January 2013

So happy to start the new year with new faces in our group.  Big welcome goes to Pat, Jose and Margaret!

Here’s what we discussed:

Room – Emma Donoghue

Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn  This book came up often in discussion.

And a Bottle of Rum – Wayne Curtis

Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio – Terry Ryan

Peaches for Father Francis – Joanne Harris

White Truffles in Winter – N. M. Kelby

The Lost German Slave Girl – John Bailey

The House at Tyneford – Natasha Solomons

Sweet Tooth – Ian McEwan

Westwind – Ray Ellis & Walter Cronkite

Short stories by T.C. Boyle

Nothing Like it in the World – Stephen Ambrose

Facebook for Grown-ups – Michael Miller

The Panther – Nelson DeMille

Notorious Nineteen – Janet Evanovich

Tecumseh & Brock – James Laxer

Free online courses at Coursera

I, Pencil:  My Family Tree – Leonard E. Read

Canadian Club distillery

My Beloved World – Sonia Sotomayor

The Last Runaway – Tracy Chevalier

The Midwife’s Tale – Samuel Thomas

London’s Strangest Tales – Tom Quinn

The Lords of Discipline – Pat Conroy

Mesa Flats Resort – George Lindsey

Moose Drool

Are We Rome – Cullen Murphy

Empires and Barbarians – Peter Heather

A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

Cricket on the Hearth – Charles Dickens

The Chimes – Charles Dickens

Universe Next Door – Robert Anton Wilson

Seven Shadows – L. Wayne Benner

At Folsom Prison with Dr. Timothy Leary

The Unincorporated Future – Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin

Beethoven – Maynard Solomon

Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman

Medium Raw – Anthony Bourdain

Kitchen Confidential – Anthony Bourdain

The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway

For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway

The Following

The Catcher in the Rye – J. D. Salinger

The Old Man and the Sea – Ernst Hemingway

A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition – Ernest Hemingway

From our sister group in OK:

Lawton Book Bunch

January 10, 2013

Books

Massie, Robert: Catherine the Great

Dahl, Roald: Matilda

Caldwell, Gail: Let’s Take the Long Way Home

Parton, Dolly: Dream More

Mandela, Nelson: The Long Walk to Freedom

Brown, Kenny L.: The Italians in Oklahoma

Pound, Ezra: ABC of Reading

Eliot, T.S.: Wasteland

Chevalier, Tracy: Burning Bright

Christie, Agatha: An Autobiography

Ampuero, Roberto: The Neruda Case

Le Carre, John: Our Kind of Traitor

Movies

Les Miserables

A Joyful Noise

February Events

Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2013. Greg Hoepfner’s original musical, The Juries at Cameron’s Recital Hall. (David Fennema, director) Will last approximately one hour. For a reservation call Dr. Hoepfner at 581-2449.

Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013. Professor John Morris will present As Close to Christmas as We Could Feel: Poems of Love?. Leslie Powell Gallery 7:00 p.m.

Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013. Soulful Stories. For further information, please contact Judy Neale or Kristin Herr (581-3450 x9).

From Mary Lou in MD:

Booknotes Jan 2013

Joyce Carol Oates, First Love:  A Gothic Tale (1996).   This creepy little volume is beautifully illustrated with Barry Moser woodcuts.  Josie’s mother Delia, of dubious sexual morals, comes with her daughter to live with her aunt Esther, “a stiff-girdled woman,” in a small town in upstate New York.  Esther’s great nephew Jared Jr. is home from seminary, perhaps recovering from a nervous breakdown.  He is a tyrant to his aunt, an intriguing mystery to 11-year old Josie, and a figure of increasing horror to the reader.    This is an uncomfortable book.

Charlotte Macleod, editor, Mistletoe Mysteries:  Tales of Yuletide Murder (1989).  This collection of largely cozy short stories of the season includes tales by Macleod, Peter Lovesley, Mary Higgins Clark, Sharyn McCrumb, Isaac Asimov, and Marcia Muller, among others.  Many are dryly humorous.  Short stories are ideal when holiday activities interfere with reading time.

Ralph Bradford, Reprieve:  A Christmas Story of 1863 (Washington, D.C., December 1940.)  This slim volume appears to have been privately printed by the author and the illustrator, Lester Douglas.  Jackie Evison is a young boy who travels to Washington with his mother to seek a pardon for his father, a heroic Union soldier imprisoned for dangerous discussions of military strategies in letters to his wife.  While Mrs. Evison waits to see the President, Jackie is befriended by young Tad Lincoln and his playmates.  Although President Lincoln is jealously guarded by his cabinet members Stanton, Seward and Chase, the boys manage to alert the president to the waiting Mrs. Evison, leading to a happy resolution. Lincoln’s fondness for children and his empathy with the plight of the common citizen leave him fortunately unresponsive to the political maneuvering of his cabinet members.   

Megan Mayhew Bergman, “Housewifely Arts,” One Story: Issue Number 142, November 2010. This is a delightful short story published in a gift subscription I received. It has all the elements of the genre:  brevity, focus on single theme (in this instance the nature of grief for the death of a parent), character development, resolution of a conflict.  Bergman does an excellent job of weaving past and present in the consciousness of the narrator.  I am looking forward to my next issue.

Thanks to everyone for a great meeting!  See you next time February 27.