Choices for the 2002 -2003 Book Year
Oct:
Empire Falls
by Richard Russo
Nov. :
Dec.
Feb
March:
April:
May: Dinner ______________
June
Suggested Readings: Enemy Women by A Widow for One Year by John Irving The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd The Haj by Beirut to Jersualem byFROM MARSH TO MOUNTAIN
THE ART OF HARRY CURIEUX ADMASOM by Dianne K. Inman With an Introduction by David A. Maass * **The book can be purchased through Barnes and Nobel.** -
Choices for the 2001 -2002 Book Year
Oct:
Guns, Germs
and Steel
by Jered Diamond
Comments: A book that has become quite popular as well as the winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Although it is a book meant for a class study in the fate of the human societies, it bundles in it's 457 pages a brief history of man. No small task. Although the author, Jered Diamond, believed his book was about his explanation that there is no difference in the intelligence of a native in New Guinea who lives in a hut and a European walking around with a cell telephone headed toward an airplane, it is much more. He has collected information that shows how the land masses with it's weather, it's soil, the lay of the land from mountains to dessert created various environment on all the continents which produced or didn't produce certain size animals, different plants, distribution of water, etc. etc. which allowed certain civilizations to grow in greater numbers than in other areas. He carefully presents a time travel which allows the reader to see the various steppes of mankind as he lived through the ages to the present time. A good example was the distribution of large animals that were present in Europe that the people were able to domesticate and use not only for pack animals but provided the strength needed to plow a field or a heavy laden wagons, while at the same time produced the manure needed to replenish the fields planted with the plant such as wheat and barley... Wheels had been invented for vehicles that allowed the movement of not just grain but people..... The wheel's large and small became part of other inventions..... This book, however, isn't a book on connections of various inventions. Jered Diamond is based on what his title suggests: Guns, Germans and Steel. Example. When the explorers from Europe arrived in the area we know, now, as South America they brought germs such as small pox. The swept of small pox across America eliminated the enemy. No one is sure how many people died. Only in recent years are we discovering huge cities which ceased to exist and the cities became ghost towns and fell to ruin and vanished with time. Some cities held up to 100 people, proving they, too, had evolved into nations similar to what was occurring in Europe and Asia. But these people in the Americas hadn't acquired the immune system to our germs because they didn't have the kind of germs such as small pox because they didn't have the same animals from whom the Europeans and Asians had. Instead of war defeating the nations in America, germs was far more deadly and spread far more quickly.
Through his whirlwind of taking the reader through 13,000 years of history of the world and it's peoples, he explains how we, the people, ended up as were are and why some people, although more intelligent, became extinct. He explains, however, like a professor. My suggestion is: Don't sit down an read it from cover to cover. It's a pick up and read several chapters at a time kind of book. And if you are allergic to this kind of "intellectual" book, then just pick it up and look at the various illustrations and maps. On page 207, Table 11.1 Deadly Gifts from Our Animals Friends:
Measles from cattle
Tuberculosis from cattle
Smallpox from cattle or other livestock related to pox viruses
Flu from pigs and ducks
Pertussis from pigs and dogs
Falciparum malaria from birds (chickens and ducks?)
If you chose one chapter to read, I'd suggest Chapter 10 titled 'SPACIOUS SKIES AND TILTED AXES". This chapter explains the effect of weather from north to south, from east to west, and it's effect upon animals, plants and people. The Americas is north and south. Africa is north and south. Asia and Europe is east and west.
Although I have read, heard or seen on the educational television shows all of these facts in bites and pieces, it was interesting, to me, to see all these facts collected in this one book.
My only criticism of this book is organization of subjects which caused him the need to repeat facts too many times. I suspect, Jered Diamond found it necessary since he knew most people would read just a few chapters that interested them and these people would miss the reasons for having written the book if he had not repeated these reasons.
Should prove an interesting discussion for all ages.
Nov. :
Dec.
Feb
March:
April:
| It was the general agreement that Anita Diamant created the fictional world of Dinah, daughter of the historical Jacob, who's life can be found in the bible in the Book of Genesis, with a great deal of care and believability.. This ancient world, so often written by others since that time, is more often than not seen through the eyes of the men. Therefore, we are present with the rare treat of seeing the biblical people through the eyes of a female. Men did not enter the Red Tent, only females, who found this place more than a place where woman was free of all the males for about three days each month, therefore, giving us a view of the female's social structure. Inside and outside of the Red Tent, Dinah's character introduces [for some she reintroduces] us to her father Jacob, his four wives -- Leah, Rachel, Zilpah and Bilhah -- as well as all her brothers. All these people come alive as shepherds, farmers, slaves, artisans, ..... wives and midwifes.... The latter two is the life Dinah takes and this decision provides her the reason to travel and live in a foreign land. This book holds many issues to discuss and was well received by our group as being a book worth reading. |
May:
Seabiscuit
by Laura Hillenbrand
Comments:
My favorite book of this book year is Seabiscuit, which pulls the reader at a gallop
through the lives of this famous horse's life which was surrounded by interesting
and very real characters,and, you feel that if one of these characters had not been
a part of the horse's life, he would not have been a winner.
When you're finished reading this book, you will discover you've gained a great
deal of accurate knowledge about the world of racing horses in times of Seabiscuit.
Perhaps my nostalgia of Seabiscuit is showing. As a child I remember reading
everything printed about Seabiscuit. This book of Laura Hillenbrand presented
to me the reason I and so many others were swept up and into the life of this
racehorse at that time in our history.
June: Dinner ______________
Choices for the 2000 -2001 Book Year
Oct
Poisonwood Bible
Barbara Kingsolver
Comments: The largest turn out we've had in a long time was the results of reading Kingsolver's book about a white Baptist preacher taking his family to Africa with the hopes of saving all the black souls for his God.
Never through the preacher's eyes but only through the eyes of his wife's and daughter's do we get to know the husband, the father, the preacher and the man. Each character becomes a symbolic "ugly American" troding on foreign soil.
The extreme differences between the white Baptist family and the African natives cut harsh lines that divide the white Protestant American and the black natives of Africa from the first page to the last. No matter how hard each character tries to understand or become a part of Africa they merely define the dividing lines even more sharply and deeper. Although the author uses the word bible in her title, the majority of the readers don't see this book as a religious adventure but more of a political statement which I precieve to be: Americans can't change the world into huge fields of waving wheat, super markets and towns with houses in a neat row with roads which lead to churches on Sunday or a Constitutional government.
The majority of our club liked the book and recommend it. Most found this to be Kingsolver's best book. While, I, who have never liked Kingsolver's extreme feminist attitudes toward the male gender or her lenient political views toward communists, found all of this true, again, in this book. I, also, felt that if a strong editor would have gotten hold of this book and had to explained to Kingsolver that she need not have to repeat and repeat and repeat her messages, I think, I might have given the revised book a good review based on her writing abilities. For the first time, I see a glimmer of her abilities in some of her sentences and paragraphs, even a chapter or two, which allowed me to forget her sharp edged feminist views and experience moments of enjoyment of her real talent she can have with words. I suspect she may have in her a future book which her peers may give her the Pulitzer.....
Nov.
Another Country
Mary Pipher
Comments:The words on the cover of the book state"Navigating the emotional terrain of our elders". So, this is one of those "self-help" books for people who have parents who are aging or, if you are the ancient one, find yourself and see what the younger people think of you. The discussion proved interesting and we all had something to add.
Dec.
To Kill A Mockingbird
Comments: A timeless story about a little girl who knew what was right and what was wrong, while the world of adults around her couldn't grasp the tragedy occurring in front of them in and out of the court room where a blackman was being accused and tried for murder. A classic worth reading.
Jan.
The Bell Jar
Sylvia Plath
Comments: Sylvia Plath's story was published one month after her suicide in 1963. It became the book that writers who followed would read if they were interested in an accurate portrait of a woman suffering depression. She is still quoted because her young Ester Greenwood cried out with the same kind of pain just like people, today, suffering from the same mental anguish while in their world of depression. "After nineteen years of running after good marks and prizes and grants of one sort and another, I was letting up, slowing down, dropping clean out of the race." and "I thought how strange it had never occurred to me before that I was only purely happy until I was nine years old."Although dated [1950s time period], the book is a must read and is filled with material worth discussing., Miss Ester Greenwood,
Feb.
The Hours
Michael Cunningham
Virginia Wolf
March
House of Sand and Fog
Andre Dubus III
Comments: It is the kind of book that every American should read because of our political upevil in the Arab countries and our lack of understanding these new immigrants in the USA . Its a story about and how one selfish and careless American woman caused an Iranian man and his family to suffer to the point when none can turn back but only head straight into a collision and her boyfriend to go against the law he had sworn to uphold when he became a sherif. The publishers called the book "A mixture of classical tragedy..." I'd say it's a slice of life in the USA which proves our lack of understanding to each other can be tragic.
April
Two Years Before the Mast
Richard Dana
Comments:
An excellent classic about a young man, the author just out of Yale, who becomes part of a sailing ship's crew. Dana vividly describes life on the ship as well as the early days when California was Spanish territory and time when a man had to learn about the world without radio and television. The writing is marvelous and there are many subjects to discuss.
May
Palace Walk
Naguib Mahfouz
Comments: I think this tells you what you need to know and what will carry you into the book and world in which most Americans know very little on page 35: "...She began to amuse herself by looking at the roofs and streets. The yearnings would not leave her. She turned her back on the wall. Looking at the unknown had overwhelmed her: both what is unknown to most people, the invisible spirit world, and the unknown with respect to her in particular, Cairo, even the adjacent neighborhood, from which voices reached her. What could this world of which she saw nothing but the minarets and roofs be like? A quarter of a century had passed while she was confined to this house, leaving it only infrequent to visit her mother... Her husband escorted her on each visit in a carriage, because he could not bear for anyone to see his wife, either alone or accompanied by him." When this woman, a wife and mother goes to a religious place without her husband or his permission, the husband tells her to leave their home. The rest of the story is how the lives of this Egyptian family unfolds in their strict culture that has existed longer than the stone on Mohammed's grave... Another good discussion.
June -- Dinner
Summer Read:
Guns, Germs and Steel
Jered Diamond
List of Other Books That Were Not Picked This Time were:
Walking Out On The Boys by Francis Conley
The Tie That Binds by Kent Haruf
Left For Dead by Beck Weathers and Stephen G. Michaud
The Girl in the Photograph by Gabrielle Donnelly
Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong
Perfect Storm by Sebastion Junger
In My Hands: Memoirs of Holocaust Rescuer by Irene Gut
Memoirs of A Geisha by Arthur Golden
Life Along The Silk Road by Susan Whitfield
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