March 2019

“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.”

― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations


We gathered on such a day, and here's what we discussed:

Mark Forsyth
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
Louise Penny
Becoming - Michelle Obama
The Butchering Art - Lindsey Fitzharris
Twilight of the Gods - Steven Hyden
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
Natural Law in the Spiritual World - Henry Drummond
Oxfordian Theory of Shakespeare Authorship
The Prometheus Award
Kingdom of the Wicked Book I and Book II - Helen Dale
All Systems Red (The Muderbot Mysteries) - Martha Wells
Good Poems for Hard Times - Garrison Keillor
Bittersweet - Colleen McCoullough
Donna Leon
Maid - Stephanie Land
The Choice: Embrace the Possible - Dr. Edith Eva Eger
The Alice Network - Kate Quinn
Lilac Girls - Martha Hall Kelly
Serial podcast
The Tattooist of Auschwitz - Heather Morris
Arbitrary Stupid Goal - Tamara Shopsin
Shopsins
The Marriage of Opposites - Alice Hoffman
Lawrence Ferlinghetti at 100

From our sister club in OK:

Lawton Any-Book Book Bunch 

Thursday, March 14, 2019 

Books 

Burke, James Lee. Robicheaux. 

Carter, Andrea. Death at Whitewater Church. 

Child, Lee. 61 Hours. 

Horwitz, Tony. Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before. 

Flores, Mia and Olivia Flores. Cartel Wives: A True Story of Deadly Decisions, Steadfast Love, and Bringing Down El Chapo. 

Glass, Julia. A House Among the Trees. 

Grisham, John. The Reckoning. 

Kondo, Marie. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of De-Cluttering and Organizing. 

Larson, Edward J. To the Edges of the Earth: 1909, the Race for the Three Poles, and the Climax of the Age of Exploration. 

Larson, Erik. Dead Wake. 

McEwan, Ian. The Comfort of Strangers. On Chesil Beach; The Children Act. 

Murakami, Haruki. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. 

Penny, Louise. A Fatal Grace. 

Perry, Anne. The Face of a Stranger. 

Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet; The Taming of the Shrew. 

Sijie, Dai. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. 

Turtledove , Harry. Ruled Britannia. 

Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief. 

Films and TV: (All of these films are available on Amazon Prime to rent) 

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. 

The Book Thief. 

On Chesil Beach. 

The Children Act. 

The Comfort of Strangers. 

On Chesil Beach. 

A Man Called Ove. 

TV: 

Upstart Crow. (Amazon Prime to rent)

Why Upstart Crow? It’s satirical, somewhat Blackadder-ish, and requires close listening and a quick wit to catch the puns and sly allusions. The ABBB is the perfect audience. Take no more than two per night, though – it’ll wear you out, trying to keep up with the cleverness. From Wikipedia: “Upstart Crow is a British sitcom which premiered [in 2016] … as part of the commemorations of the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare. Its title quotes "an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers", a critique of Shakespeare by his rival Robert Greenein the latter's Groats-Worth of Wit.”