The Husband List - Janet Evanovich
And the Mountains Echoed - Khaled Hosseini
Stone Mouth - Iain Banks
The Suitors - Cecil David-Weill
Paris in Love - Eloisa James
Hemingway's Boat - Paul Hendrickson
Flight Behavior - Barbara Kingsolver
I Married You for Happiness - Lily Tuck
Hollyhocks, Lambs and other Passions - Dee Hardie
Church of Scientology - Hugh Urban
Going Clear - Lawrence Wright
The Sinister Pig - Tony Hillerman
Hunting Badger - Tony Hillerman
The Wailing Wind -Tony Hillerman
The Fall of the Roman Empire - Peter Heather
The Great Degeneration - Niall Ferguson
Under the Dome (TV show)
Works by Neal Stephenson
Works by Iain Banks
Pirate Cinema - Cory Doctorow
Works by JMR Higgs
The Brandy of the Damned - JMR Higgs
The Drowned World - JG Ballard
Empire of the Sun (movie)
The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick
Chop Suey - Andrew Coe
The Trial of God - Elie Wiesel
Open Heart - Elie Wiesel
How to Train a Wild Elephant, and other Adventures in Mindfulness - Jan Chozen Bays
Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi
Damned - Chuck Palahniuk
Survivor - Chuck Palahniuk
Night - Elie Wiesel
The Lottery - Shirley Jackson
The Lottery Letters
From our sister group in OK:
Books
Ackroyd, Peter: Albion:
The Origins of the English Imagination
Berry, Steve: The
King’s Deception
Currinbhoy, Nayana: Miss Timmins’ School for Girls
Ferling, John: Liberty:
The Struggle to Set America Free
Mantel, Hilary: Bring
Up the Bodies
Marton, Katie: Paris:
A Love Story
Punke, Michael: Last
Stand: George Bird Grinnell, the Battle to Save the Buffalo, and the Birth of
the New West
Scott, Paul: Raj
Quartet
Seth, Vikram: A Suitable
Boy
Spurling, Hilary: Paul
Scott: The Life of the Author of the Raj Quartet
Todd, Charles: A
Lonely Death
Wilkerson, Isabel: Warmth
of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration
NPR: What
Kids Are Reading, In School And Out, by Lynn Neary, June 13, 2013
50 Books That Will Change Your Life
From Mary Lou in MD:
DeAnne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook, They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the American Civil War
(2002). Extensive research into civil
war correspondence as well as the scant official records of distaff soldiers
results in a detailed account of the women who disguised themselves as men and
enlisted in the Union or Confederate armies.
Some of them followed husbands, brothers or fathers into war. Others came for the adventure or to escape
the limited lives open to females at the time.
The authors’ research revealed about 250 such women, but there were
undoubtedly several times this number.
Many remained undetected until they were killed or wounded, and some not
even then. A few were detected only when
they gave birth while serving. (The
uniforms were quite baggy.) Some women,
after being discovered and discharged, went elsewhere and enlisted in other
units. The book contains illustrations
of a few of these women in both male and female attire and many, many endnotes.
Mark Twain, Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, As Told by Mark Twain (1895,
1995). At age 15, Sam Clemens discovered
the story of Joan of Arc and became fascinated with her story and with
storytelling itself. After he became an
established writer, Twain spent 12 years researching original documents and two
years writing the work. Among other
things, he relies on the complete transcripts of the Church’s trials of Joan.
Twain chose as narrator Joan’s page and scribe Louis de Conte, a childhood
friend now reflecting back on events he witnessed a half century before. Twain has invented a personality and
biography for this name from the historical records. Another degree of distance is provided by the
somewhat officious “translator” who provides a preface and occasional
footnotes. The book was first serialized
anonymously in Harper’s Magazine in 1895.
A year later Twain published the work in book form and dedicated it to
his wife. He considered it his most
important work. It is a vivid, inspired,
moving and occasionally humorous telling of the familiar story of Joan’s humble
childhood, heroic military campaigns, and tragic betrayal and martyrdom.
Georgette Heyer, The Conqueror (1931). The
conqueror is William, Duke of Normandy of 1066 and all that. The Prologue is set in 1028 and tells of
William’s birth to the mistress of Robert Duke of Normandy. The opening scene
is a market and Heyer describes the merchants and their wares in a virtuoso
performance of Middle English and Norman French vocabulary. (It has been a long time since a novelist
sent me cheerfully to the dictionary.)
The structure of the novel is chronological in sections titled Beardless
Youth, The Rough Wooing, The Might of France, The Oath, The Crown, and
Epilogue. It is William’s story, but the
perspective is that of Raoul de Harcourt, who pledges fealty to William when
both of them are still “beardless youths.”
Young Duke William shows himself a brilliant politician who brings the
feuding Norman nobles under control by policy and fairness as well as by force. He also is an innovative military tactician
who disregards his military advisors, never loses a battle, and first employs
archers in battle with France. The battle scenes give Heyer another opportunity
to display her facility with obsolete vocabulary as she describes medieval
weaponry. Raoul remains William’s
closest companion through all the intrigues and battles, even years later when he
disapproves of William’s fixation on the conquest of England. It is Raoul’s perspective that provides the
ethical context for the accounting of historical events. The characters of both William and Raoul are
expertly drawn.
Thank you all and looking forward to next time!
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