August 25th. Meeting

Tonight was a special night for our club. We have undergone some changes in the past few months. Tonight we welcomed two new members Vicki and Bev. It is great to have them join us.
The book for this month was The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton. The consensus was that this was a very enjoyable book. It was well written and had a very compelling story line. The story line crosses back and forth over three generations of women. Some of our members reported that they usually don't enjoy that style of writing but in this case did. We were able to talk about what it would be like to be a woman in Victorian times and how restricted the morals were. Some of the discussion centered on choices people make and how they impact their own lives and the lives of others, sometimes for generations. We discussed how it isn't always easy to judge the decisions people make. Sometimes they do the wrong thing for the right reason. Life is complicated. We also enjoyed the many layers to this book. It was in part, a story worthy of Dickens, a Fairy Tale and a love story. We enjoyed the fact that the characters were well developed, multi faceted and interesting. In all a good read for everyone.
Next month we take a completely different path when we read Janet's choice of Princess. Till then......

July 21st Meeting and so much more!

This is the first posting to the Blog I have made in sometime so I will try to catch up. We have had an eventful few months. In May we had our usual meeting, at Fran's home where we discussed the current book choice An American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld. Again the book received mixed reviews. Some liked it quite a lot while some not as much, although no one thoroughly dismissed it. There was one interesting criticism of the book that a couple of the members had. This book was obviously inspired by George Bush's family. It was not very complimentary in many ways and fairly sexually graphic. We felt that the author was cowardly to make it so obvious without having the integrity to say up front that he was using them as his template. Perhaps he feared a lawsuit? Again, a good discussion. Unfortunately a couple of weeks after that meeting one of our original members Catherine, decided to quit. We are not entirely sure of her reasons although she was very candid that she was not a "big reader" and hoped the club would inspire her. She often had trouble with our selections and possibly felt that it wasn't something she enjoyed after all. We were all sad to lose her but respected her decision.
In June we were to meet at Linda's cottage to discuss the Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry. That month we lost a very dear friend of all of us. He died just before our scheduled get away. Needless to say the trip was cancelled. We were all extremely upset and we did not have a meeting that month.
This past month we rescheduled our meeting at the cottage. All plans were made and we all looked forward to our trip up north. The night before we were to leave another Member, Verna, e-mailed us to say she was not well and would not be joining us. She has been going through some difficult times and we suspected this was the cause. We carried on with our plans and had a wonderful time in spite of her absence. I am afraid what with all the other discussions about some community issues and our concerns over Verna we did not spend too much time on the book. I can only speak for myself when I say that it was a book I would recommend. When we returned we found that Verna had decided to quit the club altogether. This was a blow to all of us. As mentioned we know she is having some personal issues and it is effecting alot of her choices. We can do nothing but respect her decision.
On a much happier note we have a new member to our club, Bev. She had expressed an interest in joining previously, and with the loss of two members, it seemed the perfect time for a fresh face with new ideas. She will be joining us for our next meeting on Aug. 25th to discuss The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton. I believe she will be a wonderful addition and hope she enjoys the club. We would love to get back to our simple love of books with no drama for awhile. Till next month.....