Meetings: 3rd Tuesday Monthly

Time: 8:00 pm

Location: Jennie’s House

 

 

Book Club

 

Book Selections

 

2009

 

  1. January: Neither Here Nor There - Travels in Europe - Bill Bryson
  2. February: Book Selection and When the Emperor Was Devine
  3. March: When the Emperor Was Devine
  4. April: The Thirteenth Tale
  5. May: The Thirteenth Tale
  6. June: People of the Book
  7. July: People of the Book
  8. August: Breakfast with Buddha
  9. September: Einsteins Dreams and Book Selection
  10. October: Unaccustomed Earth

 

2008

 

  1. January: Eat, pray, love : one woman's search for everything across Italy, India and Indonesia
  2. February: A Thousand Splendid Sons
  3. March: : A Thousand Splendid Sons
  4. April: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace
  5. May: Bringing Down the House - Movie Tie-In: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions
  6. June: Bringing Down the House - Movie Tie-In: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions
  7. July: Bringing Down the House - Movie Tie-In: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions
  8. August: Bringing Down the House - Movie Tie-In: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions
  9. September: The Last Lecture
  10. October: The Last Lecture
  11. November: Neither Here Nor There - Travels in Europe - Bill Bryson
  12. December: Neither Here Nor There - Travels in Europe - Bill Bryson

 

2007

 

  1. March: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
  2. May: Namesake
  3. June: Veil of Roses
  4. July: Veil of Roses
  5. August: Motoring With Mohammed - Journeys of Yemen and the Red Sea
  6. September: Motoring With Mohammed - Journeys of Yemen and the Red Sea
  7. October: The Alchemist
  8. November: The Alchemist
  9. December: Eat, Pray, Love: one woman's search for everything across Italy, India and Indonesia

 

2006

  1. January: My Sister’s Keeper
  2. February: Songs of the Humpback Whale
  3. March: Songs of the Humpback Whale
  4. April: Song of the Humpback Whale
  5. May: A Million Little Pieces
  6. June: Time Traveler’s Wife
  7. July: Time Traveler’s Wife and Rabbit Proof Fence
  8. August: The Poisonwood Bible
  9. September: The Poisonwood Bible
  10. October: The 5 People You Meet in Heaven
  11. November: The 5 People You Meet in Heaven
  12. December: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

 

 

2005

  1. January: How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent
  2. February: Their Eye Were Watching G-d
  3. March: Watched the Movie – Their Eyes Were Watching G-d Together
  4. April: Kite Runner
  5. May: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
  6. June: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
  7. July: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
  8. August: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
  9. September: My Antonia
  10. October: My Antonia
  11. November: Red Queen
  12. December: My Sister’s Keeper

 

2004

  1. January: Why I’m Like This
  2. February: Why I’m Like This
  3. March: Confessions of A Pagan Nun
  4. April: Galileo’s Daughter
  5. May: When the Elephant’s Dance
  6. June: When the Elephant’s Dance
  7. July: When the Elephant’s Dance
  8. August: When the Elephant’s Dance
  9. September: The Red Tent
  10. October: The Red Tent
  11. November: The Red Tent
  12. December: How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent

 

2003

  1. January: White Oleander
  2. February: Clay’s Quilt
  3. March: Clay’s Quilt
  4. April: Sea Glass
  5. May: Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
  6. June: Balzac – short stories
  7. July: The Nanny Diaries
  8. August: Halide’s Gift
  9. September: Unless
  10. October: A Thousand Days in Venice
  11. November: A Thousand Days in Venice
  12. December: I Don’t Know How She Does It

 

2002

 

  1. July: The Girl with the Pearl Earring
  2. August: Stones from the River
  3. September: Tuesdays with Morrie
  4. October: The Secret Life of Bees
  5. November: Lovely Bones
  6. December: [Can’t remember….]

 

 

Book Selections – 2009-2010

 

1. When the Emperor Was Devine - 160 pages

2. The Thirteenth Tale - 432 pages

3.  People of the Book - 400 pages

4. Breakfast with Buddha - 336 pages

5. Einsteins Dreams - 144 pages

6. Beijing Coma - 592 pages

7. Unaccostomed Earth

8. My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Family's Past (Paperback)

9. Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform Ourselves And Proust Was a Neuroscientist

10. Water for Elephants

11. March

12. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

13. The Bean Trees

 

 

The runners up in the following order:

 

7. The Camel BookMobile - 336 pages

8. A Mercy - 176 pages

9. Times Arrow - 176 pages

10. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

11. Sister of My Heart

12. The Palace of Illusions

13. Suite Francaise

 

 

List of Choices for 2009

 

  1. The Palace of Illusions – (Indian epic, portrait of a mythic princess marries 5 famous brothers who have lost their rightful kingdom at once)
  2. Sister of my heart – (Indian story of unfulfilled desire and sacrificial love, generations castes struggle, calcutta)
  3. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close  9-11 theme, son of father killed in attacks, tries to find the lock for a mysterious key left behind which takes him on quest that mingles with grandparents lives blighted by Dresden firebombing.
  4. Time's Arrow by Martin Amis Doctor’s paralysis at end of his life brings him back to germany to treat jews in camps.
  5. A MERCY by Toni Morrison (net of pain cast by slavery, in Maryland)
  6. BEIJING COMA by Ma Jian (A troubled young man slumbers away for ten years, China, graduate student named Dai Wei who was shot in the head during the pro-democracy protests in 1989 at Tiananmen Square)
  7. Suite Francaise ( lost masterpiece of French literature, this epic novel of life under Nazi occupation was discovered 62 years after the author’s tragic death at Auschwitz)
  8. Einstein's Dreams – (The book takes flight when Einstein takes to his bed and we share his dreams, 30 little fables about places where time behaves quite differently)
  9. People of the Book (Late one night in the city of Sydney, Hanna Heath, a rare book conservator, gets a phone call. The Sarajevo Haggadah, which disappeared during the siege in 1992, has been found, and Hanna has been invited by the U.N. to report on its condition.)
  10. The Camel BookMobile (follows Fiona Sweeney, a 36-year-old librarian, from New York to Garissa, Kenya, on her sincere but naïve quest to make a difference in the world. Fiona enlists to run the titular mobile library overseen by Mr. Abasi, and in her travels through the bush, the small village of Mididima becomes her favorite stop.) 
  11. All Saints – (Well-known saints, apostles, and martyrs take their place beside lesser-known figures (the woman with a flow of blood who touched Jesus' hem), theologians and philosophers (e.g., Martin Buber, Simone Weil, Kierkegaard), artists (Van Gogh, Mozart, J.S. Bach), literary figures (Dante, Tolstoy), social reformers (Gandhi, Schweitzer), and numerous others who do not fit into neat categories)
  12. The Thirteenth Tale (There are two heroines here: Vida Winter, a famous author, whose life story is coming to an end, and Margaret Lea, a young, unworldly, bookish girl who is a bookseller in her father's shop. The game is afoot and Margaret must spend some time sorting out whether or not Vida is actually ready to tell the whole truth.)
  13. When the Emperor Was Divine (A precise, understated gem of a first novel, Julie Otsuka's When the Emperor Was Divine tells one Japanese American family's story of internment in a Utah enemy alien camp during World War II. We never learn the names of the young boy and girl who were forced to leave their Berkeley home in 1942 and spend over three years in a dusty, barren desert camp with their mother.)

 

List of Choices for 2008

 

  1. A thousand Splendid Suns (Kite Runner author)
  2. Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time (Paperback)
  3. The book of Bright Ideas (Sandra Kring) - a feisty scrap of a thing who carries around a shiny silver urn containing her mother’s ashes and a tome she calls “The Book of Bright Ideas.”
  4. The Monk who lost his Ferrari (3 ½ stars)
  5. Watermelon – humorous story about young girl married, pregnant, husband leaves her, goes back to Dublin and finds self so much that when husband returns she’s a different person.
  6. Water for Elephants: A Novel (Paperback), by Sara Gruen (circus animals vet told from young age and old)
  7. March, by Geraldine Brooks (Author) – follow up from dad’s perspective of Louisa may Alcott family in Little Women. Views of his experience in the war, the pre-life when he got married, etc.
  8. One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd: A Novel, American Indian experience from women’s perspective
  9. When the Emperor Was Divine (Paperback), by Julie Otsuka (Author) story of life in an internment camp in the US during the war.
  10. Middlesex a Novel

 

 

List of Choices for 2007

 

  1. Foreign Correspondence: A PenPal's Journey from Down Under to All Over: written by the same author as the Nine Parts of Desire, stories from a young woman in Australia and her penpals from all over the world, from the West Bank/Israel to a farmer's daughter in a French Village.
  2. The Hazards of Sleeping Alone: a divorced mom gets on with her life as her daughter deals with the realities of life
  3. The Myth of You and Me: a story about a caregiver for a 90 yr old who dies, has to track down her estranged best friend and deliver a mysterious package
  4. March, by Geraldine Brooks: written by the author of Little Women, the story of life from the Dad's pespective, his war experience, courtship of Marmee, etc.
  5. When the Emperor Was Divine: a story about life in an internment camp in the US during WWII
  6. Longitude, by Dava Sobel, written by the same author as Galileo's Daugher, a story about invention of chronomoter for the high seas

 

List of Recommended/Considered Books

 

  1. Falling leaves by Adeline Yen Mah (Ruth)
  2. Walking the Bible
  3. 20th Wife
  4. Catfish and Mandela (Vietnamese man goes back)
  5. What is the What (sudan man)
  6. Sister of My Heart (Maia Starling rec)
  7. 6 days of war (Michael oren)
  8. Life of Pi
  9. Mapmaker’s Wife
  10. G-d of small things
  11. No country for old men
  12. Bel Canto
  13. Shalimar the Clown
  14. Wallace Stegner books
  15. Angle of Repose
  16. All the little live things
  17. One thousand white women: the journals of Mary Dodd: a novel, American Indian experience from women’s perspective
  18. The forest lover by susan Vreeland: canadian painter’s quest through wilderness in british Columbia to paint totem poles, indigenous traditions that died out, etc. overcoming male dominated art culture
  19. Motoring with Mohammed: Journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea by Eric Hansen (5 stars, 25 reviews)
  20. The bookseller of Kabul
  21. Something Borrowed by emily giffin (Sigal)
  22. Birds Without Wings (Heather, same author as Corelli’s Mandolin)
  23. Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Klay By, Michael Chabon (Heather)
  24. "May contain nuts" by John O'Farrell. (Irit)
  25. "North to the Night" / Alvah Simon- it is a survival story. (orit)
  26. Also, heard that "Mapping the Edge"/ Dunant is good. (orit)
  27. "Peace Like a River"/ Enger - heard is good, but takes some time getting into. (orit)
  28. The Way the Crow Flies, by Anne
  29. Marie MacDonald. She also wrote Fall On Your Knees
  30. The Shadow of the Wind, written by a Spanish author and set in Barcelona.
  31. The Tender Bar. It's a memoir about a man who sort of came of age in his neighborhood bar.
  32. The Sunflower - by Richard Paul Evans
  33. Alice
  34. Bridges of Madison County
  35. A Map of the World (ruled out as too many have read it already)
  36. 9 Parts of Desire
  37. Memories of a Geisha
  38. The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse (seems promising, he/she priest thing)
  39. The Corrections
  40. A Child Called It (ruled out as too depressing)
  41. Fury
  42. Royal Physicians Visit (ruled out because of Hard Cover)
  43. Tender at the Bone
  44. Cold Comfort Farm
  45. Fall On Your Knees
  46. Devil in the White City
  47. Crow Lake
  48. Dive From Clausens Pier
  49. Sister of my Heart
  50. White Swans (Chinese women through generations)