CHRISTMAS PARTY SUCCESS!

Thanks everyone for coming to the Christmas Party! It was sooooo great to see everyone. I know we haven't picked a book or a date for next month. I was thinking we should recap the Time Travelers Wife and The Shack in January. We can do group picks if you guys want to do that, or we can keep going with individual picks. I know Rossi, Dana and Laurel have read everything PLUS some good books so maybe they have some idea.

Give me suggestions on how you think we should move forward in January 2010! Who wants to Host January? when would be good for everyone?

Thursday January 14th, Friday the 15th, Saturday the 16th? We could do the week before or the week after - TOTALLY NEED FEEDBACK!

Christmas Gathering - List

Hi All - I said I would post a list for December's gathering. Here's what we have so far. Add post saying what you plan to bring.

December 4th at JC and Greg's new condo.

Amy Rossi Gall - Dips
Cherie Monarch - Cheese Tray
Laurel Perry - Turkey Taco Salad

And the title is...

It's a little hazy whether we picked a new book or not - we also tossed around the Christmas Party/No Book idea, as well as, the skip December all together idea. But for a good few minutes there it seemed as though we all decided on The Shack.

Today I headed to Borders and bought it. Presently I am reading The Book Thief. Just finished She's Come Undone. And a bit before that South of Broad. It seems I read books in clumps - the themes seem to clump and logically lead to the next book although they are all rather random choices - which sort of astounds me - but they were all purchased for one reason or another than set aside (She's Come Undone) or devoured right away (South of Broad). Either way I am reading voraciously - think I am prewriting. Got a good idea stewing...

But back to the book:

The Shack or no Shack?

October Book #15 - Time Traveler's Wife

This month's pick comes from Kenyon. It's a bit of a hefty read so if you haven't already...

Border's is a great place to be on a Sunday.

Title link takes you to more of the actual text.









It begins with something from The Ninth Duino Elegy, by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Stephen Mitchell...

I. The Man Out of Time

Oh not because happiness exists,
that too-hasty profit snatched from approaching loss.
..........
But because truly being here is so much; because everything here apparently needs us, this fleeting world, which in some strange way keeps calling to us. Us, the most fleeting of all.

(above material IS the actual text of the book)

Reading that, I have to say - as I grab my keys and head out the door - makes me want to read more. So although it is copywrited material - it's for the good of the promotion of the book.

Next Meeting: Thursday, October 29th (plenty of time)

Happy Reading All!

Books we have read in review:

2008
June Book #1 Barbara Walter Memoir - Denise Liptak (home)
July Book #2 Those Who Save Us - Laurel Perry (Matoi Sushii)
August Book #3 Monster of Florence - Jennifer Malin (Queen of Sheba)
September Book #4 The Awakening by Kate Chopin - J.C. (home)
October Book #5 Are you There Vodka, It's me Chelsea - Amy Kenyon Jones (home)
November Book #6 Twilight by Meyers - Cherie Monarch (Bella’s)
December Book #7 The Stranger Beside Me – Kimbril (JC’s home)

2009
January Book #8 Three Cups of Tea – Amy Rossi Gall (Bamboo Club)
February Book# 9 God’s in Alabama – Dana McWhirter (Pattaya Thai)
March Book #10 Story of Edgar Sawtelle – Denise Liptak (CDB’s)
May Book #11 Water for Elephants – Jennifer Malin (Datz Deli)
July Book #12 Song of Solomon (Toni Morrison) – JC (home)
August Book #13 The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society – Cherie Monarch (Circles)
September Book #14 Confederacy of Dunces (John Kennedy Toole) – Kathleen Hogan

September Book #14 Kathleen's book - A Confederacy of Dunces

A Confederacy of Dunces is a picaresque novel written by John Kennedy Toole, published in 1980, 11 years after the author's suicide. The book was published through the efforts of writer Walker Percy (who also contributed a revealing foreword) and Toole's mother Thelma Toole, quickly becoming a cult classic, and later a mainstream success. Toole posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981. It is an important part of the 'modern canon' of Southern literature.[citation needed]

The title derives from the epigraph by Jonathan Swift: "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." (Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting)
The story is set in New Orleans in the early 1960s. The central character is Ignatius J. Reilly, an educated but slothful man still living with his mother at age 30 in the city's Uptown neighborhood, who, due to an incident early in the book, must set out to get a job. In his quest for employment he has various adventures with colorful French Quarter characters.

August 2009 Book #13 - Cherie's Month - date TBD

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

The letters comprising this small charming novel begin in 1946, when single, 30-something author Juliet Ashton (nom de plume Izzy Bickerstaff) writes to her publisher to say she is tired of covering the sunny side of war and its aftermath. When Guernsey farmer Dawsey Adams finds Juliet's name in a used book and invites articulate—and not-so-articulate—neighbors to write Juliet with their stories, the book's epistolary circle widens, putting Juliet back in the path of war stories. The occasionally contrived letters jump from incident to incident—including the formation of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society while Guernsey was under German occupation—and person to person in a manner that feels disjointed. But Juliet's quips are so clever, the Guernsey inhabitants so enchanting and the small acts of heroism so vivid and moving that one forgives the authors (Shaffer died earlier this year) for not being able to settle on a single person or plot. Juliet finds in the letters not just inspiration for her next work, but also for her life—as will readers. (Aug.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.