The Other Group

If you saw the recent email from Kirsi about another reading group you may be wondering What up with that? It meets the fourth Wednesday of each month at Rhonda Wallace's home at 7 PM and is a stake-level club. That is to say that gals from multiple wards attend. I (Lisa) went to their September meeting where they picked out their reads for the next year. There were probably 15 -20 ladies there.

Here's the schedule for what they're reading.

November 18th
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows
Discussion Leader: Jenny Allen

December 9th
"The Importance of Being Ernest" by Oscar Wilde
and "Necessary Targets" by Eve Ensler
Discussion Leader: Lonica Rowley

January 27th
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch, Jeffrey Zaslow
and Gifts from the Sea by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock
Discussion Leader: Whitney Sowby

February 24th
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Discussion Leader: Katrina Noble

March 31st
A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue by Wendy Shalit
Discussion Leader: Tina Buhler

April 28th
Snowflower and the Secret Fan by Lisa Sea
Discussion Leader: Jaylene Scott

May 26th
The Hunger Games (Hunger Games, #1) by Suzanne Collins
and Catching Fire (Hunger Games, #2) by Suzanne Collins
Discussion Leader: Shannon Pence

What We're Reading!

November 19: The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs. A group of women meeting in a yarn shop become more than a knitting club, they become a sisterhood. According to the blurbs I read we should be on the lookout for unexpected changes and the unthinkable happening in the women's lives. NOTE: this month we're meeting the third Thursday instead of the fourth because of Thanksgiving.
December 17: We'll be holding a Christmas book party. Bring a wrapped book to swap in the gift exchange, something edible, and something Christmassy to read to the others, like a poem or children's book or whathaveyou. NOTE: In December we are also meeting on the third Thursday instead of the fourth.

January 28: America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines by Gail Collins. From Amazon's review:

Well researched and well written, America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines is a powerful and important book. Starting with Pocahontas and Eleanor Dare (the first female colonist), this lively and fascinating history records the changes in American women's lives and the transformations in American society from the 1580s through the 2000s.

A history of the oft-marginalized sex must often draw from diaries and journals, which were disproportionally written by whites; as a result, African-American and Native American women are not as well represented as white in the earlier chapters of America's Women. However, Gail Collins writes about women of many races and ethnicities, and in fact provides more information about Native Americans, African-Americans, and Chinese, Jewish, and Italian immigrants than some general U.S. history books. She writes about rich and poor, young and old, urban and rural, slave and slave-owner, athlete and aviatrix, president's wife and presidential candidate--and, of course, men and women. And some of these women--from the justly famous, like Clara Barton and Harriet Tubman, to the undeservedly obscure, like Elizabeth Eckford and Senator Margaret Chase Smith--will not only make any woman proud to be a woman, they will make any American proud to be American.

February 25: An as-yet-undetermined romance. Possibly one of the recent Jane Austen "sequels", but probably not Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.

March 25: In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez. From Amazon: ". . . this tale of courage and sisterhood [is] set in the Dominican Republic during the rise of the Trujillo dictatorship. A skillful blend of fact and fiction, In the Time of the Butterflies is inspired by the true story of the three Mirabal sisters . . . Alvarez breathes life into these historical figures--known as "las mariposas," or "the butterflies," in the underground--as she imagines their teenage years, their gradual involvement with the revolution, and their terror as their dissentience is uncovered."

Upcoming Selections!

July: We're reading Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer by James L. Swanson. There are a lot of copies in the library system, so reserve yours today!


August: The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm by Nancy Farmer. From the library's website:

In 2194 in Zimbabwe, General Matsika's three children are kidnapped and put to work in a plastic mine, while three mutant detectives use their special powers to search for them.

September: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. From the library's website:

As London is emerging from the shadow of World War II, writer Juliet Ashton discovers her next subject in a book club on Guernsey--a club born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi after its members are discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island.

March Selection

Ok, this post is a little late. This month, on the 26th, we're meeting to discuss The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. It's a YA fantasy novel with a clever thief as the narrator/main character. I've finished the book, so if you'd like to borrow my copy, let me know!

Bring reading suggestions to the meeting, as we will be planning out the next few months. If you can't make it to the meeting, leave a comment here with your suggestions.

Love In February

This month we're meeting on the 26th at Amy's house (as usual) at 8:30 PM. We're reading The Magic of Ordinary Days by Ann Howard Creel. As you can tell from these two book covers, the story takes place in a rural setting and there's like, a house and stuff, and a woman dressed in white. Riveting!ACTUALLY, the story takes place in rural Colorado during World War II and it involves an illegitimate pregnancy, an arranged marriage, a Japanese internment camp, love, betrayal, and passion.

So be sure to come to Book Club this month! Even if you don't get a chance to read the book, we always have some clever and delicious topically appropriate food. For this month, I'm guessing we'll be treated to some exotic Colorado "grub"!

January 2009 Book

It's January 2009 and we're switching our meeting night from Wednesday to Thursday. This month we meet the fourth Thursday, which is the 22nd, at 8:30 PM at Amy Hall's house.

We're reading Life Among the Savages, by Shirley Jackson. It's the humorous autobiographical saga of raising kids in the 1950's. There are only a few copies available through the library system, so we're passing the book around as we finish it. If you haven't gotten your hands on it yet, leave a comment on this post and I'll help you get one.