June Book Club - Never Let Me Go - by Kazuo Ishiguro

June 22, 2011 7pm CEVICHE

Amazon.com Review

All children should believe they are special. But the students of Hailsham, an elite school in the English countryside, are so special that visitors shun them, and only by rumor and the occasional fleeting remark by a teacher do they discover their unconventional origins and strange destiny. Kazuo Ishiguro's sixth novel, Never Let Me Go, is a masterpiece of indirection. Like the students of Hailsham, readers are "told but not told" what is going on and should be allowed to discover the secrets of Hailsham and the truth about these children on their own.

Offsetting the bizarreness of these revelations is the placid, measured voice of the narrator, Kathy H., a 31-year-old Hailsham alumna who, at the close of the 1990s, is consciously ending one phase of her life and beginning another. She is in a reflective mood, and recounts not only her childhood memories, but her quest in adulthood to find out more about Hailsham and the idealistic women who ran it. Although often poignant, Kathy's matter-of-fact narration blunts the sharper emotional effects you might expect in a novel that deals with illness, self-sacrifice, and the severe restriction of personal freedoms. As in Ishiguro's best-known work, The Remains of the Day, only after closing the book do you absorb the magnitude of what his characters endure. --Regina Marler --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

May 26 Book Club Amy Gall

The Long Walk, like The Running Man and The Regulators, is a novel that was penned under Stephen King’s pseudonym, Richard Bachman. There’s something a bit more sadistic about King’s Bachman books, which may very well be why he began writing them under a penname. The Long Walk, however, might just be the most disturbing and depressing of the Bachman books.

The Long Walk takes place is dystopian future where hope is no longer a commodity. The story itself surrounds a contest involving 100 contestants – all young boys – who must continue walking at four miles per hour until only one contestant is left standing. The grand prize and, as it is, the only prize, is that the winning contestant will receive whatever it is in life they most desire. Contestants who either stop or fall below the four mile per hour guideline are given a warning. After the third warning, the contestant is shot by one of the contest guardsman who watch from the halftracks. The contest itself is overseen by a mysterious, authoritative figure that goes by the title of “The Major.

The protagonist of the story is a 16-year-old boy by the name of Ray Garraty. During his walk, he befriends three other walkers. After Garraty watches his friends shot down one by one, he grows increasingly delirious, frightened, and hopeless.

Reminiscent of the Roman-era coliseum bloodbaths, the spectators care little for who wins. It’s only the death of the losers that they come to see. However, it is the suspense of seeing what finally happens to Garraty that keeps readers turning the pages.

The Long Walk, while depressing and surreal, is also highly metaphorical as readers watch Garraty as he in turn watches his friends die one by one as they attempt to make it toward their life’s goal. It’s flinchingly devastating to watch the characters go through such psychological trauma as they push their minds and bodies to the limit.

Like the Cell much later, King leaves his readers hanging on the very last page, forcing them to decide for themselves what the outcome actually is. However, unlike Cell, The Long Walk is a true achievement among King’s works.

Friday April 29th, The Kitchen Boy, JC's house

The Kitchen Boy, novel of the last Tsar by Robert Alexander

In the turbulent early days of revolutionary Russia, Bolshevik agents herded the deposed Tsar Nicholai II, his family and aides into the basement of a Siberian house and executed them all in a blaze of gunfire. Details of what happened that fateful night have taken decades to emerge, reaching a terrible climax with the 1991 excavation of a mass grave believed to be the one in which some of the members of the Romanov family were buried. Writer Robert Alexander, a fluent Russian speaker who studied in Leningrad, became fascinated with an obscure reference in the Empress Alexandra's personal journal shortly before her death, noting that their kitchen boy had been sent away. This brief reference from a forgotten 1918 diary took root in Alexander's imagination and, after much research, blossomed as his new novel The Kitchen Boy. This intriguing work of speculative historical fiction re-creates the last days of the tsar through the eyes of the young Leonka, who recalls how he secretly returned to the Siberian house that served as the Romanovs' prison and witnessed their execution.

The novel successfully maintains an intense atmo-sphere of peril and suspense despite the reader's foreknowledge of the Romanovs' fate. The calamity is heightened by the fierce, almost primal protectiveness the parents showed toward their children who nevertheless would die with them invoking compassion for the royal family as people rather than dusty national symbols.

Despite the sympathetic portrayal of the tsar and his family, Alexander doesn't ignore the judgment of history. As Leonka notes, however well-intentioned Nicholai and his empress may have been, their rule over Russia was a legacy of war, revolution, corruption and oppression. But the thuggish Bolshevik revolutionaries fare no better under the novel's scrutiny.

The Kitchen Boy is a fascinating and suspenseful glimpse of a tempestuous but shadowy period in Russian history. It's also a moving portrait of a family that, despite their legendary role in world events, proved in the end to be as mortal as the rest of us.

March 24, 2011 Book Club (Kenyon) - The Room by Emma Donoghue

March 24, 2011 Book Club 7p (Amy Kenyon Jones) THE ROOM
Location TBA

Amazon Best of the Month, September 2010: In many ways, Jack is a typical 5-year-old. He likes to read books, watch TV, and play games with his Ma. But Jack is different in a big way--he has lived his entire life in a single room, sharing the tiny space with only his mother and an unnerving nighttime visitor known as Old Nick. For Jack, Room is the only world he knows, but for Ma, it is a prison in which she has tried to craft a normal life for her son. When their insular world suddenly expands beyond the confines of their four walls, the consequences are piercing and extraordinary. Despite its profoundly disturbing premise, Emma Donoghue's Room is rife with moments of hope and beauty, and the dogged determination to live, even in the most desolate circumstances. A stunning and original novel of survival in captivity, readers who enter Room will leave staggered, as though, like Jack, they are seeing the world for the very first time. --Lynette Mong

Abberations February 24th 7pm Kona Grill

Aberrations by Penelope Przekop

A 2008 Book Blogger Top 10! Aberrations was voted the #5 top Mystery/Thriller for 2008. --Book Blogger. ''Aberrations is a novel filled with gorgeous imagery, quirky characters and deep storytelling. It will stay with you long after you turn the final page!''--Melissa Walker, journalist and YA author.

Coming of age is often a difficult time in children's lives as they make that complex transition into adulthood. Author Penelope Przekop has deftly written Aberrations, the coming of age story of Angel Duet, a 21-year-old troubled narcoleptic. Angel struggles with seeking the truth about her mother, knowing her father harbors many secrets, and her own identity. Angel seeks solace with a new group of friends and finds herself further complicated, including dealing with homosexuality, drugs and adultery. Aberrations is a very edgy novel that explores through this engaging character the premise that coping mechanisms only gets a young adult so far before they are forced to face inconvenient truths about themselves and the world they live in. Readers are provided with an insightful and fascinating journey with Angel as she learns what the truth about her life is and how to accept it. 5 Stars! --Small Press Bookwatch

2011 Calendar

Totally amazing that we organized this in just a few hours! Love it! Just let me know when you choose your books and I will post it up here! That way it will be easy to buy books in advance.

2011 CALENDAR

Thursday, February 24, 2011 at 7pm Paula Ford Abberations by Penelope Przekop, Kona Grill

Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 7pm Amy Jones The Room by Emma Donoghue

Friday, April 29, 2011 at 7pm J.C. Loader (party with your partners - BOYS INVITED!

Thursday, May 26, 2011 at 7pm Amy Gall - The Long Walk by Stephen King

Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 7pm Jennifer Malin

Friday, July 22, 2011 at 7pm Dana McWhirter

Thursday, August 25, 2011 at 7pm Cherie Monarch

Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 7pm Kimbril May

Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 7pm Denise Liptak

Thursday December 1st OR

Friday December 2nd - holiday fun! (possibly Paula)

Cru Cellars Thursday night at 7pm - Hunger Games

See you guys Thursday night! January 27, 2011.

I will be bringing a list that Malin and I put together of suggestions that we received from you guys. We will want to pick books for the upcoming months so if you have any ideas - bring them.