Book Club is Thursday!!

Book Club is at Kristie's house Thursday night at 7:00.  

She sent out an e-mail with directions to her house.  If you didn't get the e-mail reply here and we'll make sure to get the info to you.

Oh & be sure to RSVP so she can plan food and post your book club picks... if you want to you can send me your choices and I'll post them for you.

See you Thursday!!!

my book nominations

First, let me say I second all of Heidi's choices, but I figured I better come up with at least ONE on my own since she stole all of her choices from my "to read" list. :)

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

SYNOPSIS:

Leo Gursky is trying to survive a little bit longer, tapping his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbor know he's still alive, drawing attention to himself at the milk counter of Starbucks. But life wasn't always like this: sixty years ago, in the Polish village where he was born, Leo fell in love and wrote a book. And although he doesn't know it, that book also survived: it crossed oceans and generations, and changed lives." Fourteen-year-old Alma was named after a character in that book. She has her hands full keeping track of her little brother Bird (who thinks he might be the Messiah) and taking copious notes in her book, How to Survive in the Wild Volume Three. But when a mysterious letter arrives in the mail she undertakes an adventure to find her namesake and save her family.

FYI -- In case you're interested, Nicole Krauss is the spouse of Jonathan Foer, author of "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"

One more from me...

A sweeping, emotionally riveting first novel—an enthralling family saga of Africa and America, doctors and patients, exile and home.

Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa. Orphaned by their mother’s death in childbirth and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Yet it will be love, not politics—their passion for the same woman—that will tear them apart and force Marion, fresh out of medical school, to flee his homeland. He makes his way to America, finding refuge in his work as an intern at an underfunded, overcrowded New York City hospital. When the past catches up to him—nearly destroying him—Marion must entrust his life to the two men he thought he trusted least in the world: the surgeon father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him.

An unforgettable journey into one man’s remarkable life, and an epic story about the power, intimacy, and curious beauty of the work of healing others.

I'll start us out with some suggestions...

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 with very little to go on, "Nell" sets out on a journey to England to try to trace her story, to fi nd 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. At Cliff Cottage, on the grounds of Blackhurst Manor, Cassandra discovers the forgotten garden of the book's title and is able to unlock the secrets of the beautiful book of fairy tales. (645 pages)

Steel Magnolias meets The Help in this Southern debut novel sparkling with humor, heart, and feminine wisdom 

Twelve-year-old CeeCee Honeycutt is in trouble. For years, she has been the caretaker of her psychotic mother, Camille-the tiara-toting, lipstick-smeared laughingstock of an entire town-a woman trapped in her long-ago moment of glory as the 1951 Vidalia Onion Queen. But when Camille is hit by a truck and killed, CeeCee is left to fend for herself. To the rescue comes her previously unknown great-aunt, Tootie Caldwell.

In her vintage Packard convertible, Tootie whisks CeeCee away to Savannah's perfumed world of prosperity and Southern eccentricity, a world that seems to be run entirely by women. From the exotic Miz Thelma Rae Goodpepper, who bathes in her backyard bathtub and uses garden slugs as her secret weapons, to Tootie's all-knowing housekeeper, Oletta Jones, to Violene Hobbs, who entertains a local police officer in her canary-yellow peignoir, the women of Gaston Street keep CeeCee entertained and enthralled for an entire summer.

Laugh-out-loud funny and deeply touching, Beth Hoffman's sparkling debut is, as Kristin Hannah says, "packed full of Southern charm, strong women, wacky humor, and good old-fashioned heart." It is a novel that explores the indomitable strengths of female friendship and gives us the story of a young girl who loses one mother and finds many others. (320 pages)

When an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated mountain village, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. Through Anna's eyes, we follow the story of the plague year, 1666, as her fellow villagers make an extraordinary choice. Convinced by a visionary young minister, they elect to quarantine themselves within the village boundaries to arrest the spread of the disease. But as death reaches into every household, faith frays. When villagers turn from prayers and herbal cures to sorcery and murderous witch-hunting, Anna must confront the deaths of family, the disintegration of her community, and the lure of a dangerous and illicit love. As she struggles to survive, a year of plague becomes, instead, annus mirabilis, a "year of wonders." Inspired by the true story of Eyam, a village in the rugged mountain spine of England. Year of Wonders is a detailed evocation of a singular moment in history. (308 pages)

Choices... Choices... Choices...

It's time to select new books!!!

Post your choices and we'll vote next time.

Book Club at Shannon's House

We had another fantastic book club!!  

Thanks Shannon so much for the delish food! It was wonderful!

Now we ARE expecting Shannon to post some of these recipes!! Especially for this absolutely melt in your mouth delicious white chocolate bread pudding!  I mean it was to die for!! 

There just maybe a mob at your door demanding the recipe soon.

We all loved Major Pettigrew and since we discussed the book being made into a movie I thought I'd share Helen Simonson's answer to a question about just that...

 If your book were to become a movie, who would you like to see star in it?
"My family have been joking that it often takes so long to make a movie that maybe Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) will be old enough to play the Major.  I’m keeping quiet on casting, but I do think the Major is a great chance for a mature actor to play a wonderful romantic lead, and any movie made of the book would also offer strong, central roles for under-represented South Asian actors."  


You can read more from her interview here

Book club is so great because of the women who are in it

so with our further ado...

Kristie & Britney

Here is the picture you have been waiting for...

Drumroll please...

 The couple of the night... Robyn & Brenda.

Ok, so I'll offer a little explanation.  Brenda & Robyn were on the couch ready for their picture to be taken, & the way they were sitting (one on the arm of the couch the other leaning in) looked just like they were posing for an engagement photo. There was a little teasing and next thing we know they are on the floor making a bona fide engagement portrait -- in front of the fire and everything!  It is almost Valentines Day after all!

Needless to say there was some serious laughing.  I could hardly see through my tears to take the picture.  I love these girls!

Heidi, Kara & Iris

Bethany & Shannon

Kaley, Stephanie & Stella

We had a grand time and can't wait for book club in March at Kristie's house where we will review Mocking Jay -- see you there!

Happy Valentines Day!

Book Club is Thursday night (7:00) at Shannon's house!! 

Please let us know if your coming so Shannon can make plans.  Can't wait to see all of you to discuss...

"The real pleasure of this book derives not from its village conventions but from its beautiful little love story, which is told with skill and humor" -- Alexander McCall Smith