Quill Awards

Take a look at the Quill Book Award winners, then you can vote for the Book of the Year along with other readers by linking here. Voting ends October 10, 2007. Watch more on the Today Show with Al Roker and Ann Curry here filmed on September 10. Remember our book club selection The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield? That's a winner.

I would like to show off the Waycross College Library display for Constitution Week; September 17 to September 23.

What the Dead Know

Just finished reading What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman. I highly recommend this book.
Here's the storyline:

Two sisters who go to a shopping mall and disappear, one almost 12 and the other 15. Thirty years later the police detain a female hit and run driver. She reveals that she is one of the missing girls, the younger one. The detective on the case is skeptical. She gives him some information to verify who she is but every lead turns into a dead end.

Lippman is an excellent storyteller. I loved how the twists to the story were very cleverly revealed one by one. I could not put the book down.

This story had some similarities to The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. In the two books, the main characters say they want to reveal the truth about themselves but they want to release bits and pieces of the truth on their own schedule. Also, both stories made reference to the classic fiction Jane Eyre. What I did not like about this story was the unnecessary crudeness in the language. The F word is frequently used.

We Loved The Thirteenth Tale

Our book club met last week to discuss The Thirteenth Tale, a first novel by Diane Setterfield. This was a very strange and fascinating story set in England about family scandals, secrets and lies which haunt the major and minor characters. The story interestingly is divided into four sections: Beginnings, Middles, Endings, and Beginnings. The writing is excellent. The images are vivid. The ghosts seem real.

The theme has to do with truth. There is a quote from one of the major characters, Vida Winter: “My gripe is not with lovers of the truth but with truth itself....What you need are the plump comforts of a story. The soothing, rocking safety of a lie.” The story is not very exciting in the first few pages. In the third paragraph, the protagonist, Margaret Lea, makes a big deal about a letter she receives before actually opening it. Right away you get the image of a protagonist who lives a very dull, unexciting life.

The letter is from Vida and she wants Margaret to write the true story of her (Vida's) life. Margaret is skeptical because she normally does not write biographies of living people plus Vida has a history of creating multiple versions of her biography. In fact there are 19 versions of Vida's life. Vida is old and sick plus she has a connection with Margaret. They both had twin sisters. Margaret predictably accepts the job and a dark gripping tale enfolds that includes incest, masochism, and child neglect and abandonment in a strange English family.

There are several references to the novel Jane Eyre. Just as in the classic Jane Eyre story, this story has a governess, fire, and disfigurement. It has characters that are hidden away, romance, and madness.

Okay, go read the book!

Book Selection for May

Our next meeting will be on May 18, third Friday of the month. The book selected for discussion is Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield.

Thirteenth Tale

Hey let's think about adding this book to our reading list in May: The Thirteenth Tale by Dianne Setterfield. Lynn is recommending it. And isn't the website really cool?

We meet for book club discussion this Friday. Don't forget!