The Book Salon thread is the place to discuss books you've read, are reading, or plan to read. It's a place to basically chat about all things book related.

This is a great idea!

I just finished Book #15 of the Stephanie Plum Series by Janet Evanovich--It was okay, not as funny as her previous ones. I am now reading Club Dead (book 3) of the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris--Eventhough I'm only on chapter 3, I must say it's off to a great start just like her first book ('Dead until Dark')

Looking forward to chatting with everyone about what you are all reading!

A

Hi, Anastasia. I used to read the Stephanie Plum books, but they became too repetitious. Maybe since I haven't read them in a while I should pick one up.

I am currently reading:

-Les Miserable- Victor Hugo I have about 300 pages to go in this 1200 page classic.

-Eating Animals- Jonathan Safran Foer It's a book on factory farming, vegetarianism and part memoir

-Jane Goodall- Sudipta Bardhan Quallen Bio of the women famous for her Chimpanzee research.

-In Cheap We Trust- Lauren Weber A history of frugality from Ben Franklin to today.

-The Italian Renaissance -Paul Robert Walker
-The Italian Renaissance Virginia Schomp
These are two basic YA books. I am on the list at the library for The Teaching Co. DVD's on the subject, so I thought I would read some background. This will be my first Teaching Co. lesson. You might have seen the advert. for them. It is a series of lessons taught by professors from top colleges.

http://www.teach12.com/teach12.aspx?ai=1...

Hi Alias Reader,

WOW, you sure have your plate full!!

I actually stopped reading the Plum Series at #12 about 2 years ago and only started up again! I agree they can be a bit repetitive!

Anastasia, i'm with you on the Plum books. I read too many in a row, trying to catch up. Naturally, by the end i saw the repetition. This has happened to me with other series, too, though. But i don't think any stick to the same pattern Evanovich does--which lover? what will catch fire next? what jokes will grandma tell about guns &/or men? And on. But i keep picking them up because i can usually get a couple of belly laughs from them.

deborah

I got this USA Today.

12 books of Christmas to give your true love and others


By Bob Minzesheimer, Korina Lopez, Deirdre Donahue, Carol Memmott, Craig Wilson and Jocelyn McClurg, USA TODAY

What began with Charles Dickens and A Christmas Carol has become a holiday publishing tradition. This year's Christmas-themed books – many in an appealing stocking-stuffer size – include big names from Wally Lamb to Kate Jacobs to Garrison Keillor. Here are 12 that capture the spirit of the season.

1.Wishin' and Hopin'
By Wally Lamb
Harper, 288 pp., $19.99
Genre: Comic novel
Setting: New London, Conn., 1964
What it's about:
Narrator Felix Funicello (third cousin of Annette, the former Mouseketeer turned beach-movie star) is the second smartest fifth-grader in a blue-collar Catholic school governed by ruler-slapping nuns. A new student from Russia (a Communist?) changes everything, including an unforgettable Christmas program.
Holiday cheer level: Lamb, a two-time Oprah Book Club pick, proves he can be short, sweet and funny, with a soundtrack by Dusty Springfield.
–Bob Minzesheimer

2.A Christmas Blizzard
By Garrison Keillor
Viking, 180 pp., $21.95
Genre: Gentle satire/fable
Setting: Contemporary Chicago and Looseleaf, N.D.
What it's about:
An obsessively insecure tycoon, haunted by his grim childhood, dreads Christmas, which he likes to spend in Hawaii. But a call from his hometown about a dying uncle summons him to North Dakota in the midst of a blizzard. In a fishing shack on the ice of Lake Winnesissebigosh, he finds new meaning in the mysteries of life.
Holiday cheer level:
A Christmas Carol meets Trains, Planes and Automobiles– with a dash of A Christmas Story. A perfect gift for fans of Keillor's storytelling on A Prairie Home Companion.
– Bob Minzesheimer

3.The Gift
By Cecelia Ahern
Harper, 320 pp., $19.99
Genre: Fiction
Setting: Christmas season in Dublin
What it's about:
Business exec Lou Suffern is an insufferable go-getter who brushes aside his wife and kids to jockey for a promotion at work. He often wishes he could be in two places at once so he can keep up with his demanding schedule at home and work. He forms an unlikely friendship with a mysterious homeless man, Gabe, who grants him his wish. But is that what he really wants?
Holiday cheer level:
This modern-day Scrooge tale is a delightful read with plenty of fun twists and turns.
–Korina Lopez

4.The Christmas List
By Richard Paul Evans
Simon & Schuster, 368 pp., $19.99
Genre: Fiction
Setting: Salt Lake City
What it's about:
After ruthless real-estate mogul James Kier is wrongly declared dead in a car accident, he reads the gloating comments posted online under his obit, some by colleagues. He tries to make amends to five people he hurt but finds that saying sorry isn't enough.
Holiday cheer level:
Grinches might find Evans' modern variation on Dickens' A Christmas Carol a tad manipulative, but nobody irrigates tear ducts more effectively than the author of The Christmas Box. If only real life worked this way!
–Deirdre Donahue

5.Knit the Season: A Friday Night Knitting Club Novel
By Kate Jacobs
Putnam, 260 pp., $24.95
Genre: Women's fiction
Setting: Manhattan and rural Scotland
What it's about:
Seasonal festivities infuse the ongoing stories of Dakota Walker and the other women who meet weekly at the Walker & Daughter yarn shop in Manhattan in this best-selling series.
Holiday cheer level:
The spirit of the season permeates every page as the women knit their way through the family trials and tribulations of Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year's and an unforgettable wedding.
– Carol Memmott

6.You Better Not Cry: Stories for Christmas
By Augusten Burroughs
St. Martin's Press, 206 pp., $21.99
Genre: Autobiographical essays
Setting: From Burroughs' bizarre childhood Christmases in western Massachusetts to a New York City apartment he shared with his partner who had AIDS.
What it's about:
As a child he confuses Jesus and Santa. As an alcoholic adult, he ends up in bed with Santa. Burroughs, famous for his memoir Running With Scissors, is back with his trademark quirky wit.
Holiday cheer level:
This for those who enjoy Burroughs' take on the world, aren't in need of an always happy holiday, and believe that Santa, at times, can be a dirty old man.
– Craig Wilson

7.The Christmas Secret
By Donna VanLiere
St. Martin's Press,
291 pp., $14.99
Genre: Women's fiction
Setting: Main Street USA
What it's about:
Burdened with two small kids and a vile ex-husband, a waitress fights to keep her job and her sanity. Meanwhile, an arrogant young accountant – downsized before Christmas – is reduced to working at his grandfather's department store. A random act of kindness connects them.
Holiday cheer level:
Tired of sugar plums and impossibly perfect families? Consider this stark tale with its appealing heroine who struggles against losing faith in herselfand in God.
– Deirdre Donahue

8.A Christmas Promise,
By Anne Perry
Ballantine, 193 pp., $18
Genre: Victorian mystery
Setting: The freezing slums of Dickensian London
What it's about:
Gracie Phipps, a plucky 13-year-old, helps 8-year-old Minnie Maude Mudway after Minnie's beloved Uncle Alf, "a rag and bones man," is murdered and left on the street, his cart and donkey missing. Can Gracie and Minnie solve the crime and find donkey Charlie before Christmas?
Holiday cheer level:
With Perry, you're guaranteed evil will be mixed with good. Let's just say a Nativity scene at the end will give you faith that all's right with the world – for a brief shining moment.
–Jocelyn McClurg

9. The Christmas Cookie Club: A Novel
By Ann Pearlman
Atria, 272 pp., $24.99
Genre: Women's fiction
Setting: A snowy December evening in Ann Arbor, Mich.
What it's about:

Every year, 12 women – aka the Cookie Bitches – gather to share heartfelt stories and recipes, taking a break from the bitter realities of divorce, loss and foreclosure to celebrate their longtime friendship. At the center of this loyal circle is Marnie, who anxiously awaits news about her unborn grandchild.
Holiday cheer level:
Best read with a glass of milk, this novel will satisfy anyone with a sweet tooth. Bonus: each chapter includes cookie recipes.
–Korina Lopez

10.The Dreaded Feast: Writers on Enduring the Holiday
Edited by Michele Clarke and Taylor Plimpton; introduction by P.J. O'Rourke
Abrams Image, 208 pp., $15.95
Genre: Essays
Setting: Everywhere from Christmas Eve services to the aisles of FAO Schwarz
What it's about:
You name it, as 30 humor writers take on the holidays. Calvin Trillin espouses his fruitcake theory, Mark Twain shares daughter Susie's letter from Santa, George Plimpton guides us through gift giving, and Dave Barry offers up his survivor's guide to shopping.
Holiday cheer level:
A wonderfully irreverent look at the holidays. A must for the Christmas cynics on your list.
– Craig Wilson

11.Tinsel: A Search for America's Christmas Present
By Hank Stuever
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 331 pp., $24
Genre: Non-fiction
Setting: Frisco, Texas, a suburb of Dallas
What it's about:
Stuever, a Washington Postfeature writer, checks out Christmas in 21st-century America as he follows three families through three holidays in suburbia, touching on everything from decorating McMansions to mayhem at the mall. All that glitters is not gold here.
Holiday cheer level:
This isn't a Norman Rockwell view of Christmas. It's both laugh-out-loud funny and oddly depressing. Stuever's keen eye misses very little.
– Craig Wilson

12.A Rumpole Christmas
By John Mortimer
Viking, 161 pp., $21.95
Genre: Short stories
Setting: London and environs
What it's about:
Horace Rumpole, the beloved and curmudgeonly barrister, sips yak's milk on a Christmas season visit to a health farm, investigates a steam-room murder at a country hotel and inspires honesty in a not-so-on-the level Santa Claus.
Holiday cheer level:
One can't help but smile as the churlish Rumpole and his bossy Mrs. (She Who Must Be Obeyed) spread seasonal cheer while wending their way through their holiday misadventures. Mortimer's death earlier this year adds a nostalgia factor.
–Carol Memmott

Some upcoming books - Spring 2010

Child, Lee. 61 Hours: A Reacher Novel. May 2010. 400p.
Trapped in a South Dakota town by a bus accident, Jack Reacher is asked by a local cop to protect the only witness who can help put away a brutal crime ring. And the clock starts ticking. A second Reacher novel, linked to this one, is promised in fall 2010.

George, Elizabeth. This Body of Death: An Inspector Lynley Novel. May 2010. 640p. 
Fans have been hotly divided by the recent Inspector Lynley novels, with some put off by the murder of Lynley’s wife and his subsequent minor-key investigations and others enthralled by the emotional layering now evident. This latest might make everyone happy; the grieving Lynley is still on leave from Scotland Yard but is called in to investigate a murder in a remote cemetery. Seems that his old team doesn’t trust the new boss.

Kagen, Lesley. Tomorrow River. May 2010. 336p.
Her mother has disappeared, her twin sister has stopped talking, and her father is drinking hard and threatening to remarry, so Shenandoah Carmody had better do something fast. Paperback best-selling author Kagen breaks into hardcover; with a reading group guide.


Pickard, Nancy. The Scent of Rain and Lightning. May 2010. 336p.

She’s a Macavity, Anthony, and Agatha award winner and a four-time Edgar nominee, but Pickard seems to have moved beyond the mystery genre to general suspense with recent books like The Virgin of Small Plains. In her new work, which recalls Virgin, English teacher Jody Linder discovers that the man convicted of murdering her father is being released from prison and is returning to town with his attorney son to establish his innocence. Suddenly, Jody is facing some question marks in her past.

Turow, Scott. Innocent. May 2010. 448p.

Turow virtually invented the legal thriller genre with Presumed Innocent. It took him awhile, but now he’s back with a sequel. Rusty Sabich’s wife has met a questionable death, which (once more) puts Rusty up against prosecutor Tommy Molto. Turow hasn’t faded in 20 years, so this should be big.
.

"10.The Dreaded Feast: Writers on Enduring the Holiday
Edited by Michele Clarke and Taylor Plimpton; introduction by P.J. O'Rourke
Abrams Image, 208 pp., $15.95
Genre: Essays "

This one looks like it has potential for me!

Sherry, do let us know if you read it. I love essays.

Five great memoirs, according to author Ben Yagoda

By Bob Minzesheimer, USA TODAY
"We live in an age of memoir," says Ben Yagoda, who traces their development in his new book, Memoir: A History. Yagoda names "the five greatest memoirs you've probably never heard of."

•Roughing It by Mark Twain (1872). "His account of six years in Nevada, San Francisco and the Sandwich Islands is among his least-known books, but it is a comic gem."

•Memoirs by John Addington Symonds (written 1889-1893, published 1986). "Symonds, an English scholar, was gay and sexually active, and his no-holds-barred memoir could not be published in his lifetime. It's fascinating to chart the change in his attitude: from a rueful sense of himself as a deviant to a sort of defiant pride."

•I'll Cry Tomorrow by Lillian Roth (1954). "Roth, a former Ziegfeld showgirl and early-talkies actress (she was in the Marx Brothers' Animal Crackers), created a sensation because of the frankness with which it depicted her alcoholism and abuse by husbands and lovers. In some ways, it created the template for the contemporary memoir, with its emphasis on trauma and recovery."

•Growing Up by Russell Baker (1982) and An American Childhood by Annie Dillard (1987). "They're luminous and could easily trade titles, though Baker spends more time on the public realm and Dillard on the private."

From USA Today

I read a review of Yagoda's book & added it to my list. Why? All the comments we've shared over the years about memoirs! ;-)

deborah

madrano wrote: "I read a review of Yagoda's book & added it to my list. Why? All the comments we've shared over the years about memoirs! ;-)

deborah"

For sure! And I think he may have touched on all of them.

I read An American Childhood, but Dilliard's autobiography did not speak to me in the way A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek did. I've never read the Russell Baker book, though I think I will add it to my list to read in 2010. Thanks for the reminder.

madrano wrote: "Alias, did you read Up the Down Staircase?
----------------

Deb, thanks to your recomendation, I've now read and seen the movie. I just finished watching the movie. I thought Sandy Dennis fit the part well. It was also fun to see Jean Stapleton. I've been watching her lately in old All in the Family reruns.

Thanks !

I am reading Uglies - Scott Westerfeld

Alias, my pleasure. I'd forgotten Stapleton was in it but as soon as i read your words i remembered her. Good role. I agree with Dennis, good fit.

deborah

Will finish Uglies - Scott Westerfeld today and then read Pretties - Scott Westerfeld.

Finished the wonderful . What an amazing book.

Everybody gets to be supermodel gorgeous. What could be wrong with that?

Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. Not for her license -- for turning pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there.

But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world -- and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.

When I started readin this, I thought omg, what kind of book have I got here. I heard loads of rave reviews about this book, so I thought this might help me get back to readin again. WELL, what can I say about this book. It certainly gives you an insight to what we wanted to see of kids at the age of 16 and havin operations to be made like a supermodel. I can't wait til I read more on how Tally changes and her life.

8/10 for me on this book and series so far.


Can't wait til I read

I just read about a debut novel that is a parody of the book publishing business and the business of "best sellerdom"..it sounds so amusing. How I became a Famous Novelist

Here is the fictitious best -seller list the author includes in the book:

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/...

:) Thanks for the smile, JoAnn. I especially enjoyed the NF list.

Just finished Pretties. Wow, what a book. Had me stuck to it over the past 48hrs. This is a great 2nd book for this series. Shows you how Tally and the gang start thinking for themselves and all the trouble they get into lol. Can't wait to see what happens next in the next installment.

I would say 8/10 again for me.

Now I am readin Megan's Way

Fiona, the Westerfeld novels sound good, thanks to your descriptions. Thanks.

deborah

madrano wrote: "Fiona, the Westerfeld novels sound good, thanks to your descriptions. Thanks.

deborah"

He has done other series as well hon. Which I plan on readin over the christmas holidays x

This was posted on another board, and I thought you might enjoy it.

It is the 100 Best Last Lines from Novels

They have my personal favorite #8 from A Tale of Two Cities. :)

I am printing it out as I think some of these last lines are so good, I want to read the book !


http://americanbookreview.org/PDF/100_Be...

My DH brought home Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food yesterday, and since I finished the newest Nevada Barr bloodbath, I decided to dip into some nonfiction. I'm finding his analysis of the shortcomings of nutritional research and accepted wisdom to be very entertaining indeed - although it spoiled my enjoyment of the cinnamon rolls I made for breakfast.

In Defense of Food An Eater's Manifesto

I love cinnamon rolls ! Though I never made them from scratch. Just the Pillsbury ones with the icing. Gosh, I haven't had those in years. I sure would love some today with a nice hot cup of tea. It's a chilly 28 with gusts of 20 MPH in NYC. Though I can't complain when I see the big storm that hit many part of the country.

Sherry (sethurner) wrote: "My DH brought home Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food yesterday...

I really liked In Defense of Food as well as Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. I heard him speak about 1 year ago and he is passionate about his crusade against the huge institutionalized food industry practices of inventing food from chemicals and selling us junk.

Pollan spoke at UW Madison this fall in connection with "Go Big Read." I didn't attend, but from the media coverage he stirred up lots of discussion about his ideas here in big-agribusiness land.

Was this the event where the school withdrew his speaking fee beforehand? I'm sure they did not want to hear from him. I heard him at UC Berkeley, where he teaches journalism and the audience was extremely receptive.

Oh no, Pollan was invited for the Big Read event, which was hugely successful. It's just that we are the land of industrial farms, hybrid seed companies and so on. They 're rather threatened by writers like Pollan.

I went to hear John Stossel speak years ago - he was a good consumer reporter, I thought. He pointed out that oftentimes, frozen vegetables have more nutrients than fresh because they are processed immediately. Whereas fresh produce often comes from afar and loses nutrients during every hour it is shipped. Makes a lot of sense when you think about it. He made a point to say that fresh local produce, if one can get it, is not the same as other fresh stuff.

I had a great aunt and uncle who owned a farm and sold their tomatoes to Hunt's. Those tomatoes were processed within hours of being picked, at a plant just a few miles away.

Alias Reader wrote: "I love cinnamon rolls ! Though I never made them from scratch. Just the Pillsbury ones with the icing. Gosh, I haven't had those in years. I sure would love some today with a nice hot cup of..."

Alias, it sounds comforting to think of a roll & tea or coffee. It looks as though your weekend will continue cold, too. As delightful as the Pillsbury rolls are, they are no comparison to homemade ones. I was shocked the first time i had Pillsbury because we never, ever iced our rolls, i thought. Nope, we cooked them in the brown sugar & cinnamon "sauce." LOL--it took me years to realize it was basically the same thing, i just wouldn't have thought to call mine "icing."

BUT i really wanted to comment about the last line article. For me last lines mean so much to the rest of the novel that the only lines in their list that i liked were the ones from novels i've read. The rest didn't seem to mean much to me. Interesting since i have a fondness for opening lines & paragraphs.

deborah

I thought the "last lines" would make for a good parlor game. -gosh, does anyone use the word parlor anymore? - Though you would need a literary group for it to work.

I understand what you mean about first vs last lines. Their objective is different. It makes sense, as the first lines try to pull the reader in.

Back to the rolls, I loved the Pillsbury icing ! And I loved to finish off whatever was left in that plastic container. Sort of the equivalent of licking the spoon. :)

LOL! I recall sucking that li'l plastic icing envelope dry.

I agree about a good "parlor" game for literary-minded folks. I'd play! My SIL & i quote snippets of poetry to one another. They rarely tie into conversation or anything else. She tends to memorize entire poems while i have more lines from them than full ditties in my memory cells. It's the closest i come to a literary parlor "game."

It's been years since i've heard a room referred to as a "parlor". However, sometimes my dad will use the term when searching for the word "living room." Usually he'll then stop to comment on how those rooms were rarely used, kept in perfect shape for "company."

deborah

Here are a few of the more interesting books I've read during this holiday. I haven't been keeping a reading journal.

The Man in the Wooden Hat, Jane Gardam. This is a companion to Gardam’s excellent recent novel, Old Filth. These are complex, intelligent novels about marriage. This one centers on the story of the wife, while the earlier novel centered on the husband. These British expatriates met and married in Hong Kong. After his retirement as a judge, they return to live in rural England. The novels are stand-alone in the sense that Gardam doesn’t expect you to read one before the other, but they do work most effectively together. Each character has secrets and thoughts/motives that are inexplicable to the other partner (and to the reader) until you’ve taken in both sides. Gardam is a thoughtful, careful, expressive writer, and she also is witty and satirical.

One Second After by William Forstchen. If you said I would read a novel with a forward by Newt Gingrich, I’d ordinarily respond that you were smoking the Christmas holly berries, but this story was very compelling. It is set in a small town in the mountains of North Carolina, an area I know and love. The protagonist is a retired colonel teaching history at a local college. A weapon called EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) has devastated the USA in an instant by knocking out all electrical and computer circuitry, plunging the country into a technological and social Dark Ages. The pulse instantly disables cars, airplanes, refrigerators, telephones, computers, and every piece of technology that relies on microchips or power. For me, the fascinating concepts were what would happen to our social structures in such a cataclysm: what happens in the immediate aftermath when there is no communication, no transportation and limited supplies? Who has leadership ability and how do they use it? Who has survival skills and how do they use them? What do local governments do and how do they see “outsiders?” In this case, people stranded on the interstate (I-40) seek help in the little town, and people from a city flee the city with the erroneous idea that rural areas are a place of refuge and food. Some social structures hold up; some people revert to barbarism and self-interest. It’s not good literature, since the characters are one-dimensional and the writing is plain. But it’s competently written and there are many gripping and disturbing questions and images. Gingrich comes in because this weapon is available to terrorists and enemies, and he is advocating for Homeland Security to immediately increase our preparedness by “hardening” essential communication and transportation systems against an EMP attack.

While My Sister Sleeps, by Barbara Delinsky. This is a light, but far from light-hearted, look at contemporary family relationships, told in Delinsky’s reliable way. I always worry that Delinsky will sink to the level of Jodi Picoult, and there are similarities, but this one works. Her plots and themes have that “ripped from the headlines” quality. This one involves a young woman who is a marathon runner and Olympics contender. One afternoon during a routine run she has a heart attack and falls into a coma. The plot revolves mostly around the responses and decisions of her younger sister and her mother, although the guys in the family are also involved. It’s a familiar treatment of jealousy, guilt, denial, and secrets, but also of course all the love and joys of family life.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery. This one is hard to characterize, maybe in part because it is a translation from the French. I ended up loving it. The story is told from the interior monologues of two unusual and charming characters, a dumpy, frumpy concierge in an upscale apartment building, and a wealthy 12 year old girl who lives on the 5th floor. Both have chosen to disguise their great intelligence, and live in relative isolation. However, the concierge is actually an intense autodidact who lives a rich interior life, and the young girl is a gifted observer and natural philosopher. In the course of the story, they each find excitement and redemption in their relationship with a new tenant in the building. It’s a funny and intelligent book, and I found a lot to contemplate in the way these characters think and reflect and react. And I loved the inherent message that appearances can be deceptive, and that there is value and beauty in the least among us. This is powerful social satire. Although the occasional erudite passages and references sometimes brought me up short, they also made me think.

Thanks for your interesting list Sarah. And how were those smoked holly berries? LOL

Barbara

Thanks for sharing Sarah. I get so many good recommends from this board. Smoked holly berries.............LOLOLOLOL>

Sarah: The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery. This one is hard to characterize, maybe in part because it is a translation from the French. I ended up loving it.
===================================

Thanks for sharing, Sarah. I enjoyed reading your reviews. I, too, loved Hegehog. I thought it was different and literate. I would read more by this author.

Count me in as a fan of Elegance of the Hedgehog too. Several readers were put off by the philosophy, and so I was a little hesitant to read it when it came up as a local book group choice, but in the end I was won over by the two female leads. In this case persistence paid off with a satisfying story.

Sherry said: Count me in as a fan of Elegance of the Hedgehog too . . . In this case persistence paid off with a satisfying story.

Sherry, it did take a little persistence, didn't it? I'm glad I didn't have to rush through the book, because I often put it down. My book group is reading it soon, and I'm going to warn everyone not to wait until the last minute to start reading (as so many of us do!)

Sarah wrote: " Who has survival skills and how do they use them? ..."

The book sounds up my alley, Sarah, so i thank you for posting about it. A variation of the above question was male friends of mine tried to play in the '70s. Basically the premise was who would be allowed to stay on a lifeboat. I was fortunate that their spouses refused to play, as i was sure i was the first off the boat. My survival skills are poor. Later, when the women talked alone we discussed how those skills include more than just getting the food & physically pulling one's share of the burden.

ANYway, thanks, Sarah, for the title.

deborah

Sherry (sethurner) wrote: "Count me in as a fan of Elegance of the Hedgehog too. Several readers were put off by the philosophy, and so I was a little hesitant to read it when it came up as a local book group choice, but i..."

My F2F group has chosen Hedgehog for our January read. I wasn't in favor of it, but I've decided to give it a try. I've heard such mixed reviews of it, but a lot of the people whose opinions I respect seem to like it, so maybe I will too.

Connie

I've heard such mixed reviews of it, but a lot of the people whose opinions I respect seem to like it, so maybe I will too.

Connie, I look forward to hearing your reaction, since we often have had similar reactions (although I was OK with that long novel you loathed about the mute guy and the dogs . . . not remembering the title right now . . . David something.) I think that with Hedgehog, it helps to keep in mind that the two "voices" are somewhat stilted, defensive and theatrical, maybe because the characters have limited opportunity to talk to people naturally about their enthusiasms.

Connie: My F2F group has chosen Hedgehog for our January read. I wasn't in favor of it, but I've decided to give it a try. I've heard such mixed reviews of it, but a lot of the people whose opinions I respect seem to like it, so maybe I will too.

-------------------

Connie, my f2f group read it and they loved it. They said it was a terrific discussion book.

I read it and loved it, but was unable to attend the meeting that day.

Hey anastasia , I am brigette . I really
recommend the sookis stackhouse series I read the 9 books and there sre great .....amazing books!!!!!!!!!!

Now that I finish the 6th book of morganville , I am reading Message in a bottle from Nicolas sparks ...who wrote the notebook ........great book by the way!!!

Does anyone know what the group reads for April, May, June and July of 2009 were? I found the rest of the years reads on the Goodreads bookshelf but could not find those months.

Thanks!

Kim

Kim-

To see all the threads for the monthly book read, you go to the
Folder- Monthly Book Selection -
To the right of the folder title click on: View All

Here are the title for May, June & July


One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey - May 2009

The Worst Hard Time - - June 2009

White Teeth - July 2009

Thanks for looking the titles up for me Alias!!!