Mrs. Mike by Benedict & Nancy Freedman

Wow, our next book group will be in 2013!!  On Thursday, January 3rd, at 7:30pm, we'll meet at Melissa's house to discuss Mrs. Mike by Benedict and Nancy Freedman.

"A classic tale that has enchanted millions of readers worldwide, Mrs. Mike brings the fierce, stunning landscape of the Great North to life—and masterfully evokes the tender, touching moments that bring a man and a woman together forever.

"Recently arrived in Calgary, Alberta after a long, hard journey from Boston, sixteen-year-old Katherine Mary O’Fallon never imagined that she could lose her heart so easily—or so completely. Standing over six feet tall, with “eyes so blue you could swim in them,” Mike Flannigan is a well-respected sergeant in the Canadian Mounted Police—and a man of great courage, kindness, and humor. Together, he and his beloved Kathy manage to live a good, honest life in this harsh, unforgiving land—and find strength in a love as beautiful and compelling as the wilderness around them…"  -From Amazon.com

Spring Came On Forever by Bess Streeter Aldrich

Our next book is Spring Came On Forever by Bess Streeter Aldrich.  We'll be meeting on December 6th at 7:30pm at Sharon's house.

Click here to read this book for free online.

"Acclaimed for her 1928 novel A Lantern in Her Hand, Bess Streeter Aldrich became one of the most widely read interpreters of the prairie pioneer experience. In 1935, she published her masterpiece, Spring Came on Forever, a novel of two Nebraska pioneer families from settlement to the 1930s. Elsewhere an artist of the romance, here Aldrich turns romance on its head. The heroine is Amalia Holmsdorfer, one of a band of German immigrants who settle on the prairie. From her late teens to her mid-eighties she confronts and defeats the forces of nature and society that discourage or ruin others. Her life might be a modest triumph but for one detail: she married the wrong man. Quickly paced and precisely drawn, this novel is Aldrich's greatest tribute to the complexity, humor, endurance, and intelligence of the people who settled the prairie. Whatever its sentiments, it has as many cutting edges as a buzz saw."

--From GoodReads.com

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

Our next book group will be held on Thursday, November 1st at 7:30pm at Lauren's home.  We will be discussing The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim.  You can download a free Kindle copy, or  read it for free online.  It is also less than $6 to purchase on Amazon.com.

"A recipe for happiness: four women, one medieval Italian castle, plenty of wisteria, and solitude as needed.


"The women at the center of The Enchanted April are alike only in their dissatisfaction with their everyday lives. They find each other—and the castle of their dreams—through a classified ad in a London newspaper one rainy February afternoon. The ladies expect a pleasant holiday, but they don’t anticipate that the month they spend in Portofino will reintroduce them to their true natures and reacquaint them with joy. Now, if the same transformation can be worked on their husbands and lovers, the enchantment will be complete."  -From New York Review Books

New Changes!

For those of you not at our last book group meeting, and to summarize for those that were, here are a couple changes that were discussed and voted on...

Scheduling
Due to scheduling conflicts, book group has now been moved to the first Thursday of each month.  The book that was scheduled for the end of October will be pushed back one week to the first Thursday of November and we will continue on from there.  We originally did not have a book scheduled in December due to the holidays, however, now our original November book will be discussed the first week of December.  For 2013, each book on the schedule will be moved from the end of the month to the first week of the same month.  Please check the schedule in the right side bar for the most recent updates to the schedule.

 Book Voting
By popular vote, we will experiment with doing anonymous, online book voting for our next round of book selections.  That book voting will most likely occur sometime in late Spring, so stay tuned for more details.  But in summary, it was decided that the next time we vote on new books to read, each person wishing to recommend a book to the group will submit 1-2 book titles and summaries to me.  (If you don't include a summary I will pull one from online.)  An online survey will then be sent out for you to give your input on how interested you are in reading each book on a scale from 1 to 5.  The top 12 books with the highest average votes will be added to our book group schedule for the next year.

I know there were some concerns with trying the voting this way, and I agree that the system might not be perfect, but there was enough interest in trying it, that I thought it was worth doing at least once.  After the voting is done we can all discuss how we liked it and decide whether we want to continue with online voting or not.  So be thinking now of what books you might like to suggest, and as always, please only suggest books that you have previously read and that are available at the library or to purchase for a reasonable price.


Happy reading!

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

For our September book group we will be discussing Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand.  We will be meeting at Heather's house on Thursday, September 27th, at 7:30pm.



"On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood.  Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared.  It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard.  So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.

"The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini.  In boyhood, he’d been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to ride the rails.  As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile.  But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.

"Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater.  Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion.  His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will.

"In her long-awaited new book, Laura Hillenbrand writes with the same rich and vivid narrative voice she displayed in Seabiscuit.  Telling an unforgettable story of a man’s journey into extremity, Unbroken is a testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit." 

--From GoodReads.com

This I Believe by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman

Our next book group will be on Wednesday, August 22nd at 7:30pm at Liz's house.  We will be discussing This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of  Remarkable Men and Women by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman.  It is a collection of short essays, so feel free to read as few or as many as you can and come join us for the discussion.

"Based on the National Public Radio series of the same name, This I Believe features eighty essayists--from the famous to the unknown--completing the thought that begins the book's title. Each piece compels readers to rethink not only how they have arrived at their own personal beliefs but also the extent to which they share them with others.

"Featuring a well-known list of contributors--including Isabel Allende, Colin Powell, Gloria Steinem, William F. Buckley Jr., Penn Jillette, Bill Gates, and John Updike--the collection also contains essays by a Brooklyn lawyer; a part-time hospital clerk from Rehoboth, Massachusetts; a woman who sells Yellow Pages advertising in Fort Worth, Texas; and a man who serves on the state of Rhode Island's parole board.

"The result is a stirring and provocative trip inside the minds and hearts of a diverse group of people whose beliefs--and the incredibly varied ways in which they choose to express them--reveal the American spirit at its best."    --From GoodReads.com

A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute

Our next book group will be on Wednesday, July 25th at 7:30pm at Nancy's house.  We'll be discussing Nevil Shute's A Town Like Alice.  Here's a short summary from GoodReads.com:


"Nevil Shute’s most beloved novel, a tale of love and war, follows its enterprising heroine from the Malayan jungle during World War II to the rugged Australian outback.

"Jean Paget, a young Englishwoman living in Malaya, is captured by the invading Japanese and forced on a brutal seven-month death march with dozens of other women and children. A few years after the war, Jean is back in England, the nightmare behind her. However, an unexpected inheritance inspires her to return to Malaya to give something back to the villagers who saved her life. Jean travels leads her to a desolate Australian outpost called Willstown, where she finds a challenge that will draw on all the resourcefulness and spirit that carried her through her war-time ordeals."

Falling Leaves by Adeline Yen Mah

Our book for June is Falling Leaves by Adeline Yen Mah.  We'll be meeting on Wednesday, June 27th at 7:30pm at Sarah's house.

"Born in 1937 in a port city a thousand miles north of Shanghai, Adeline Yen Mah was the youngest child of an affluent Chinese family who enjoyed rare privileges during a time of political and cultural upheaval. But wealth and position could not shield Adeline from a childhood of appalling emotional abuse at the hands of a cruel and manipulative Eurasian stepmother. Determined to survive through her enduring faith in family unity, Adeline struggled for independence as she moved from Hong Kong to England and eventually to the United States to become a physician and writer.

"A compelling, painful, and ultimately triumphant story of a girl's journey into adulthood, Adeline's story is a testament to the most basic of human needs: acceptance, love, and understanding. With a powerful voice that speaks of the harsh realities of growing up female in a family and society that kept girls in emotional chains, Falling Leaves is a work of heartfelt intimacy and a rare authentic portrait of twentieth-century China."  


--From GoodReads.com

Location Change

Just FYI...  Please note that we've had to change the location of May's book group.  We'll now be meeting at Jodi's house this Wednesday, May 16th at 7:30pm to discuss Daddy-Long-Legs.  See you all then!

A Couple Changes

I made a couple changes to the schedule to the right to reflect the addition of Liz's book. So in August 2012 we'll be reading her book, This I Believe:The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman.  (A big thank you to Joy for switching months with Liz before she moves!)  Liz's runner-up book was 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created by Charles C. Mann. 

Also, don't forget that May's book group is being moved a week earlier than normal, to May 16th at 7:30pm at Rosanne's house.

Happy reading!

Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster

Due to conflicting events, May's book group will be held a week earlier than usual--on May 16th at 7:30pm at Rosanne's house.  We'll be discussing Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster.  The eBook is available online at Google Books for FREE and is a quick and fun read!

"Jerusha Abbott has grown up in the John Grier Home for orphans. As the oldest, she is in charge of the younger children. An anonymous benefactor on the Board, "Mr. Smith," decides to send her to college, as long as she writes to him faithfully detailing her education. Originally published in 1912, Jean Webster's coming-of-age tale continues to be relevant to young women today. Actress Kate Forges shares these months and years, from freshman to senior in college. Through a series of letters Jerusha writes to "Daddy-Long-Legs," a relationship filled with affection and respect develops..."  --From GoodReads.com

And the Winners Are...

We had a great turn out at book group this week to discuss and vote on new books.  So many great books were suggested, but here is a list of the winners with our new schedule. (Please realize that planning our schedule so far out brings the possibility that changes might be made down the road, so check the right side bar for the most up-to-date schedule.)  And keep scrolling down to see a list of all the other books that were recommended as excellent reads.
 

Month	Book	Author	Hostess
June 2012	Falling Leaves	Adeline Yen Mah	Amy, at Sharon’s
July 2012	A Town Like Alice	Nevil Shute	Nancy
Aug 2012	Emma	Jane Austen	Joy
Sept 2012	Unbroken	Laura Hillenbrand	Heather
Oct 2012	The Enchanted April	Elizabeth Von Arnim	Lauren
Nov 2012	Spring Came on Forever	Bess Streeter Aldrich	Sharon
Dec 2012	No book discussion
Jan 2013	Mrs. Mike	Benedict and Nancy Freedman	Racheal, at Melissa’s
Feb 2013	Flipped	Wendelin Van Draanen	Melissa
March 2013	365 Thank Yous	John Kralik	Kathleen
April 2013	Unwind	Neal Shusterman	Jodi
May 2013	Vote on new books!		Jodi
June 2013	Danny the Champion of the World	Roald Dahl	Rosanne
July 2013	Being George Washington	Glenn Beck	Nadine

And the runners-up were...

Book	Author	Suggested by…
The Red Umbrella	Christina Diaz Gonzalez	Heather
Captains Courageous	Rudyard Kipling	Lauren
Moon Over Manifest	Clare Vanderpool	Nancy
Up a Road Slowly	Irene Hunt	Rosanne
The Poisonwood Bible	Barbara Kingsolver	Kathleen
The Girl Who Disappeared Twice	Andrea Kane	Amy
The Candy Shop War	Brandon Mull	Amy
Delirium	Lauren Oliver	Jodi
The Memory Keeper’s Daughter	Kim Edwards	Melissa
Daughters in My Kingdom	LDS Church	Nadine
Les Miserables	Victor Hugo	Nadine
The Host	Stephenie Meyer	Joy
Thale’s Folly	Dorothy Gilman	Sharon
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society	Mary Ann Schaffer & Annie Barrows	Racheal

Escape by Carolyn Jessop

Our book for April is Escape by Carolyn Jessop.  We'll be meeting on April 25th at 7:30pm at Melissa's house.

"The dramatic first-person account of life inside an ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect, and one woman’s courageous flight to freedom with her eight children.

"When she was eighteen years old, Carolyn Jessop was coerced into an arranged marriage with a total stranger: a man thirty-two years her senior. Merril Jessop already had three wives. But arranged plural marriages were an integral part of Carolyn’s heritage: She was born into and raised in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), the radical offshoot of the Mormon Church that had settled in small communities along the Arizona-Utah border. Over the next fifteen years, Carolyn had eight children and withstood her husband’s psychological abuse and the watchful eyes of his other wives who were locked in a constant battle for supremacy.

"Carolyn’s every move was dictated by her husband’s whims. He decided where she lived and how her children would be treated. He controlled the money she earned as a school teacher. He chose when they had sex; Carolyn could only refuse—at her peril. For in the FLDS, a wife’s compliance with her husband determined how much status both she and her children held in the family. Carolyn was miserable for years and wanted out, but she knew that if she tried to leave and got caught, her children would be taken away from her. No woman in the country had ever escaped from the FLDS and managed to get her children out, too. But in 2003, Carolyn chose freedom over fear and fled her home with her eight children. She had $20 to her name.

"Escape exposes a world tantamount to a prison camp, created by religious fanatics who, in the name of God, deprive their followers the right to make choices, force women to be totally subservient to men, and brainwash children in church-run schools. Against this background, Carolyn Jessop’s flight takes on an extraordinary, inspiring power. Not only did she manage a daring escape from a brutal environment, she became the first woman ever granted full custody of her children in a contested suit involving the FLDS. And in 2006, her reports to the Utah attorney general on church abuses formed a crucial part of the case that led to the arrest of their notorious leader, Warren Jeffs."   --From GoodReads.com

Get Ready for Book Voting in March!

We will be choosing new titles at our meeting on Wednesday, March 28th, so please come with some book suggestions.  (We will not be reading and discussing a book for this month--we will ONLY be doing the book voitng.  The discussion for Rosanne's book, Daddy-Long-Legs, has been moved to May.)  Here are some guidelines to follow as you think about which books you'd like to recommend, as well as some info about how the book voting will work:

• Each person will have the opportunity to briefly describe each of their 2-3 suggestions, then the group will vote on which one book from each person will be chosen.  If we have a large enough group, we will then put all those "winning" books into a pile to then vote on which 10-12 books will be chosen (or however many months out we want to plan).  The people who suggested the winning books will then be the discussion leaders for their books and be responsible for providing  a refreshment for that meeting. (Links to book discussion guides can be found in the right side bar.)
• If you'd like to suggest a book, please bring at least 2 or 3 suggestions so the group has options to vote on.
• All genres of literature are welcome (i.e. adult fiction, YA fiction, non-fiction, historical, biographies, religious, etc.)
• Please only suggest books that you have previously read so you can verify that they are appropriate for our group (books should not contain an inappropriate amount of bad language, violence, or sex).
• If possible, please bring an actual copy of each book you are suggesting to our book group voting.  This helps others get an idea of how long the book is, size of print, etc. although we all know not to judge a book by its cover!
• If you'd like to recommend some books, but are unable to attend that night, please contact Jodi, by email, Facebook, or this blog with your book suggestions and we'll make sure they get presented and voted on.

So be thinking now about what 2-3 books you'd like to recommend.  If you're struggling with ideas, you can always find popular books that got good reviews at GoodReads or Reading For Sanity (an excellent book review blog by a group of Mormon moms).  Find a book you think sounds interesting to discuss and pre-read it NOW to make sure it's appropriate for our group.  I'm so excited to see everyone's suggestions and find out what we'll be reading for the next several months!

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Our book for February is Still Alice by Lisa Genova.  We'll be meeting on Wednesday, February 22nd, at 7:30pm at Barb's house.

"Genova's debut revolves around Alice Howland - Harvard professor, gifted researcher and lecturer, wife, and mother of three grown children. One day, Alice sets out for a run and soon realizes she has no idea how to find her way home. It's a route she has taken for years, but nothing looks familiar. She is utterly lost. Is her forgetfulness the result of menopausal symptoms? A ministroke? A neurological cancer? After a few doctors' appointments and medical tests, Alice has her diagnosis, and it's a shocker -- she has early-onset Alzheimer's disease.

"What follows is the story of Alice's slow but inevitable loss of memory and connection with reality, told from her perspective. She gradually loses the ability to follow a conversational thread, the story line of a book, or to recall information she heard just moments before. To Genova's great credit, readers learn of the progression of Alice's disease through the reactions of others, as Alice does, so they feel what she feels -- a slowly building terror."  --From GoodReads.com