November 10, 2012

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
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
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 150th 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


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 18, 2012

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.



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 16, 2012

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
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
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 20, 2012

July 2012


One of the things I like about this group is that I now know more about the 6th-century Byzantine Empire without having to READ about the 6th-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 21, 2012

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
Death at Pemberly – P.D. James
Twelfth Enchantment – David Liss
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
The Night and the Music – Lawrence Block
The Brandy of the Damned – JMR Higgs
Inscapes – Francis Scarfe
The War of 1812 – Donald Hickey
Service Included – Phoebe Damrosch
Blood, Bones & Butter – Gabrielle Hamilton
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


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 25, 2012

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
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!