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.....

April 21st. Meeting

Last night was our first meeting since our "March Break". Everyone was present and it was lovely to be back together. We took another stab at a Classic with Nathanial Hawthorn's most famous book, The Scarlett Letter. Happily everyone had read it. The opinions were, as usual ,varied. A couple of our members reported that although they did enjoy the story and appreciated the talent of the author,they still find they don't enjoy novels written pre -twentieth century. This is a perfectly legitimate opinion. For the most part we enjoyed the novel though and everyone participated in a lively discussion of the story, the characters and the social morals of the time. One of the things I found most interesting was the discussion of how important it was to address novels written in or about the past from the perspective of the people of that time. There is the temptation to apply our morals or standards on everyone and it can cloud our opinions. This also applies to novels written about different cultures. Not everyone thinks like we do. We discussed whether to continue selecting Classics, but did not come to a resolution. It will come up again I'm sure. Pat had an interesting idea about including some poetry in our meetings. We decided that if someone had a poem they would like to share, they could bring it along when they present their book. I look forward to that.
Next month we will discuss Fran's choice, American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld. Apparently it is a loosely veiled account of the life of Laura Bush. I'm excited to read it. Till next month.....

February 17, 2010 Meeting

Tonight we met at Catherine's home to discuss her choice for the month. We read a Mystery, The Private Patient by P.D. Lawrence. This was the second book we have read by this author. Again this month we were a smaller group due to the fact that two of our members Fran and Verna, were still away spending their winter in the south. However they both sent along an e-mail with their comments on the book. It's not as good as having them with us to participate in the discussion of course, but it does enable them to be at least a part of the meeting. Hats off to technology!
The discussion itself was fairly low key. Most agreed that it was an entertaining read but not a story that would elicit much discussion. The general conclusion was that perhaps we should avoid choosing the same author in any category for our monthly selection.
We will be taking the month of March off as even more of our members will be heading south. Hope they have packed lots of good books! We will meet again in April to discuss Pat's choice in the Classic category, Nathanial Hawthorne's "The Scarlett Letter". Until Then........

January 13th, 2010 Meeting

Tonight we met at Deb's house to discuss this months selection, Eat Pray Love. We were missing two members Verna and Fran, who are currently down south, however we did have e-mails from both of them with their comments and Verna was able to join us for a short time via Skype. I think this was one of the best meetings we have had. First off, everyone had read the book! For the most part everyone seemed to enjoy the book to various degrees. We each had some criticisms but for the most part everyone found a degree of inspiration from it. We had a very lively, moving and at times humorous discussion. There were some very tender stories exchanged and we had a lot of good laughs. It is interesting how each meeting is so different depending on that months selection. Some books are about the story, some about the literature and some teach lessons. The really good ones combine all of these things! Next month we move onto our Mystery. Till then.....

December 9, 2009 Meeting

Tonight's meeting was a little different from our regular meetings. Due to a death in the family Janet was unable to host the meeting in November. It was decided that as it was Janet's choice of books we did not want to go on without her so the meeting was deferred to the next month. We decided to combine two meetings in one and discuss both November's book The Shack as well as Verna's choice for December Victor Hugo's, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The meeting was held at Janet's home. This would be the last meeting of this year that we would all be together as some of our members will be heading south.
There was a variety of opinions regarding The Shack but all in all in was probably not one of the more popular books we read. Some of us liked the book to a point and felt it had some positive messages while others felt it was both poorly written and of little value. It is always risky when books of a religious nature are discussed. People are a little more guarded with their opinions for fear of offending someone.
The second book we discussed was Verna's choice of the classic Hunchback of Notre Dame. Again opinions were varied. A few of us loved the book both for it's story and the skill of the author Victor Hugo. A couple of us just couldn't get past the language or felt the story was dragging at points and abandoned it and a couple just didn't bother reading it. Reasons such as lack of interest and lack of time were cited for this. On a personal note I find it disappointing when our members do not make at least a noble attempt to read the novel of the month. It is after all the reason we have a "Book Club". We discussed dropping classics from our list as they seem to cause problems for some of us. It was decided to give it one more try with Pat's upcoming choice of The Scarlett Letter. I hope everyone will enjoy it and appreciate it.
Now it is onto next months selection of Eat, Pray, Love. Quite a departure from Mr. Hugo!

Our Second Annual Outing

This month we are having two meetings of our club. We have a scheduled meeting on Nov. 19Th to discuss this months book but as well as that we had our annual Outing. It was a wonderful evening. A Limo picked us up and drove us to Toronto. On board we enjoyed wine and snacks and lots of laughs. We then had dinner at Gretzky's, followed by a performance of the Second City Troupe. The performance was very good, very topical addressing a lot of political and social issues in a very tongue in cheek manner. I think it is safe to say that we all enjoyed it very much. It's wonderful to be out with a group of friends and spend the whole evening laughing. It was great therapy!!! After a fabulous evening and several bottles of wine our Limo whisked us back home. Everyone was tired but happy and may I say that almost everyone got up and exercised the next morning. Well done ladies! Plans for next years outing are already in the works. Now it's back to discussing our book. See you on the 19Th.