I know it's been that busy time of year ladies, but I'm soooo looking forward to seeing you all and hosting our next book club at my place on Tuesday, January 10th. We will be discussing our final Fall choice: "The Paris Wife" and enjoying some French treats!
I am only half-way through, so I will post some questions over the weekend (in case they ruin something for us!)
So mark your calendars for next Tuesday after 7:30 and come equipped with some more book choices as well!
See you then!
RFab xoxo
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Monday, October 17, 2011
Yikes!!!
So I'm sitting in a waiting room with my Kobo and our latest pick:
"The Fates Will Find Their Way" and I'm still playing on my iPhone and
reading magazines around me...
"The Fates Will Find Their Way" and I'm still playing on my iPhone and
reading magazines around me...
This is not a good sign (especially considering that I brought this
suggestion to BFab!) I just cannot get into this book ladies :( Is
anyone else with me? I mean, I do like going into the minds of the
young boys and remembering what it was like at their age, but I'm
getting easily confused trying to follow along and find that I'm not
really interested in what happened afterall!
I am only half way through the book and have had plenty of
opportunities to finish, so when Nat D sent her reminder email this
morning I realized how far behind I am! I am so looking forward to
hearing what everybody else thinks.
See you next Tuesday at our Newly-Engaged Bfaber Nat D's house!!!
xoxo RFab
Sent from my iPhone
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Schedule
The Fates will Find Their Way
October 25th
Hostess: Natalie D
Cutting for Stone
November 22nd
Tracy
Paris Wife
January 10th
Renee?? (possibly Erinn, we'll see how things are going with our dear soon to be momma)
Fall 2011 Book Club
Welcome back from the summer and welcome to the new members, Tracy, Jamie and Rebecca! Julie started the round of book club on an excellent note. Thanks for the delicious food and new recipes.
We selected 3 new books for the next several months. They were, The Fates will Find Their Way, Cutting for Stone and Paris Wife.
The Fates will Find Their Way by Hannah Pritchard
Hannah Pritchard also wrote the book the Virgin Suicides, which you may recall was made into a movie starring Kristin Dunst. Has anyone seen it?
As for her current novel, The Fates will Find Their Way it is a similar story to the Virgin Suicides in that it is centred around a tragedy within a town. If you are interested in what someone else thought about the book, there was a review in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/books/review/Gilmore-t.html It’s not glowing, but it will be interesting to compare the reviewer thoughts with our own at the next book club.
Book Description:
Sixteen-year-old Nora Lindell is missing. And the neighborhood boys she's left behind are caught forever in the heady current of her absence.
As the days and years pile up, the mystery of her disappearance grows kaleidoscopically. A collection of rumors, divergent suspicions, and tantalizing what-ifs, Nora Lindell's story is a shadowy projection of teenage lust, friendship, reverence, and regret, captured magically in the disembodied plural voice of the boys who still long for her.
Told in haunting, percussive prose, Hannah Pittard's beautifully crafted novel tracks the emotional progress of the sister Nora left behind, the other families in their leafy suburban enclave, and the individual fates of the boys in her thrall. Far more eager to imagine Nora's fate than to scrutinize their own, the boys sleepwalk into an adulthood of jobs, marriages, families, homes, and daughters of their own, all the while pining for a girl–and a life–that no longer exists, except in the imagination.
A masterful literary debut that shines a light into the dream-filled space between childhood and all that follows, The Fates Will Find Their Way is a story about the stories we tell ourselves–of who we once were and may someday become.
Cutting for Stone by Ambraham Verghese
When I was searching for information on Cutting for Stone I came across this interesting website called Good Reads. Here you can search for a book and read other peoples reviews and see what others have rated the book. Cutting for Stone got 4.24 out of 5 from 34,000 reviewers. So it looks like a LOT of other people liked the book!
Book Description:
Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa. Orphaned by their mother’s death in childbirth and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Yet it will be love, not politics—their passion for the same woman—that will tear them apart and force Marion, fresh out of medical school, to flee his homeland. He makes his way to America, finding refuge in his work as an intern at an underfunded, overcrowded New York City hospital. When the past catches up to him—nearly destroying him—Marion must entrust his life to the two men he thought he trusted least in the world: the surgeon father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
Book Description
No twentieth-century American writer has captured the popular imagination as much as Ernest Hemingway. This novel tells his story from a unique point of view — that of his first wife, Hadley. Through her eyes and voice, we experience Paris of the Lost Generation and meet fascinating characters such as Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and Gerald and Sara Murphy. The city and its inhabitants provide a vivid backdrop to this engrossing and wrenching story of love and betrayal that is made all the more poignant knowing that, in the end, Hemingway would write of his first wife, "I wish I had died before I loved anyone but her."
Monday, September 26, 2011
What's next???
Hey Erinn??? I came on tonight to check which books we had decided on for the next three months only to find ... gasp... no post from you!!! Now you've had a solid week - We want/need to see your recap of our BFab night and the choices we made so we know what to do. Give us direction pretty please!!! (or you're fired)... Oops who wrote that? Rude!
xoxo RFab ;)
xoxo RFab ;)
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
It actually exists!!!
Ok...enough picking on Tara already. This is not a case of "Glass Floorboard" as we suspected. "Human Smoke" is a novel and is written by Nicholson Baker, however, it seems like a really heavy non-fiction. (Also please note that I chose the picture stating how they are practically giving it away at 100% off!!!) LOL!
Here's the synopsis in case we wish to change our selections:
Bestselling author Nicholson Baker, recognized as one of the most dexterous and talented writers in America today, has created a compelling work of nonfiction bound to provoke discussion and controversy -- a wide-ranging, astonishingly fresh perspective on the political and social landscape that gave rise to World War II.
Human Smoke delivers a closely textured, deeply moving indictment of the treasured myths that have romanticized much of the 1930s and ''40s. Incorporating meticulous research and well-documented sources -- including newspaper and magazine articles, radio speeches, memoirs, and diaries -- the book juxtaposes hundreds of interrelated moments of decision, brutality, suffering, and mercy. Vivid glimpses of political leaders and their dissenters illuminate and examine the gradual, horrifying advance toward overt global war and Holocaust.
Praised by critics and readers alike for his exquisitely observant eye and deft, inimitable prose, Baker has assembled a narrative within Human Smoke that unfolds gracefully, tragically, and persuasively. This is an unforgettable book that makes a profound impact on our perceptions of historical events and mourns the unthinkable loss humanity has borne at its own hand.
So what do we think? If we're not sure, check out all the details listed under "About the Author" on Chapters/Indigo website:
About The Author:
Nicholson Baker lives in Maine.
Ha! Thanks...I'm super intrigued!!!
Good night ladies and thanks for great re-start of BFab. Looking forward to another fun year full of delicious treats, drinks and conversation. Julie raised the bar on this one!
xoxo RFab
Here's the synopsis in case we wish to change our selections:
Bestselling author Nicholson Baker, recognized as one of the most dexterous and talented writers in America today, has created a compelling work of nonfiction bound to provoke discussion and controversy -- a wide-ranging, astonishingly fresh perspective on the political and social landscape that gave rise to World War II.
Human Smoke delivers a closely textured, deeply moving indictment of the treasured myths that have romanticized much of the 1930s and ''40s. Incorporating meticulous research and well-documented sources -- including newspaper and magazine articles, radio speeches, memoirs, and diaries -- the book juxtaposes hundreds of interrelated moments of decision, brutality, suffering, and mercy. Vivid glimpses of political leaders and their dissenters illuminate and examine the gradual, horrifying advance toward overt global war and Holocaust.
Praised by critics and readers alike for his exquisitely observant eye and deft, inimitable prose, Baker has assembled a narrative within Human Smoke that unfolds gracefully, tragically, and persuasively. This is an unforgettable book that makes a profound impact on our perceptions of historical events and mourns the unthinkable loss humanity has borne at its own hand.
So what do we think? If we're not sure, check out all the details listed under "About the Author" on Chapters/Indigo website:
About The Author:
Nicholson Baker lives in Maine.
Ha! Thanks...I'm super intrigued!!!
Good night ladies and thanks for great re-start of BFab. Looking forward to another fun year full of delicious treats, drinks and conversation. Julie raised the bar on this one!
xoxo RFab
BFab tonight!
Looking forward to finally getting back into it tonight ladies, and especially to see what suggestions everyone has to bring to the table. I am currently reading a real literary treat called "Sleeping Arrangements" but Madeline Wickham. O.K., so it's really Sophie Kinsella and it takes no brain to get through it, but I am enjoying it, although it's not as funny as many of her other books...a little sad really.
I wanted to share some random possible suggestions for our next year ahead. My only problem with looking up new suggestions to read is that most book descriptions now give a little too much away. I do like some element of surprise when reading. Nothing's worse than knowing someone is going to die when you meet them at the beginning of a story, eh?
Anyways, check out these three suggestions:
Called "The Fates Will Find Their Way" By Hannah Pittard
Here's what was written about it:
A 16-year-old named Nora goes missing from her tight-knit community one Halloween night and is never seen or heard from again. Though the premise sounds familiar, Hannah Pittard's mesmerizing debut, The Fates Will Find Their Way (Ecco), is no police procedural. With every carefully chosen word—and in this short, intense novel, each one counts—Pittard brilliantly draws us into the maturing consciousness of a group of neighborhood boys who make Nora's sudden but continuing absence the defining event of their lives over the next 30 years. Narrating in a collective first-person voice reminiscent of Jeffrey Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides, the boys reveal their life stories through the prism of their fascination with the missing girl's fate. They collect clues and hearsay, and imagine scenarios for Nora that range from murder to teen motherhood to lesbian love in Mumbai, all the while experiencing their own rites of passage—sex, drugs, marriage. As husbands, they maintain collective fantasies and share "vague and unfair comparisons between what our wives were and what she might have been." Gradually we see how the boys, at times indistinguishable, have developed as individuals: The one envied because he may have slept with Nora becomes a sexual predator; the pitied "weird kid" ends up happy. He's the one, in fact, who compels the others to let go of the past and accept "the obvious realization that this—this, all around us—is our life."— Liza Nelson
And then, there's a novel called "Before I go to Sleep" by S.J. Watson
which is described like this:
"As I sleep, my mind will erase everything I did today. I will wake up tomorrow as I did this morning. Thinking I?m still a child. Thinking I have a whole lifetime of choice ahead of me. . . ."
Memories define us.
So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep?
Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love?all forgotten overnight.
And the one person you trust may be telling you only half the story.
Welcome to Christine's life.
And now...we want to know more right? I like this description...gripping!
And for my third, a novel called "The Ninth Wife" by Amy Stolls
"Thirty-something Bess Gray has resigned herself to a lifetime of being single when she meets handsome, charming, and hilariously funny Rory. Rory and Bess hit it off instantly, and before long, he’s asked for her hand in marriage. Imagine Bess’s shock and surprise when Rory reveals his big secret just after their engagement: he’s already been married eight times. Bess decides that in order to accept his proposal, she needs to get as many facts as possible about these wives. So along with her aging grandparents and her gay best friend, Bess sets out on a journey to meet as many of the wives as possible and get their sides of her future husband’s story."
I'm really not sure what kind of book I'm in the mood for next, obviously, but these three seemed interesting. There were many more I would read, but among all the members of BFab, they've been read!!! Damn you all!
Looking forward to tonight...see you at Erinn's!
xoxo RFab
I wanted to share some random possible suggestions for our next year ahead. My only problem with looking up new suggestions to read is that most book descriptions now give a little too much away. I do like some element of surprise when reading. Nothing's worse than knowing someone is going to die when you meet them at the beginning of a story, eh?
Anyways, check out these three suggestions:
Called "The Fates Will Find Their Way" By Hannah Pittard
Here's what was written about it:
A 16-year-old named Nora goes missing from her tight-knit community one Halloween night and is never seen or heard from again. Though the premise sounds familiar, Hannah Pittard's mesmerizing debut, The Fates Will Find Their Way (Ecco), is no police procedural. With every carefully chosen word—and in this short, intense novel, each one counts—Pittard brilliantly draws us into the maturing consciousness of a group of neighborhood boys who make Nora's sudden but continuing absence the defining event of their lives over the next 30 years. Narrating in a collective first-person voice reminiscent of Jeffrey Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides, the boys reveal their life stories through the prism of their fascination with the missing girl's fate. They collect clues and hearsay, and imagine scenarios for Nora that range from murder to teen motherhood to lesbian love in Mumbai, all the while experiencing their own rites of passage—sex, drugs, marriage. As husbands, they maintain collective fantasies and share "vague and unfair comparisons between what our wives were and what she might have been." Gradually we see how the boys, at times indistinguishable, have developed as individuals: The one envied because he may have slept with Nora becomes a sexual predator; the pitied "weird kid" ends up happy. He's the one, in fact, who compels the others to let go of the past and accept "the obvious realization that this—this, all around us—is our life."— Liza Nelson
And then, there's a novel called "Before I go to Sleep" by S.J. Watson
which is described like this:
"As I sleep, my mind will erase everything I did today. I will wake up tomorrow as I did this morning. Thinking I?m still a child. Thinking I have a whole lifetime of choice ahead of me. . . ."
Memories define us.
So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep?
Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love?all forgotten overnight.
And the one person you trust may be telling you only half the story.
Welcome to Christine's life.
And now...we want to know more right? I like this description...gripping!
And for my third, a novel called "The Ninth Wife" by Amy Stolls
"Thirty-something Bess Gray has resigned herself to a lifetime of being single when she meets handsome, charming, and hilariously funny Rory. Rory and Bess hit it off instantly, and before long, he’s asked for her hand in marriage. Imagine Bess’s shock and surprise when Rory reveals his big secret just after their engagement: he’s already been married eight times. Bess decides that in order to accept his proposal, she needs to get as many facts as possible about these wives. So along with her aging grandparents and her gay best friend, Bess sets out on a journey to meet as many of the wives as possible and get their sides of her future husband’s story."
I'm really not sure what kind of book I'm in the mood for next, obviously, but these three seemed interesting. There were many more I would read, but among all the members of BFab, they've been read!!! Damn you all!
Looking forward to tonight...see you at Erinn's!
xoxo RFab
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