April Book Club Book

We had a great discussion on our "founding mothers" at book club last night. We came to the conclusion that we as modern women are not that different from the women of their day. We are also strong and are able to rise to the important and necessary tasks placed before us. We were able to put into words our gratitude for their contributions in forming our wonderful and free country. Thank you Susie (Margaret's friend and now ours as well !) for your insightful comments and visuals on the revolutionary days of your birth country, Peru. It was very interesting to hear the stories of your family. If you were not at book club, please know that we missed you and hope to see you next month.

Telarry will be hosting book club next month at her house on Wed. April 7th. Her pick is:


Telarry says the best place to get the book is to order it from Amazon as there are few to no copies available in Spokane. Sue Mitchell was able to find it at Deseret Book online for less than Amazon. Telary says it is a quick read so get your orders in or find a friend and share. Hope to see you next month.

Here is a review from a reader at Goodreads:

Awww! What a sweet book! I can definitely see why Spare Change won the Whitney for best Romance in 2008. Aubrey Mace has the cutest writing style. Her narrator, Riley, had the quirkiest little voice--but not annoying! In fact the girl had applaudable streaks of sarcasm that I could not do without.

The story is about a 23-year-old girl with a fantastic New Year's resolution: to save all her pennies and then donate them to Cancer Research. But a grumpy yet handsome banker and a secret admirer pepper this story with wonderfully romantic episodes. There were several times I laughed out loud, one of my favorites being at the end of her first date with the banker, Paul. Everyone knows how awkward that part of the date is, and author Aubrey Mace, I swear to you, related that awkwardness in the most perfect paragraph that could ever be written on the topic. I seriously felt like I was listening to a professional stand up comedian. But I cannot betray her secret lines, so you have to buy this book!

I also found the protagonist to be extremely relatable. I loved that she was terrible at sports, was addicted to ice cream, and was terrified of horses. She felt very real to me and I feel as though we could be friends--especially when she envied the "cool" looking girl on the motorcycle.

If you want a clean read with top of the class writing and several out loud laughing moments... (yes, I'll admit it, and I know my husband thinks I'm insane) then you need to read this book! Oh, and you'll love her quotes at the beginnings of every chapter! They were perfect!

March Book Club Book

We had a great discussion at LouAnn's home last night. It's such a pleasure to read a good book and then discuss it among your dear friends. Juliet is such a loveable character and if more people could be as selfless as Elizabeth was, our world would be a better place. What an amazing group of friends we meet through that book. Thank you LouAnn. Next month we will be meeting at Diane Walker's home on Wednesday, March 3rd at 7pm. This is her pick:


A description of the book from Goodreads:


"While much has been written about the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, battled the British, and framed the Constitution, the wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters they left behind have been little noticed by history. Roberts brings us the women who fought the Revolution as valiantly as the men, often defending their very doorsteps. While the men went off to war or to Congress, the women managed their businesses, raised their children, provided them with political advice, and made it possible for the men to do what they did. The behind-the-scenes influence of these women - and their sometimes very public activities - as intelligent and pervasive." Drawing upon personal correspondence, private journals, and even favored recipes, Roberts reveals the often surprising stories of these fascinating women, bringing to life the everyday trials and extraordinary triumphs of individuals like Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, Deborah Read Franklin, Eliza Pinckney, Catherine Littlefield Green, Esther DeBerdt Reed, and Martha Washington - proving that without our exemplary women, the new country might never have survived."

Another Goodreads review:

"The book is divided into historical periods, which was helpful. What was not so helpful, for me, was how often I felt the narration jumped around - either from person to person or from past to present (well, Revolutionary Present). There were so many people and names that when we kept jumping back and forth I had a really hard time keeping everyone and their story straight. To remedy this, instead of trying to be 100% aware at all times of who I was reading about, I tried to mostly just appreciate what this book intended to teach me: that these women deserve to have their stories told. And while Martha Washington and Abagail Adams are familiar names, many more women were influential on not only their own men, but on pre-Revolutionary society as a whole. A good part of what our country is today is a result of their opinions and their valiant efforts both during the Revolution and while our country was being slowly pieced together. Not all the women in this book made great choices, of course. Some had affairs with married men - and these affairs affected the course of historical events. Some women even held their husbands back from public office, adding to the workload of other Revolutionaries. For good or bad, these ladies had an important place in the events of the Revolution. What Cokie did particularly well was to place these women in the context of the lives of their men. And by doing so, without ever stating it outright, she helps us to realize that these men, immortalized on our money and in the names of our elementary schools, they were just that: mortal men. They had flaws and they made mistakes and they loved their wives and cheated on them. They mourned the loss of their children, traveled back and forth constantly throughout a war torn land and fought tirelessly for a dream of governing themselves. And while these men worked in the public sphere, the women oversaw plantations alone, ran fundraising campaigns for the soldiers, wrote political plays, raised children and buried them. Martha, Abagail and all the others who supported the Founding Fathers absolutely deserve three cheers of their own. "

Enjoy reading and see you next month.

February Book Club Book

We will be meeting at Luann's house this month on Wednesday February 3rd at 7pm. It will be nice to get back together and enjoy our discussions and friendship. Luann's pick for this month is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Enjoy reading and see you in February.

“ I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.” January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb….As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends—and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island—boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all.Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society’s members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.Written with warmth and humor as a series of letters, this novel is a celebration of the written word in all its guises, and of finding connection in the most surprising ways.

December's Book - The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Margaret's pick for our December 2 meeting -

from an Amazon.com review...

The Help is about a young white woman in the early 1960s in Mississippi who becomes interested in the plight of the black ladies' maids that every family has working for them. She writes their stories about mistreatment, abuse and heartbreaks of working in white families' homes, all just before the Civil Rights revolution.

This is our book for the discussion on December 2. At Margaret's house unless the weather is awful and then we will see -

Welcome Susan - Margaret's friend. Hope you enjoyed your evening with us and will come back!

Our plans for the next few months are

January - out to dinner Jan 6 - Heather is working on finding the best spot

February - Telarry Andersen - Baking Cakes in Kigal - Gaile Parkin

March - Ginger Johnson - still deciding on a book

April - Diane Walker - Founding Mothers - Cookie Roberts

Some good suggestions from Telarry:

Jantsen' Gift - Pam Cope

The Lost Quilter - Jennifer Chiaverin

See you at Margaret's!

November's Book - Big Russ and Me

Bethany's pick for November 4th



"A profoundly satisfying story of a father and his son"--Wall Street Journal

"A testament to solid values,hard work and filial devotion"...New York Times

A letter from Tim from bigrussandme.com

Dear Reader,

In the spring of 2004, I published a book about my father--about the lessons I have learned from him, the way he has influenced me, and my enormous love and respect for this steady, hardworking, and modest man. Big Russ and Me came out in May, and my publisher sent me on a publicity tour in the hope that people around the country would see the book as an ideal Father's Day gift.

Early in the tour I was in Chicago, where to my great relief, customers were lining up to buy the book and have me autograph it. What happened next really surprised me.

"Make it out to Big Mike" somebody told me, which was followed in rapid succession by,

"This is for Big Mario"

"Please inscribe it out to Big Manuel."

"For Big Irv."

"Big Willie"

"Big Stan"

I had expected that my book would appeal to readers in my home town of Buffalo, New York, but I didn't know whether the story of a young man coming of age in a blue-collar Irish-Catholic neighborhood, whose father was a truck driver and a sanitation man, would strike a cord with a wider audience. As soon as I discovered there were many Big Russes out there--good, industrious, and patriotic men who has a lot in common with my dad, even if they didn't share his religion or his heritage. By writing a book about my father, I was affirming not only his life, but the lives of many other fathers as well.

Sincerely,

Tim Russert

Sue's Pick for our October Book - A Lesson Before Dying

We will meet at Sue's house on October 7th. Thanks Sue!
From the on-line review at The Big Read - National Endowment for the Arts ...

Ernest J. Gaines's A Lesson Before Dying (1993) poses one of the most universal questions literature can ask: Knowing we're going to die, how should we live? It's the story of an uneducated young black man named Jefferson, accused of the murder of a white storekeeper, and Grant Wiggins, a college-educated native son of Louisiana, who teaches at a plantation school. In a little more than 250 pages, these two men named for presidents discover a friendship that transforms at least two lives.

The novel has a long history of championing social justice. Fiction has the signal ability to embody social ideas in a compelling narrative that possesses both emotional and intellectual power.

Ernest J. Gaines's A Lesson Before Dying offers a painful yet inspirational tale of institutional injustice and personal redemption. It addresses the biggest theme possible-how one affirms life in the face of death.

Sept's Book Club - hosted by Debbie

Michelle Holdaway is swamped with new baby and all the fun that that brings.... so Debbie Mullin will be doing Book Club in Sept. Since we will be reading in August - hopefully on vacation, relaxing on those lazy summer days - I picked a light and fun read. I picked this up in the Seattle airport on my way home from a vacation on the recommendation from a book club readers list. I loved it. Hope you will too. :) We will meet on Sept 2 at 7 pm at Debbie Mullin's house. See you then. If there is a conflict with the date, I am open to pushing it to Sept 9th. Just leave a comment with a vote as to which date works for you!

Church of the Dog by Kaya McLaren

From one on-line review....

"How often can you pick up a book and think right from the very beginning, "As soon as I finish reading this book, I am going to write my own."? That is what Kaya McLaren's words did for me. They were an absolute inspiration. Her style is crisp and refreshing - not intimidating. She tells a wonderful story in a narrative that lopes.

"Church of the Dog" is a work of fiction, but it is about people who are real. People you have met if you have ever lived in the rural west. Mara is the extremely creative and energetic single woman any single woman would like to emulate. She has dreams that help her and her friends navigate through life. Edith is the exuberant grandmother who has not let life's tragedies embitter her. In her advancing years, she is still singing the song, "It Is New Every Morning." Her practical, taciturn rancher-husband has not cramped her style one bit, but it is too bad her love of life did not rub off on Earl a little bit more. He might have wanted to stick around a little longer. The somewhat-troubled grandson evades true involvement in life by hiding behind his camera lens. The pictures he takes capture events and scenes - recording them more clearly than memory.

In the end of the book, love and family and hope prevail. I cannot think of three better reasons to read a book."