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
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
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.
