Orange is the New Black - October 11th

We will discuss Orange is the New Black on October 11th at Jennifer Brennan's house.

http://www.amazon.com/Orange-Is-New-Black-Womens/dp/0385523394


Remember you can click here for our list of books we might read, and you are welcome to add suggestions to the list at any time.

Paris Wife - April 19th

Next meeting: April 19th

Our next book will be The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

We will meet at Darien's house (directions to come).
Remember you can click here for our list of books we might read, and you are welcome to add suggestions to the list at any time.  

Description of The Paris Wife from Amazon:

A deeply evocative story of ambition and betrayal, The Paris Wife captures a remarkable period of time and a love affair between two unforgettable people: Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley.

Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway and her life changes forever. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group—the fabled “Lost Generation”—that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill prepared for the hard-drinking and fast-living life of Jazz Age Paris, which hardly values traditional notions of family and monogamy. Surrounded by beautiful women and competing egos, Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history, pouring all the richness and intensity of his life with Hadley and their circle of friends into the novel that will become The Sun Also Rises. Hadley, meanwhile, strives to hold on to her sense of self as the demands of life with Ernest grow costly and her roles as wife, friend, and muse become more challenging. Despite their extraordinary bond, they eventually find themselves facing the ultimate crisis of their marriage—a deception that will lead to the unraveling of everything they’ve fought so hard for.

A heartbreaking portrayal of love and torn loyalty, The Paris Wife is all the more poignant because we know that, in the end, Hemingway wrote that he would rather have died than fallen in love with anyone but Hadley.

Silver Like Dust - 1/11/13

Our next book will be Silver Like Dust: One Family's Story of America's Japanese Internment by Kimi Cunningham Grant.

 

We did not pick a place or time to meet next.  To vote on a date, go here and select ALL of the Friday's that would work for you.  The Friday with the most votes will win.

Once we have a Friday picked, we will select a place to meet and let everyone know.  We will most likely meet at Debbie, Laura or Melissa's house which are all very close to McFarland.

Remember you can click here for our list of books we might read, and you are welcome to add suggestions to the list at any time.  

Description of Silver Like Dust from Amazon:

The poignant story of a Japanese American woman's journey throughone of the most shameful chapters in American history.

Sipping tea by the fire, preparing sushi for the family, or indulgently listeningto her husband tell the same story for the hundredth time, Kimi Grant'sgrandmother, Obaachan, was a missing link to Kimi’s Japanese heritage,something she had had a mixed relationship with all her life. Growing up inrural Pennsylvania,all Kimi ever wanted to do was fit in, spurning traditional Japanese cuisineand her grandfather’s attempts to teach her the language.

But there was one part of Obaachan’s life that had fascinated and hauntedKimi ever since the age of eleven—her gentle yet proud Obaachan had once been aprisoner, along with 112,000 Japanese Americans, for more than five years ofher life. Obaachan never spoke of those years, and Kimi’s own mother only spokeof it in whispers. It was a source of haji, or shame. But what hadreally happened to Obaachan, then a young woman, and the thousands of othermen, women, and children like her?

Obaachan would meet her husband in the camps and watch her mother die there,too. From the turmoil, racism, and paranoia that sprang up after the bombing ofPearl Harbor and the terrifying train ride to Heart Mountain,to the false promise of V-J Day, Silver Like Dust captures a vitalchapter of the Japanese American experience through the journey of oneremarkable woman.

Her story is one of thousands, yet is a powerful testament to the enduringbonds of family and an unusual look at the American dream.

The Forgotten Garden: October 19th

Our next meeting will be October 19th where we will discuss The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton.

image from amazon.com

We haven't set a meeting location yet, but plan to ask Audrey if she would be willing to host :)  More details to come.

Remember you can click here for our list of books we might read, and you are welcome to add suggestions tot he list at any time.

Description of The Forgotten Garden from amazon.com

A tiny girl is abandoned on a ship headed for Australia in 1913. She arrives completely alone with nothing but a small suitcase containing a few clothes and a single book—a beautiful volume of fairy tales. She is taken in by the dockmaster and his wife and raised as their own. On her twenty-first birthday, they tell her the truth, and with her sense of self shattered and very little to go on, "Nell" sets out to trace her real identity. Her quest leads her to Blackhurst Manor on the Cornish coast and the secrets of the doomed Mountrachet family. But it is not until her granddaughter, Cassandra, takes up the search after Nell’s death that all the pieces of the puzzle are assembled. A spellbinding tale of mystery and self-discovery, The Forgotten Garden will take hold of your imagination and never let go.

 

Raven Stole the Moon meeting: 8/15/12

Raven Stole the Moon by Garth Stein click here for amazon.com page

Meeting will be on August 15th at Cheryl's house at 5:30pm.  Please let Cheryl know through facebook or email what you will bring (or on the comments here)

Also prior to the meeting, click here to check out our list of suggested books so we can pick a new one. I have set up the list so that anyone can go in and add more books if you would like to.


Description of Raven Stole the Moon from amazon.com

From the author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller The Art of Racing in the Rain comes an extraordinary tale of grief, devotion, redemption, and timeless mystery.

When Jenna Rosen abandons her comfortable Seattle life to visit Wrangell, Alaska, it's a wrenching return to her past. The hometown of her Native American grandmother, Wrangell is located near the Thunder Bay Resort, where Jenna's young son, Bobby, disappeared two years before. His body was never recovered, and Jenna is determined to lay to rest the aching mystery of his death. But whispers of ancient legends begin to suggest a frightening new possibility about Bobby's fate, and Jenna must sift through the beliefs of her ancestors, the Tlingit, who still tell of powerful, menacing forces at work in the Alaskan wilderness. Armed with nothing but a mother's protective instincts, Jenna's quest for the truth behind her son's disappearance is about to pull her into a terrifying and life-changing abyss.

Books we have read

1. An inconvenient wife @ cafe mart mart   
2. A thousand splendid Suns @ Audrey's house   
3. Loving Frank @ Mary's House on 11/7/2008
4. Zenzele @ Melissa's House on 1/23/2009
5. Miles from nowhere @ Cheryl's House on 4/17/2009
6. Anna Karinina [no meeting]
7. The Help @ Melissa's House on 1/21/2010
8. The Thirteenth Tale @ Debbie's House on 4/30/2010
9. House Rules @ Rachel's House on 6/29/2010
10. Little Bee @ Aileen's House on 8/20/2010
11. Eat, Pray, Love @ Elsa's House on 11/5/2010
12. True Colors @ Melissa's House on 1/7/2011
13. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake @ Melissa's House on 4/8/2011
14. The Girls @ Elsa's House on 6/3/2011
15. The Space Between Us @ Audrey's House on 7/15/2011
16. The Dressmaker of Khair Khana @ Aileen's House on 8/26/2011
17. The Kitchen House @ Susan's House on 11/11/2011
18. The Nineteenth Wife @ Laura's House on 1/13/2012
19. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks @ Melissa's House on 4/13/2012
20. A Difficult Woman: The Challenging Life and Times of Lillian Hellman @ Melissa's House on 6/13/2012
21. Raven Stole The Moon @ Cheryl's House on 8/15/2012
22. The Forgotten Garden @ 5100 Club on 11/09/12
23. Silver Like Dust @ ?? on 1/11/13
24. Paris Wife @ Darien's house on 4/19/13
25. The Light Between Oceans @ Debbie's House on 6/18/13
26. The Wednesday Sisters @ Melissa's House on 8/20/13
27. Orange is the New Black @ Jenn's House on 10/11/13