Our Book Club Selections October 2013 - October 2014

A year of reading with my Book Club. We do not meet in December. In January we usually meet and discuss books that we read and enjoyed during the Christmas break. This year we missed a meeting in July and discussed that book in August.  How many titles on our list have you read?

2013

October: Blood of the Prodigal; an Amish Mystery by P.L. Gaus.

November : Open and Shut by David Rosenfelt 

2014

February: Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

March: Half Broke Horses by Jeanette Walls

April: Last Message by Shane Peacock

May: Sycamore Row by John Grisham

June:  Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

July:  Fault in Our Stars by John Green

August: The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty

September: Tyrant’s Daughter by J. C. Carleson

October: Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman

The book selections that were my least favorite were Fault in Our Stars and Half Broke Horses. My favorite selections were Bel Canto , The Husband's Secret, and Gone Girl. 

 Next Month's Book Selection

November : Ludwig Conspiracy by Oliver Potzsch 

I'm Reading "Orange is the New Black"

I am reading Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman and she is giving me an inside look at life in a women's prison. Most people I have spoken to have heard of the made for TV version with the lesbian scenes and the overabundance of using-the-toilet scenes but they didn't know it was based on a book by Piper. The book is not exactly like the TV version. The characters are there Pop, Vanessa, Pennsatucky, "Crazy Eyes", Yoga Janet but not their back story as in the movie. The anecdotes in the book are not as dramatic and colorful or sexual as on TV.

I am on page 199 and the inmates are upset about this article written by Lynn Tuohy in 2004 that gives the impression that life in the Danbury Camp was like living in a big hotel. The informant gives the impression that the soon-to-be-imprisoned Martha Stewart would fit right in with all the classy inmates.  Piper, on the other hand, described the prison as a ghetto for the poor, uneducated and unskilled. In her opinion there was a revolving door between the ghetto where the poor, uneducated and unskilled lived on the outside and the ghetto in the prison system.  Turned out that the authorities really did not want Martha at Danbury anyway; there would be too much media focus on the conditions of the prison.

I am enjoying the book. Piper is great at expressing her emotions mainly her worry and humiliation but also her pleasure. She worried about her family and fiance and how her going to prison would affect them. She expressed her pleasure when receiving visitors in prison. She wrote of her pain and humiliation after seeing the prison gynecologist. Also, Piper has a lot of opinions about the prison system. I would rate this 4 out of 5.

Top 10 Most Read Books

Well, well, well, I am sure you guessed that The Twilight Saga  would be on the list and likewise The Da Vinci Code and Harry Potter.

Little Women @ Waycross Area Community Theatre (WACT)

I enjoyed reading the book Little Women by Louisa M. Alcott as a child and I have also enjoyed the movie version starring Wynona Ryder and Susan Sarandon.   Last night I decided that I could not miss the final performance of the play, Little Women,  presented by the community theatre group (WACT) at the Ritz downtown, Waycross. Excellent performances by Ashley Barnett, graduate of Waycross College, as Jo; Michelle Lagoueyte as Amy; and Tom Strait as the German Professor Bhaer.  There were some issues with the sound but it got better in the second half.

Next activity for WACT will be a dinner theatre, in August, in association with the Pond View Restaurant next door to the Ritz.  The title is Murder at the TonyLou Awards.  The WACT is promising entertainment, intrigue and murder.

Monster of Florence

I finished the Ape House by Sara Gruen. Although my interest lagged in the middle, I liked the resolution to the story. I would rate this whole story 3.5 out of 5 stars. I have moved on to the Monster of Florence set in Florence, Italy. Famous thriller writer, Douglas Preston is one of the writers of this non-fiction. The monster is Italy's Jack the Ripper. I am eager to read this one.

Exploring Zenhabits Blog

I found Zenhabits in Time magazine online as one of the Best Blogs for 2010. I have not finished browsing but I thought this list of 10 Books that Shaped My Life, and 40 Others I Love was worth passing on.

Stieg Larsson's Trilogy: Book 1

I finally bought Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Swedish wrier Stieg Larsson at Walmart. I feel as if I am reading three or four stories. First, there is the unsolved mystery of the Rare Pressed Flowers that arrive every year for thirty years by post from anywhere in Europe for a now 82 year old man on his birthday. Then, we move on to the story of financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist. There is the mystery of the Faulty Information that landed him in court for libel and defamation. By page 36, we meet the myterious Lisbeth Salander who works for a security firm. The story of Lisbeth has a link to Blomkvist because her job was to investigate him; find out his whole life story. The person who hired the firm is a rich retired businessman named Herr Vanger. By the time I got to page 92 he reveals that he wants to hire Blomquist for the Case of the Missing Grandniece, Henrietta. The mystery cases written in italics are all mine; they are not given those names in the book.



I am really enjoying the novel so far and as I mentioned in another post, the writer's real life is just as interesting as his fiction.

What are you reading?

I am reading the Echo from Dealey Plaza by Abraham Bolden. The style is very easy to read and it's not a long story; just 285 pages. Abraham Bolden's story is a scary one though. I have reached page 125 and I think I am going to have nightmares. I say nightmares because it frightens me when innocent people serve time in prison. I am frightened when truth does not set the innocent free.

Bolden is claming that he was arrested and imprisoned by some trumped up bribery charges because he wasn't a team player in the Secret Service. He saw things that were wrong with the conduct of the agents assigned to protect President JFK and spoke out against it and he thinks that led to the false accusations. He makes mention of people who gave him a hard time and I looked them up; Maurice Martineau, Harvey Henderson, and Judge Sam Perry. These men are all deceased so we will never hear how they feel about how they have been portrayed in this book.

Oprah's Fabulous February Books

I got an email from Oprah's Book Club titled 10 New Books to Fall in Love With This February. O's must read list includes one of our book club's favorite, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society.

It's the month for Valentine so the email had a list titled 9 Unforgettable Love Stories which include Love In the Time of Cholera and The Wild Palms by William Faulkner.

What to Read Next

The July 13, 2009 issue of Newsweek has an article titled What to Read Now. And Why

I am sorry to say that I have never read any of these 50 books, not even Frankenstein by Mary Shelley which is on the list.

I also found an interesting Top 100 Books: The Meta-List in Newsweek online.

Jodie Picoult's Book to Movie

Oh no! They are making a movie of Jodie Picoult's book, My Sister'sKeeper, and they are changing the ending. The surprise ending is what made the book so fascinating for me and apparently for some of Picoult's fans. There is now a Facebook group devoted to restoring the oringal ending of the story to the movie version. The group is called, of course, Save my Sister's Keeper.

Cameron Diaz is one of the stars in the movie.

USA Today Staff's 10 Top Book Picks

Happy New Year readers! It is two thousand-and-mine (2009); my year to do whatever I want.

Take a look at USA Today's Top 10 Books for 2008: Click here. What was your favorite book last year? Share your thoughts with us and with USA Today. USA Today has also chosen Stephenie Meyer, writer of the Twilight series, as the Author of the Year.

Dead at 47

The co-author of 100 Things to Do Before You Die, Dave Freeman is dead.

Lessons from Seabiscuit

Wow! Tony wrote five articles in all about lessons from the movie version of Seabiscuit. This final one is about conquering your fears and racing ahead to greatness.

Christmas is in the air

.... and this Santa is in the Okefenokee swamp, his boat is being pulled by gators. A real southern Christmas!

Elizabeth Gilbert, writer of Eat, Pray, Love, was back on Oprah this week with her friend Richard from Texas. One of the audience members actually went all the way to Bali to visit some of the characters mentioned in the book. Some people really take their reading very seriously.

Eat, Pray, Love

I am still reading, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. So far I am finding it a very honest and gutsy memoir. The writer is honest about her flaws and her issues with men, intimacy and love.

The book was named by The New York Times as one of the 100 most notable books of 2006, and was chosen as one of the best ten nonfiction books of the year by Entertainment Weekly. See more on Gilbert's website.

Ann Rule Recommends

See what Ann Rule, bestselling author, recommends in The Wall Street Journal. These titles are included in her list:

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (Random House, 1965)

The Corpse Had a Familiar Face by Edna Buchanan (Random House, 1987)

Bitter Blood by Jerry Bledsoe (Dutton, 1988)

Intimate Stories

Check out what USA Weekend magazine, May 18-20, 2007 is calling The Next Classics:

Blindsided: lifting a life above illness by Richard Cohen

Drinking: A love story by Caroline Knapp

An Unquiet Mind: A memoir of moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison

A Whole New Life by Reynolds Price

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Memorable Books

There's an interesting article in USA Today dated April 9, 2007 listing 25 of the most memorable books in the last 25 years. Link here. Our past book club selection, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, made the list. Read an Excerpt.

Also, in the top 25 are Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, Chicken Soup for the Soul by Mark Hansen and Jack Canfield, and Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan.

100 Notable Books of the Year

The Waycross College Library has some of the most notable books of the year. According to The New York Times Book Review dated December 3, 2006, the following books are among the “100 Notable Books of the Year.”

Digging to America by Anne Tyler

Jane Goodall by Dale Peterson

The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud

Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick

The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson

Queen of Fashion by Caroline Weber

The Great Deluge by Douglas Brinkley

Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz