Hall

Massey, Robert:  Catherine the Great

Rounding, Virginia:  Catherine the Great:  Love, Sex, and Power

Balducci, David:  Camel Club (series)

Kingsolver, Barbara:  The Poisonwood Bible

Le Carrée, John:  Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

O’Brien, Tim:  The Things They Carried

Burroughs, Augusten:  Magical Thinking

Movies, Television, Plays

Tinker, Sailor, Soldier, Spy – BBC 7-part miniseries (1979), starring Alec Guinness; (2011) theatrical film with Gary Oldman, Colin Firth

Letts, Tracy:  August:  Osage County

Discussion, Etc.

Global warming and Hurricane Sandy

Oklahoma State Questions on the ballot for November 6:

            Lawton Constitution articles

            www.okpolicy.org (non-partisan)

Jo Nesbø, Norwegian author of the “Harry Hole” series of detective stories

How bookstores choose their books:  http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/10/the-bookstore-brain-how-bookstores-choose-their-books.html   

Buying new or used books from online sources other than Amazon:  Half-Price Books:  http://www.hpbmarketplace.com/ -- reduced shipping cost when you buy more than one book from the same vendor; search for Goodwill vendors

New Yorker article The Dead Are Real - How Hilary Mantel Revitalized Historical Fiction 

From Mary Lou in MD:

David Adams Richards, For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down (1993).  This is the third book in the trilogy set in the small northern New Brunswick town.  Some of the major characters and events from the earlier two novels make minor appearances.  Like many of the earlier characters, Jerry Bines suffers a great deal from his perception of himself and how he believes others see him. When he is aware of himself as a “hunter of the wounded,” he struggles to escape this behavior.  In turn, he becomes the object of a pseudo-psycho-sociological study of someone “wounded” by his experiences.  He tries so hard to be good to other people and gain their trust, but it never works.  We are frustrated by his lack of understanding but ultimately admiring of his perseverance. 

Roger Welsch, It’s Not the End of the Earth But You Can See It from Here: Tales of the Great Plains (1990).  Welsch resigned his full professorship of English and Anthropology at the University of Nebraska and moved with his wife to a farm near the little town of Centralia, Bleaker County, Nebraska.  This is a collection of chatty essays about the people and customs of Centralia.  The gentle humor is similar to Garrison Keillor’s.  The characters are fictionalized composites of ordinary folks, including waitresses, plumbers, farmers, clergymen and Omaha and Lakota Indians.  With Welsch’s incisive portrayals they are not ordinary at all.  This is a delightful little book, wiser than it seems. 

Ben Macintyre, Operation Mincemeat (2000).  In 1953 Ewen Montagu published The Man Who Never Was, the story of the deception plan he masterminded in 1943 as a Naval Intelligence officer with MI-5.  In a later book in 1977, Beyond Top Secret, Montagu referred to some secret papers he was allowed to keep.  After Montagu died in 1985, Macintyre obtained a trunk-full of papers from Montagu’s son.  From these papers, additional research of recently declassified materials, and interviews with veterans of WW-II intelligence, Macintyre constructed the full story of how a uniquely talented and creative group of characters fashioned the successful plot to fool the Nazis into believing that Sicily was NOT the Allies’ next target of invasion.  The participants on all sides – British, American, Spanish, Free French, Italian and German, are portrayed in fascinating detail.  The book contains pictures of many of them. 

Dorothea Benton Frank, Isle of Palms (2003).  Anna is a garrulous hairstylist who delights in telling us the zany story of her life.  Her early childhood years were spent happily on a barrier island off the South Carolina coast.  Then her mother dies and her stern grandmother moves Anna and her father to Charleston and takes over their lives.  Decades later, Anna returns to Isle of Palms and recaptures the happiness of her youth.  The novel is filled with hilariously colorful characters, including Anna’s ditzy blonde neighbor, her Goth daughter, and her gay ex-husband.  The unattractive characters get just what they deserve in highly amusing fashion.   This is a very amusing book.    

John Sanford, The Devil’s Code (2000).  Kidd describes himself as an artist and professional criminal.  He earns a decent living in St. Paul, MN as a painter, but he finds Robin Hood-ish cyber-theft more intriguing and lucrative.  An associate is killed and leaves word with his wife to go to Kidd if anything happens to him.  Thus begins a highly intricate tale of the worlds of talented computer hackers, an unscrupulous high-tech corporation, and an alphabet soup of government security agencies.  Kidd enlists the aid of the mysterious and beautiful LuEllen and off they go to Texas to find out what about the high-tech corporation got Kidd’s buddy killed and made Kidd and his hacker buddies targets of the FBI, CIA and NSA.    

Really can’t thank Michael Heaton enough for a great discussion that brought his stories to life.  More of his columns can be found on The Plain Dealer’s website.

October 2012

Since we didn’t meet last month we had a lot to cover:  Cornwell in Cornwall, ancient philosophy and beat poetry, and getting signs from the other side.  

Here are the books we discussed:

Gods and Generals – Jeff Shaara

Killer Angels – Jeff Shaara

The Shell Seekers – Rosamunde Pilcher

And A Bottle of Rum:  A History of the New World – Wayne Curtis

The Science Fiction Megapack

Bed of Sphinxes – Philip Lamantia

The Golden Age – Gore Vidal

Savage Continent – Keith Lowe

The Darkening Dream – Andy Gavin

The Quicken Tree – Dora Hagemeyer

Aerial photography of the Katyn Forest Massacre on the CIA’s website

Jefferson’s Monticello – William Howard Adams

Mr. Churchill’s Secretary – Susan Elia MacNeal

Portrait of a Killer:  Jack the Ripper – Patricia Cornwell

Josheph Anton:  A Memoir  - Salman Rushdie

The Swerve:  How the World Became Modern – Stephen Greenblatt

What we Believe But Cannot Prove – John Brockman

Will in the World:  How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare – Stephen Greenblatt

Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman

Report From Engine Co. 82 – Dennis Smith

Kon Tiki – Thor Heyerdahl

Holidays on Ice – David Sedaris

Me Talk Pretty One Day – David Sedaris

The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

Insanely Simple – Ken Segall

The Emperor’s Handbook:  A New Translation of The Meditations – Marcus Aurelius

The Long Road Out of Hell – Marilyn Manson and Neil Strauss

A Coney Island of the Mind – Lawrence Ferlinghetti

From our sister club in OK:

Lawton Book Bunch

September 6, 2012

Books

Wilson, A.N.: The Elizabethans

Best, Nicholas: Five Days that Shocked the World: Eyewitness Accounts from Europe at the End of World War II

Kessler-Harris, Alice: A Difficult Woman: The Challenging Life and Times of Lillian Hellman

Ephron, Nora: Imaginary Friends

McPherson, James: Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam

Mantel, Hilary: Wolf Hall

Deresiewicz, William: A Jane Austen Education

Movies

Robot and Frank

Discussions and Lectures

1.     Making Sense of the American Civil War, “Session 1: Imagining War.” August 9, 2012. Discussion led by Lance Janda, PhD.

2.     Dodd, Jerry, PhD. Series of three lectures about climate change in a course on environmental studies at Cameron University. September 2012.

Etc.

3.     Miller, Peter. “Weather Gone Wild,” National Geographic Sept. 2012, p.30.

4.     Potter, Mark. “Experts to Area Officials: Be Prepared for More Droughts.” Lawton Constitution, August 27, 2012, p. 1A.

5.     Oklahoma Humanities. Vol. V. Issue No. 3. Fall 2012. Ethics: Conflict, Character, Consequences. This issue consists of five articles about ethics accompanied by artwork by Oklahoma artists.

Lawton Book Bunch

October 4, 2012

Books

Gilbert, Bil: In God’s Countries

Hubbell, Sue: A Country Year

Hubbell, Sue: A Book of Bees and How to Keep Them

Fabre, J. Henri: Life of the Spider

Baldacci, David: The Collectors

Baldacci, David: Stone Cold

The Book of Revelation

Hemer, Colin J.: Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia

Barreveld, Dirk: The Dutch Discovery of Japan

Clavell, James: Shogun

Fromer, Eric: The Fiery Trial

Kessler-Harris: A Difficult Woman

Ephron, Nora: Imaginary Friends

Momaday, N. Scott: The Way to Rainy Mountain

Franklin, Benjamin: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Discussion

Learning to hold a pen/pencil, to print, and to write in cursive in today’s schools.

Etc.

 Mann, Charles C. “The Birth of Religion,” National Geographic June 2011, p.34.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/06/gobekli-tepe/mann-text

From Mary Lou in MD:

Booknotes Laura Sept 2012

Catherine Coulter, Blow Out (2004).  This is one of a series of FBI detective novels featuring husband and wife team Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock.  It begins with a tire explosion and ends with a gun battle. A subplot of romantic comedy is provided by a Metropolitan police detective and a Washington Post investigative reporter.  A murder within the Supreme Court keeps the reader guessing along with the detectives in an entertaining and suspenseful tale.

Gore Vidal, Dark Green Bright Red (1950).  Peter Nelson is a West Point graduate and a World War II veteran who left the service following a court marshal that is never explained.  He joins his army friend Jose as a military advisor to Jose’s father General Alvarez in his campaign to regain the presidency of a Central American banana republic.  The general’s daughter Elena provides the romantic subplot to this military tale.  The power of American capitalism is represented by the Green father and son and the country’s military by General Rojas.  Father Miguel represents the Church.  All factions and characters motivated by lust for power.  Peter merely seeks adventure without the emotional peril of commitment. Although he distinguishes himself in battle, he somehow remains above the treachery that characterizes the others. 

Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler, Black Wind (2004).  Dirk Pitt has become the head of NUMA but he and his partner Al Giordino still find themselves involved in the nautical action all over the Pacific.  The primary protagonists, though, are Dirk’s daughter Summer and his son also named Dirk.  The bad guys are North Koreans.  The underwater challenge centers on a Japanese submarine sunk off the West Coast in 1944 and its deadly armaments.  There’s enough detailed description of sophisticated technology and machinery to satisfy any engineer.  If the plot weren’t so suspenseful it would put the rest of us to sleep.  For us recovering English teachers, the grammatical errors also are anti-soporific. 

Helen MacInnes, The Saltzburg Connection (1968).  This old fashioned cold war thriller is set in the Austrian mountains in the 1960s with a few side excursions to New York and Zurich.  Our hero is a WW II veteran turned New York City lawyer.  He is retained by a publishing company to investigate a mysterious book contract.  That urns out to be the least significant of the mysteries he must solve to stay alive.  Most of the Europeans he encounters have dark secrets going back to the war years.  The bad guys are Nazis and KGB agents.  The FBI, CIA and MI-6 also get into the act.  Some aspects of the plot are a bit obvious, but there are still enough mysteries to keep us guessing to the end. 

Jim Crace, The Gift of Stones (1988).  A stone-age village near the sea does a brisk business trading the flint tools the villagers craft from local stone.  A boy is injured and thus unable to work in the local craft.  As he grows up he rambles farther and farther away along the sea, has adventures, and then returns to his village to become a storyteller based on his experiences.  This poetic little novel vividly portrays of the role of arts and crafts in a prehistoric society.   

Booknotes Laura Oct 2012

David Adams Richards, For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down (1993).  This is the third book in the trilogy set in the small northern New Brunswick town.  Some of the major characters and events from the earlier two novels make minor appearances.  Like many of the earlier characters, Jerry Bines suffers a great deal from his perception of himself and how he believes others see him. When he is aware of himself as a “hunter of the wounded,” he struggles to escape this behavior.  In turn, he becomes the object of a pseudo-psycho-sociological study of someone “wounded” by his experiences.  He tries so hard to be good to other people and gain their trust, but it never works.  We are frustrated by his lack of understanding but ultimately admiring of his perseverance. 

Roger Welsch, It’s Not the End of the Earth But You Can See It from Here: Tales of the Great Plains (1990).  Welsch resigned his full professorship of English and Anthropology at the University of Nebraska and moved with his wife to a farm near the little town of Centralia, Bleaker County, Nebraska.  This is a collection of chatty essays about the people and customs of Centralia.  The gentle humor is similar to Garrison Keillor’s.  The characters are fictionalized composites of ordinary folks, including waitresses, plumbers, farmers, clergymen and Omaha and Lakota Indians.  With Welsch’s incisive portrayals they are not ordinary at all.  This is a delightful little book, wiser than it seems. 

Ben Macintyre, Operation Mincemeat (2000).  In 1953 Ewen Montagu published The Man Who Never Was, the story of the deception plan he masterminded in 1943 as a Naval Intelligence officer with MI-5.  In a later book in 1977, Beyond Top Secret, Montagu referred to some secret papers he was allowed to keep.  After Montagu died in 1985, Macintyre obtained a trunk-full of papers from Montagu’s son.  From these papers, additional research of recently declassified materials, and interviews with veterans of WW-II intelligence, Macintyre constructed the full story of how a uniquely talented and creative group of characters fashioned the successful plot to fool the Nazis into believing that Sicily was NOT the Allies’ next target of invasion.  The participants on all sides – British, American, Spanish, Free French, Italian and German, are portrayed in fascinating detail.  The book contains pictures of many of them. 

Dorothea Benton Frank, Isle of Palms (2003).  Anna is a garrulous hairstylist who delights in telling us the zany story of her life.  Her early childhood years were spent happily on a barrier island off the South Carolina coast.  Then her mother dies and her stern grandmother moves Anna and her father to Charleston and takes over their lives.  Decades later, Anna returns to Isle of Palms and recaptures the happiness of her youth.  The novel is filled with hilariously colorful characters, including Anna’s ditzy blonde neighbor, her Goth daughter, and her gay ex-husband.  The unattractive characters get just what they deserve in highly amusing fashion.   This is a very amusing book.    

John Sanford, The Devil’s Code (2000).  Kidd describes himself as an artist and professional criminal.  He earns a decent living in St. Paul, MN as a painter, but he finds Robin Hood-ish cyber-theft more intriguing and lucrative.  An associate is killed and leaves word with his wife to go to Kidd if anything happens to him.  Thus begins a highly intricate tale of the worlds of talented computer hackers, an unscrupulous high-tech corporation, and an alphabet soup of government security agencies.  Kidd enlists the aid of the mysterious and beautiful LuEllen and off they go to Texas to find out what about the high-tech corporation got Kidd’s buddy killed and made Kidd and his hacker buddies targets of the FBI, CIA and NSA.   

From Dwight in FL:

September:

Absolutely wonderful to find by total accident a book on the Hemingway/Pfeiffer marriage called UNBELIEVABLE HAPPINESS AND FINAL SORROW by Ruth A. Hawkins.  I just finished a long overdue appreciation reading of Reynolds Price midlife memoir.  and I must confess I will never stop reading D. H. Lawrence, onto some of his poems at the moment..

October:

BY THE IOWA SEA by Joe Blair

 and, of course, I emailed you (while you were across the pond unbeknownst to me) my enthusiasm over THE RECEPTIONIST, a window into the rooms of the NYorker in the 1950's and 60's.

And DEARIE, the biography to end all, of JULIA CHILDS by a man named Spitz.

From Monica in OH: 

I listened to a book this past week called A Man and His Dog by Anthony Richardson. Just wonderful. One of those that stick with you afterward, plus it's a true story to boot.

From Amazon:

When Czech airman Jan Bozdech adopts an abandoned Alsatian puppy in the midst of war in 1940, little does he know that this small act of kindness will change his life. Antis, the Alsatian, becomes a constant companion and source of strength for Jan and his fellow airmen during the remainder of the war and long after Jan returns to his native Czechoslovakia. Never sentimental, this moving and true tale of love and faithfulness is reminiscent of Sheila Burnford's excellent Bel Ria. Dunbobbin handles accents, personalities and emotions with aplomb, always keeping the focus on Jan and Antis's determination to survive by relying on each other's strength. This story crosses age, nationality and gender lines with its universal message. Dog-lovers and non-animal fans alike will be moved to tears. E.E.L. An AUDIOFILE Earphones Award winner (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Thank you all for a wonderful evening, and see you next time November 7 with special guest Michael Heaton.

August 2012

We had the pleasure of chatting with poet Maya Stein.  She’s currently perched atop The High Line collecting stories for her Type Rider project and will be taking her interactive poetry experience to the Decatur Book Festival in a couple of weeks.  She says what inspires her is “doing the thing you don’t know the outcome to.”  Thanks, Maya, for your time and energy and we wish you the very best in your travels!

Here’s what we’ve been reading:

The Chaperone – Laura Moriarty

A Natural Woman:  A Memoir – Carole King

The Rose Garden – Susanna Kearley

Helen Keller in Love – Rosie Sultan

The Playdate – Louise Millar

Objects of My Affection -  Jill Smolinski

The Lost Saints of Tennessee  - Amy Franklin-Willis

Little Did I Know – Mitchell Maxwell

Bringing Up Bebe – Pamela Druckerman

Blame – Michelle Huneven

Moonflower Vine – Jetta Carleton

Clair de Lune – Jetta Carleton

Fidel Castro: My Life – Ignacio Ramonet

The Journal of Best Practices – David Finch

Wild – Cheryl Strayed

How Should a Person Be – Sheila Heti

Death Comes to Pemberly – P.D. James

Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn

Bart’s Books

The Five Red Herrings – Dorothy Sayers

Charles Dickens’ Inner Child – Christopher Hitchens

Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity – Averil Cameron

Procopius of Caesarea – Anthony Kaldellis

New & Selected Poems – Ron Padgett

Philip Lamantia poems

Bill Knot poems

A Renegade History of the United States – Thaddeus Russell

A People’s History of the United States – Howard Zinn

A Patriot’s History of the United States – Michael Allen

Roadside Picnic – Arkady Strugatsky

Stalker the movie

From our sister group in OK:

Lawton Book Bunch

August 9, 2012

Books

Gwynne, S.C.: Empire of the Summer Moon.

Orwell, George: 1984

Bradbury, Ray: Fahrenheit 451

Wilson, A.N. The Elizabethans

Rushdie, Salman: Haroun and the Sea of Storieis

Asher, Jay: Thirteen Reasons Why

Bowers, Rick: Superman versus the Ku Klux Klan: The True Story of How the Iconic Superhero Battled the Men of Hate

Rushin, Kate: Black Back-Ups: Poetry by Kate Rushin

Parks, Gordon: Eyes with Winged Thoughts

Movies

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Theatre

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare – as high school reading

(OU will do a production set in modern times: 8 pm Sept. 21, 23, and 27-29 & 3 pm Sept.23 and 30)

Etc.

The Great Courses (formerly The Teaching Company)

Frantzie’s link to NPR: “Your Favorites: 100 Best Ever Teen Novels” http://www.npr.org/2012/08/07/157795366/your-favorites-100-best-ever-teen-novels?ft=3&f=100876926&sc=nl&cc=bn-20120809 Geechee Kunda Museum: http://geecheekunda.com/http://geecheekunda.com/

Gullah and disappearing languages Bedre Chocolates (Chickasaw Nation): http://www.bedrechocolates.com/ Chickasaw Cultural Center: http://www.chickasawculturalcenter.com/

NONFICTION WRITING (Cameron University Weekend Class)

CRN 13635 ENG 3881

Nonfiction Writing is often popularly defined as narratives or accounts of events understood to be factual. Such a definition, however, ignores the

many and varied types of nonfiction writing and, more important, ignores the fact that nonfiction necessarily employs fictive techniques in the

reporting of events. This two-weekend workshop will explore a few of the types of nonfiction as well as the role of narrative and rhetorical theories

in understanding nonfiction writing. The first part of the course will explore definitions of nonfiction and its history beginning with medieval court

records and news reports as well as journalism and scientific writing in the 1600s through the early 19th century. The second part of the course

will explore contemporary notions of objectivity and genres such as autobiography, memoir, and “New Journalism.” Students enrolled for

university credit will receive a letter grade.

INSTRUCTOR: William Carney

DATES: September 8 and 15, 2012 TIME: 8:30 – 4:30P

PLACE: NB 1074

From Mary Lou in MD:

David Adams Richards, Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace (1990).  This is the second book in the trilogy set in the small northern New Brunswick town.  Some of the characters appeared in more minor roles in the first novel.  I found them somewhat less exasperating but they are all frustrated and isolated and misunderstand themselves and each other.  There is a more sustained story line than in the first novel but it didn’t really grip my attention.  I think Richards’ view of the human experience is a bit existential for my taste.  Still, I plan to read volume three.

Studs Terkel, Coming of Age: The Story of Our Century by Those Who’ve Lived It (1995).   This is a series of brief autobiographical essays by persons age 70 and above.  As they reflect on major events in their lives that shaped their identities as well as the world around them, they also reveal how they created significance in it all.  There are 20 sections with three or four essays each, provided by leading figures in the full range of American society -- corporate tycoons, labor leaders, doctors, lawyers, ministers, farmers, whistleblowers, and poets. I recognized few of the names but many of the events. The analysis of the evolution of American culture is astute and challenging.

Claudia Shear, Blown Sideways through Life (1995).  The author is a Brooklyn misfit who tells a hilarious tale of her too-numerous-to-count employment experiences in New York and even briefly in Italy.  These include jobs as a nude model, a Wall Street proofreader, a whorehouse receptionist, and many short stints as a waitress.   This is a short, quick entertaining book in the style of a stand-up comic with an unusually perceptive understanding of human foibles. 

Walter Van Tilburg Clark, The Ox-Bow Incident (1940, reissued Book of the Month Club 1992).  Deemed “A Classic of the Old West,” this novel is set in and around the small Nevada town of Bridger’s Wells in the 1880s.  Carl and Gil ride into town after wintering in a mountain cabin and find the local townsfolk and cowboys disturbed about recent incidents of cattle rustling.  When a prominent rancher’s foreman is reported shot by the rustlers, the men form into an irregular posse and set out in pursuit.  Carl and Gil feel they must join in the chase so they will not be suspected of rustling themselves.  The portrait of mob psychology is chilling. 

Curtis J. Badger, Bellevue Farm:  Exploring Virginia’s Costal Countryside (1997).  This is a slim volume of natural history essays nicely illustrated with pencil drawings.  It describes the costal marshes and barrier islands of Virginia’s Eastern Shore.  Bellevue Farm dates back to pre-Revolutionary days but only the graveyard and the foundation of the plantation house remain. It now is part of the Nature Conservancy’s 45 thousand acre Virginia Coast Reserve sanctuary. Over many years Badger rambles the hedgerows, streams and marshes at all seasons and provides thoughtful observations of terrain and its plant and animal life.

James Lee Burke, Rain Gods (2009).  The setting is a West Texas border town and the detective is Sheriff Hackberry Holland, cousin to former Texas Ranger Billy Bob Holland whom we have meet before.  The villain is Preacher Jack Collins, a stone cold killer with a rigorous and paradoxical sense of right and wrong.  Holland and Collins both carry the nightmares and other psychologically scars of their war experiences.  Other characters include a burn-scarred Iraq vet Pete Flores and his girlfriend who sings Carter family spirituals in the beer joints where she waits table. An assortment of New Orleans lowlifes also figure into the complex plot.  The vivid descriptions of landscape and weather make the atmosphere as intense as the back-stories of the characters.  This is a totally engaging detective thriller but it is much more.  A Burke novel never disappoints. 

July 2012

One of the things I like about this group is that I now know more about the 6^th-century Byzantine Empire without having to READ about the 6^th-century Byzantine Empire.

Elaine brought her friend Barb whom I hope becomes a regular visitor, and Monica is off to new adventures and moving to Granville.  We hope she knows she’ll always be a part of our group and isn’t really leaving us.  Happy reading, my friend!

Here’s what we covered:

We’re with Nobody – Huffman and Rejebian

The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson

Kids today!

The case for good teachers and those who differentiate between fiction and reality

Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman

Cutting for Stone – Abraham Verghese

11/22/63 – Stephen King

The Spiral Staircase – Karen Armstrong

In the Garden of Beasts  - Erik Larson

The Litigators – John Grisham

The Best of the Rejection Collection – Mathew Diffee

The Cuban Revolution

The Yankee Comandante  - William Alexander Morgan

Fidel Castro My Life – Ignacio Ramonet

Wicked Business – Janet Evanovich

Service Included – Phoebe Damrosch

An Available Man – Hilma Wolitzer

Unorthodox – Deborah Feldman

The Country School Farm  (affectionately known as Amish Camp in my household)

Clair de Lune – Jetta Carleton

Moonflower Vine – Jetta Carleton

Summerland – Elin Hilderbrand

Night Road – Kristin Hannah

The Secret History of the Court of Justinian – Procopius

A Cold Day for Murder – Dana Stabenow  ***available for free on Kindle***  Won the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original in 1993

Procopius of Caesarea – Anthony Kaldellis  If the biographer of Procopius would like to speak at our book club, he's more than welcome!

Justinian vs. Constantine

Mr. and Mrs. Madison’s War – Hugh Howard

Pacific Street – Cecelia Holland

The Long Way Home -  Robin Pilcher

Creative is a Verb – Patti Digh

Life is a Verb – Patti Digh

Pomp and Circumstance – Fred Mustard Stewart

Ellis Island – Fred Mustard Stewart

Minding Frankie  -Maeve Binchy

Barefoot – Elin Hilderbrand

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Moonrise Kingdom the movie

Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern

The Enchantments – Kathryn Harrison

Mary Roberts Rinehart mysteries

A Reliable Wife  -Robert Goolrick

Good Poems – Garrison Keillor

The Life of William Faulkner  -Richard Gray

As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner

Anna Karenina  -Leo Tolstoy

Little America  -Rajiv Chandrasekaran

Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius – Dave Eggers

NPR Funniest Driveway Moments – NPR and Robert Krulwich

Backstage Passes:  Life of the Wild Side with David Bowie – Angela Bowie

Fifty Shades of Grey  - E. L. James

The Sun Also Rises  - Hemingway

The Paris Wife  -Paula McLain

The Glass Castle – Jennette Walls

Unbroken – Laura Hillenbrand

Seabiscuit – Laura Hillenbrand

From our sister group in OK:

Lawton Book Bunch

July 12, 2012

Books

Mantel, Hilary: Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies.

Connelly, Michael: The Brass Verdict.

Mones, Nick: The Last Chinese Chef.

Fairstein, Linda: Silent Mercy.

Mann, Charles: 1491.

O’Brien, Tim: The Things They Carried.

Burke, Jim: Illuminating Texts.

Pollen, Michael: In Defense of Food.

Trillon, Calvin: Tummy Trilogy.

Ephron, Nora: I Remember Nothing and Heartburn.

Movies

To Rome with Love

Marigold Hotel

Midnight in Paris

Moonrise Kingdom

Ice Age

Madagascar

Brave

How to Tame Your Dragon

TV

Michael Woods’ Story of England (OETA, DVD, and book)

Inspector Lewis (OETA)

Reminders

Pride Gallery (Southwestern Medical Center) Show: “Trees of Life” – paintings by Nancy Anderson and featuring paintings by two of her students. Opening was Thursday, July 12, 2012 5:00-6:30.

Leslie Powell Gallery Opening; Saturday, July 14, 2012 7:00-9:00 p.m.

Friends of the Library: Meeting Monday, July 16, 2012 Noon. The new director, Kristin Herr, will discuss her vision and plans. $2.00 for lunch

Let’s Talk About It. Library Meeting Room Tuesday, July 17, 2012 6:30 p.m. Professor John Morris will lead a discussion of “The Last Chinese Chef” by Nick Mones.

From Mary Lou in MD:

Bill Bryson, Notes from a Small Island (1995).  This is a must read for Anglophiles. After 20 years in Yorkshire and before returning to the States with his family, Bryson spends several months traveling England by rail and foot and even occasionally by rental car. His rambles take him to many famous places (e.g. Bournemouth, Salisbury, Stonehenge) and some out of the way ones as well.  His commentary is delightful as always.

Anne Tyler, If Morning Ever Comes (1964).  After his first few months at Columbia University law school, Ben Joe Hawks is irresistibly drawn home to visit his family in Sandhill, North Carolina.  Ben Joe’s father, the prominent town doctor, died some years before and the household now consists of his mother, grandmother, and several sisters.  The characters all are well developed and yet all remain somewhat mysterious to Ben Joe and to each other.  Ben Joe is even more mysterious to himself as he strives to do the right thing, if only he could figure out what that might be.  Even in this first novel, Tyler shows great skill in portraying complex family relationships. 

John Le Carre, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974).  Betrayal is an even more dominant theme in this novel in the series featuring George Smiley.  Control is dead, Smiley has been pushed out into retirement, and The Circus is in disarray with bureaucratic competition.  Then Smiley is re-commissioned for a secret investigation of his old organization to find the mole within the highest levels of British Secret Service.  There are twists and turns aplenty as Smiley digs for the truth.  A nice subplot involves the relationship between a misfit adolescent boy and the intriguing new teacher who shows up at his school, living in a caravan in a remote part of the grounds.  Eventually he plays a role in the Smiley mystery.  I didn’t see the movie, but I doubt it could have done justice to the novel. 

Laurie R. King, The Game (2004).  This is a novel in the series featuring a 40-someething Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick (and now wife) Mary Russell.  Mycroft sends the couple off to British Colonial India to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Kimball O’Hara (Kipling’s Kim) and other surveyors.  In transit they meet the rather tiresome Goodheart family from Chicago.  After arriving in Bombay, Holmes and Russell spend a period in disguise as traveling magicians.  Eventually Mary re-joins the Goodhearts in a visit to the remote northwest India estate of an eccentric Maharaja.  Russell and Holmes surmount many dangers in the course of solving a number of mysteries, including the one that brought them there.  This is a thoroughly diverting novel and should not be in the least offensive to Conan Doyle fans. 

David Adams Richards, Nights below Station Street (1998).  Richards is an award winning Canadian novelist from New Brunswick.  This is the first book in his trilogy set in a small town in northern New Brunswick.  It is principally a novel of character, and the characters fail to communicate in various frustrating ways.  I wanted to slap most of them at one time or another. There is very little plot until the last few chapters, when things suddenly get exciting.  This was a decent enough novel that I’m planning to read the rest of the series and I hope to enjoy them more.

P.D. James, Death Comes to Pemberley (2011).  This novel is almost as well plotted as we would expect from P.D. James but the discursive passages hardly sparkle.  The portrayal of life at Pemberley is interesting.  A great deal of the novel is from Darcy’s point of view, not Elizabeth’s.  Still, I don’t think Austen fans will be offended, which is perhaps as much as can be hoped.  

From Dwight in FL:

THE LIFE OF AN UNKNOWN MAN, by Andrei Makine (Graywolf Press. org) caught my eye and I read it in one sitting, well almost. 

I just saw THE ARTIST and what a wonderful, coy film.  Naturally, I wept. 

All the hooplala about London and the Olympics, for some reason I have lost interest in the Royal Family.  There goes the neighborhood!

Thanks everyone – see you next time!

June 2012

Last night’s discussion got me thinking about authors that grew up in unconventional families and how they make fascinating stories:  Jeannette Walls, Gabrielle Hamilton, Dave Eggers, Cheryl Strayed to name a few.  We also talked about how some people cook:  by smell, taste, winging it or following recipes to the letter.  There are those among us who feel the need to host parties and cook for a crowd.  I hope I know some of those people.

The designer of the Omni book club logo Ryan was able to join us, and I hope he enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed him.

Here’s what we discussed:

Defending Jacob – William Landay

21 Summer Reads

Death at Pemberly – P.D. James

Twelfth Enchantment – David Liss

Christopher Hitchens’ last article

Into the Forest – Jean Hegland

Murder on the Ol’ Bunions – Dionne Moore

Keeper of the Ferris Wheel – Jack McBride White

Clapton The Autobiography – Eric Clapton

Sessions for Robert J. CD and DVD

Anne Lamott

Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott

Rosie – Anne Lamott

Wild – Cheryl Strayed

The Way movie

Bossy Pants – Tina Fey

The Lompopo Academy of Private Detection – Alexander McCall Smith

Beach House Memories – Mary Alice Monroe

Summer Breeze – Nancy Thayer

Clevnet.org

The Night and the Music – Lawrence Block

The Brandy of the Damned – JMR Higgs

Inscapes – Francis Scarfe

Twitter haiku

Surreal poems

The War of 1812 – Donald Hickey

Service Included – Phoebe Damrosch

Blood, Bones & Butter – Gabrielle Hamilton

Prune

My Bread – Jim Lahey
Babette's Feast

Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins

Would It Kill You to Stop Doing That – Henry Alford

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally. – Oscar Wilde

Plenty of Candles Lots of Cake – Anna Quindlen

Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius – Dave Eggers

Creative is a Verb – Patti Digh

37 Days

From our sister group in OK:

Lawton Book Bunch

June 14, 2012

Books

Mankell, Henning: Pyramid, One Step Behind, Before the Frost, The Man Who Smiled,

  The Man from Beijing.

James, P.D.: Talking about Detective Fiction.

Meredith, Martin: Born in Africa: The Quest for the Origins of Human Life.  

Bourdain, Anthony: The Nasty Bits.

Le Carre, John: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

Indridason, Arnaldur: The Draining Lake.

Larson, Erik: Isaac’s Storm, In the Garden of the Beasts, The Devil in the White City.

Mann, Charles C.: 1491.

Shakespeare, William: Taming of the Shrew.

Anaya, Rudolfo: Bless Me, Ultima.

Lawton Business and Professional Women’s Club: ‘Neath August Sun, 1901.

Katz, William Loren: The Black West.

Paulsen, Gary: The Legend of Bass Reeves.

Internet

Google for: Neanderthal cave artists

   msn.com: articles about Neanderthals being the first cave artists.

Movies, TV

Da Vinci’s Inquest.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (PBS series with Alec Guinness)

From Mary Lou in MD:

Ann Brashares, The Second Summer of the Sisterhood (2003); Girls in Pants:  The Third Summer of the Sisterhood (2005).  This is a delightful series.  Volume 2 covers the summer between Junior and Senior years of high school   Bridget goes to Alabama to learn about her deceased mother’s family.  Carmen has a difficult time with the fact that her mother is dating.  Tibby meets new friends when she enrolls in a college film program.  Lena is still trying to recover from the previous summer’s romance when she visited her grandparents in Greece. Volume 3 covers the summer after graduation, with the girls all somewhat apprehensively looking ahead to college while working out more independent relationships with their parents. The traveling pants have not lost their magic. The tone is light but the issues are serious.   

Thomas Keneally, The Office of Innocence (2002).  In the summer of 1941-42 the people of Australia are anxious about the prospect of a Japanese invasion while their young men in uniform are serving in North Africa.  Father Frank Darragh, the conscientious young curate of the Roman Catholic parish of St. Margaret’s, finds his own faith severely tested as he strives to guide his parishioners through the moral and spiritual dilemmas posed by impending war.   Keneally does a masterful job of portraying the conflict between the ideal and the real of the priesthood.

Shelby Foote, Follow Me Down (1950).  Historian Shelby Foote was the most charming and entertaining of narrators of the PBS series on the Civil War.  He also has written several novels. This one is superb.  In Jordan County MS Luther Eustis, a bible-crazed old farmer, is on trial for the murder of a young woman whose body was discovered in a lake, weighted down with concrete blocks.  There is no doubt that Eustis is guilty.  The novel presents the trial and the events leading up to it through a series of narrators including a reporter, a deaf-mute, the defense attorney, Eustis’s wife, his victim, and Eustis himself.  Gradually the entire series of events and compulsions that led to the crime are revealed. This is a beautifully written novel with strong characters and a compelling atmosphere.

Nevada Barr, Burn (2010).  Anna Pigeon is on leave from the Parks Service and staying with a friend in New Orleans to give herself time to recover from her latest nearly fatal adventure.  She has promised her husband Paul, a county sheriff in Mississippi, that she will stay out of trouble.  Of course she can’t manage that and when she receives voodoo threats she’s off and running in another life-threatening quest to solve a series of interlocking mysteries.  

Jana French, In the Woods (2007).  Dublin police detective Rob Ryan is assigned to investigate the murder of a twelve-year-old girl in a woods near a suburban housing development.  Neither Ryan’s superiors nor his partner Cassie are aware that the boyhood Ryan has a sinister history with these woods. Ryan remembers very little about that long ago traumatic experience but gradually he realizes that he must solve both mysteries if he is to salvage his career on the murder squad.  The faintly bizarre characters include the family of the victim and the workers on an archeological dig near the woods.  The plot has enough twists and turns for a maze.  

Elizabeth George, Missing Joseph (1993).  The vicar of Winslough has noted that the figure of Joseph is missing from pictorial representations of the Holy Family.  Simon and Deborah St. James are not willing to accept the Coroners verdict of accidental poisoning in the vicar’s death.  Simon asks his friend Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley to join him in investigating the matter.  The solution to the mystery hinges on the missing figure. 

John Sanford, Sudden Prey (1996).  This is one of the goriest and scariest cases of Lucas Davenport’s career with the Minneapolis police.  As usual in a Sanford novel, we know who the bad guys are and what they are up to from the beginning.  They are terrifyingly unstable and unpredictable and someone is giving them inside information about the investigation.  The suspense is in watching Lucas and his colleagues figure everything  out before it’s too late. 

Robert B. Parker, Sixkill (2011).  The dialog is as entertainingly cryptic as usual.  Hawk is off to the Far East on a Buddhist retreat and Spenser has to make do with a new heavy as his backup.  Zebulon Sixkill is an American Indian and a body guard employed by a Hollywood sleezeball accused of murdering a female fan.  Sixkill is a potential witness and Spenser attempts to interview him on the set in Boston. The sleezeball orders Sixkill to throw Spenser off the set and Sixkill gets himself decked and fired n the attempt.  An unlikely friendship ensues. Eventually the murder gets solved.   

Happy Summer Reading!

May 2012

Earline, who usually follows us remotely on the web, was able to join us live and in person!  Great time comparing and sharing tales of our book groups.  We hope we can do a book club “exchange” as it were, perhaps by going to the Virginia Festival of the Book in her neck of the woods.

Here are the books and various other topics we discussed:

Wild – Cheryl Strayed

Clara and Mr. Tiffany – Susan Vreeland

Other books by Vreeland

Tiffany Museum in Winter Park, FL

Wade Chapel at Lake View Cemetery

Mr. and Mrs. Madison’s War – Hugh Howard

Sweet Tooth – Ian McEwan
Ian McEwan interview in The New Yorker

The New Yorker's new book blog Page-Turner

Wright for Wright – Hugh Howard

An Economist Gets Lunch – Tyler Cowen

In the Shadow of Ares - Thomas James and Carl C. Carlsson

The Cult of the Presidency – Gene Healy

The Last Pagans of Rome – Alan Cameron

Waterloo Station – Emily Grayson

Death Comes to Pemberly – P.D. James

An American Spy – Olen Steinhauer (don’t bother reading this)

The Postmistress – Sarah Blake

Extraordinary, Ordinary People – Condi Rice

Places in the Heart movie

Civil Rights Activists the Freedom Riders

State of Wonder – Ann Patchett

What Women Want:  The Science of Female Shopping – Paco Underhill

Call of the Mall – Paco Underhill

Why We Buy – Paco Underhill

Grace Before Dying – Lori Waselchuk & Lawrence Powell

11/22/63 – Stephen King

In Caddis Wood – Mary Rockcastle

Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott

The Wednesday Wars – Gary Schmidt

The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins

Facebook and Twitter For Seniors For Dummies – Marsha Collier

The Bra Book – Jene Luciani

Author Martha Grimes

A Walk in the Woods – Bill Bryson

At Home – Bill Bryson

Author John McPhee

Citizens of London – Lynne Olson

The three titles nominated for the Pulitzer but no winner selected:  The Pale King – David Foster Wallace, Swamplandia! – Karen Russell, and Train Dreams – Denis Johnson

From our sister group in OK:

Books

Heartbeat Away by Michael Palmer

Last Surgeon by Michael Palmer

Sixth Man by David Baldacci

Hell’s Corner by David Baldacci

New York by Edward Rutherford

Wormwood by Susan Wittig Albert

At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson

Graphic novels as a category

Mark Spencer (former creative writing professor at Cameron University) as an author

Movies

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

My Week with Marilyn

Avengers

The Raven

Opera DVDs

Samson and Delilah with Shirley Verrett

Trips

Scherrey’s photo album and travelogue of his March trip to Southern California:

Getty Villa, The Flower Fields. George C. Page Museum, La Brea Tar Pits, Stinking Rose (garlic) Restaurant, Huntington Botanical Gardens.

From Mary Lou in MD:

M. C.  Beaton,  Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist (1997).   With unrealistic thoughts of salvaging her broken engagement, Agatha leaves her peaceful Cotswold village for a tour of Cyprus, where she hopes to find her former fiancée and regain his affection.  Instead, she finds dreadful co-travelers, political intrigue, mysteries and murder. 

Alexander McCall Smith, The Unbearable Lightness of Scones (2008).  For the most part, the characters of the 44 Scotland Street series are either self-aware but powerless or delusional and manipulative.  8-year-old Bertie is the prime example of the former and his dreadful mother Irene of the latter.  Art gallery owner Matthew has married his Elspeth, Angus Lord discovers a missing portrait masterpiece, his dog Cyril becomes a father, narcissistic Bruce loses his fiancée of the gangster-wealthy father, and Big Lou of the neighborhood cafe escapes yet another unsuitable suitor. 

Fern Michaels, The Scoop (2009).  This is the fourth novel in the Godmother series.  The novel opens in Charleston, South Carolina, where mega-wealthy Toots Loudenberry is burring husband number 8 with appropriate fanfare but negligible sorrow.  When she learns that the fourth-rate gossip paper her daughter Abby works for in Hollywood is on the brink of collapse, she gathers her friends Sophie, Mavis and Ida, the Godmothers, and off they go to Hollywood on a secret mission to save the paper and turn it into a rousing success without Abby finding out. Just desserts are dispensed all ‘round. 

Julia Glass, The Whole World Over (2006).  Like Three Junes, this novel interweaves the stories of several intriguing characters. Greenie Duquette runs a successful commercial bakery in Greenwich Village.  Her friend and client Walter, a successful restaurant owner, serves the visiting governor of New Mexico a piece Greenie’s coconut cake.  Greenie’s husband Alan has become remote and occasionally abusive in some sort of midlife crisis and when the governor offers Greenie a job as his personal chef, she relocates to New Mexico with her son George.  One rainy day lonely Alan befriends a strange and ill-kempt young woman with a box full of puppies and the improbable name of Saga.  Saga lives in Connecticut with her uncle, a retired professor, but journeys into the City regularly by train.  She ends up dusting shelves and gardening for Fenno (of Three Junes) at his bookstore.  All these characters and plus the entire vibrantly colorful New Mexico contingent more are essential to the resolution of the seemingly unrelated threads of the plot.  This is a highly satisfying novel. 

Belva Plain, Blessings (1989).   Jenny Rakowsky is engaged to Jay Wolfe.  She is a lawyer with a shabby office in New York City where she represents the poor and downtrodden, especially women.  He is partner in a corporate law firm, on Madison Avenue. On a weekend visit to Jay’s parents in Connecticut, Jenny agrees to take on an environmental case involving a local wetland wilderness.  Just as everything is going so well, Jenny’s past intrudes in a frightening manner.

Joyce Carol Oates, Man Crazy (1997).  The narrator Ingrid Boone introduces herself from the psychiatric ward of the County Women’s Detention Center.  But for this, we would not expect her to survive the painful years of her childhood in upstate New York in the 1970s.  She is an only child who moves from place to place as her mother evades her father, a notorious wanted man.   Her mother supports them with a series of low-paid jobs and the favors of men attracted by her beauty.  Ingrid’s insecurity and sense of inadequacy are devastating.  This is quite a dark tale which nevertheless holds the reader’s interest by slowly unraveling the threads of a series of mysteries. 

David Baldacci, First Family (2009).  Former Secrete Service agents Sean King and Michelle Maxwell are asked by the First Lady to investigate the abduction of her niece, even though the Secret Service and the FBI are on the case.  The inter-agency rivalry is quelled only by their common resistance to cooperating with the “outsiders”.   Sean and Michelle are committed to finding the missing child, but they cannot be satisfied until they achieve justice as well.  As with other Baldacci novels, the bureaucracy is self-serving, the plot is intricate, and the pace is fast. 

From Dwight in FL:

I'm still reading with many mixed emotions and pleasures HEMINGWAY'S BOAT by Paul Hendrickson.  Bobbing along behind PILAR on a trip to Bimini from Key West was a 13' sea skiff, a LYMAN!  A Bernard Lyman is mentioned, building boats since 1875 and the exclusive lapstrake construction takes up a paragraph.

Enjoy the summer-like weather and see you next time!