Book Club Companion

Love to read and discuss books, but don’t have any like-minded friends?

Seek out a book club either at your local library, church or even online.

Library book clubs are attractive, because a paid staff  member selects the reading material, reserves copies of the book and leads the discussion.  No effort is required on your part except reading the book.

Finding/Starting a Book Club

But if you’d prefer a smaller, friendlier group, start your own book club.  Fewer members mean more control not only of book selection but also discussion time.

Contact neighbors, either apartment or subdivision, plus compatible friends and social acquaintances.  People who live in close proximity have an easier time getting together on a monthly basis.  Nobody likes to drive a long distance after working all day.

How to Create a Book Club

To alert neighbors that a subdivision book club was forming, we hit the streets, talking to people and handing out fliers.  Amazingly enough we gathered several interested readers who have been meeting  for almost three years in each other’s homes.

From the beginning, we designated  ourselves a ‘no frills’ group.  We meet to share our observations, drink bottled water with sometimes a light snack afterwards.  Of course, making sure your house is presentable requires a little effort, but two hours of adult conversation is well worth the grunt work.

How to Choose the Book

Choosing each month’s book eats up valuable time that could be better spent chatting.  Plan ahead to avoid the inevitable question, “What are we reading next?”

Finding Discussion Questions

The monthly newsletter from www.goodreads.com overflows with book suggestions.  This site also enables you to rate and keep track of your reading history as well as check out what your friends and their friends are reading.

For a  list of the  best 100 books of the decade as designated by The Times on Line, click here.  The 2009 The BBC Book Dare also recommends 100 titles for your reading pleasure.

A yearly list of books makes it easier for members to find the designated selection.  Again, library personnel can be a valuable asset. Using  inter-library loan, they find enough copies of the agreed-upon title and alert you when it’s available for check out.  Most libraries now extend borrowing time up to one month instead of the traditional two weeks.  Just ask!

For convenience, larger library systems  put together and circulate book club kits.  These canvas totes usually include copies of the book, background information about the author, a synopsis of the book and suggested discussion questions plus a handy check out list for members to sign.

Our town’s library is quite small, so we usually select two titles each month. Selections are e-mailed to the staff and within a week or so, each member receives a circulation notice that their copy has arrived.

When it comes to finding discussion questions there are several sites from which to choose.  A few examples are: www.readinggroupguides.com, www.litlovers.com, www.bookbrowse.com and www.barnesandnoble.com. (The Barnes and Noble site has a special book club section with lots of helpful information.)

Should all of these avenues dead end, write the questions yourself.  If you find a certain passage of the novel puzzling, interesting, or worthy of comment, others will too.  Jot down page numbers as you read.

When you have finished reading, check back through your notations and formulate questions.  What may seem difficult at first try, gets easier with a little practice.

Start simple:  What did you think the author was trying to say on page 37?  What did you like/dislike about the main character? Would you read another book by this author?

If  you or your group has questions, please feel free to ask.  Happy to help!!

Recently the members of the subdivision book club listed the following books as some of their favorites:

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan not only sparked a great, in-depth discussion, but led club members to read other works about famed architect, Frank Lloyd Wright such as Death in a Prairie House: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Murders by William R. Drennan.

The widely-read post Wives and Lovers can be found here.  This selection complete with discussion questions has received over 1,000 hits in the past year.

These is my Words, written entirely in diary form by Nancy Turner, has also found favor with club members.  The post Pioneer Woman can be found here.

Told entirely in  letter format by Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society sparked a great deal of interest and a lively discussion.

One book club member wished that the fictional characters would indeed inhabit the aforementioned island, because she would love to visit with them to learn more about their war-time experience.  Click here for The Next Step – Discussing the Book.

The holiday season brings with it a chance to relive Christmases past and present.  Books read and discussed for our December meeting  include The Christmas Train by David Baldacci, The Christmas Box by Richard Paul Evans and Red Bird Christmas by Fannie Flagg. Of the three mentioned, Red Bird Christmas rated as number one.

The post, It’s Unanimous, proclaimed our love for Mma Precious Ramotswe, the main character of the The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.

More information about its prolific author, Alexander McCall Smith, can be found here.

What are some of your favorites?

It goes without saying that bookclubbers are avid readers.  DUH!  At the same time most of the above mentioned bookworms prefer one genre of literature over another.

While this makes for a pleasurable reading experience, one misses out on the vast range of fiction and nonfiction available at your local book store or neighborhood library.

That’s the beauty of a book club – members are forced to read outside of  their comfort zones.

Left to my own devices, I would never have picked up Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough. read more…

Between the covers of a Fannie Flagg novel, the reader will most likely discover one or more of the following:

• a small southern town where nobody’s business remains private for long
• several irresistibly, quirky characters living out their convictions regardless of public opinion
• shrewd insights and observations cloaked in homespun humor for all to enjoy

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

In this break-through Alabama novel, the action swings between the Whistle Stop Cafe and the Rose Terrace Nursing Home.

This two-fold story introduces Idgie Threadgoode and Ruth Jamison, co-owners of a post-depression era eatery.  The secondary account revolves around the nursing facility where Ninny Threadgoode, Idgie’s elderly sister-in-law, coaches middle-aged housewife, Evelyn Couch, through several of life’s more challenging moments.

Through the respectful treatment of Idgie and Ruth’s ‘relationship’, Flagg presents her personal views on feminism and Sapphic love.

Probably the author’s best known novel, its story line spawned the1991 movie, Fried Green Tomatoes , but also earned Ms. Flagg an Academy Award nomination for her work on the screenplay.

Discussion Questions can be found here. read more…

In her 28th novel, Rosamunde Pilcher introduces an ensemble of five main characters who converge in Scotland on the darkest day of the year, Winter Solstice.

Former actress Elfrida Phipps, 62, flees London for a cottage in the small English village of Dibton where she is befriended by the Blundell family.

Retired college professor and organist Oscar Blundell turns to Elfrida when an auto accident claims the lives of his wife, Gloria, and 12-year-old daughter, Francesca.  Grief-stricken Oscar leans on Elfrida who convinces him to return to his grandmother’s estate in Scotland where he retains half-ownership in the Estate House.  Since he has nowhere else to go and Gloria’s sons have put The Grange up for sale, Oscar agrees.

When her affair with a married man turns sour, Elfrida’s second cousin, Carrie Sutton, leaves Austria and returns to London.  There she finds her niece, Lucy, refusing to accompany her mother and male friend to Florida for two weeks. Grandmother, Dodie, also has plans to spend the holidays in Bournemouth with friends leaving the 14-year-old bereft of friends or family for winter break. read more…

Avid Food Network fans tune in twice weekly:  7 p.m., Tuesday, and  9 p.m., Thursday, to catch the latest episodes of Ace of Cakes.

This reality show, created in August 2006 by brothers Jeffrey aka Duff and Willie Goldman, provides an inside-look at a Baltimore bakery, Charm City Cakes.

Curious about the world behind those incredibly amazing cakes, pick up this 300-page volume, Ace of Cakes: Inside the World of Charm City Cakes.

This heavy, slightly cumbersome, 10 x 12-inch scrapbook introduces all of the people who work at CCC including the TV production crew.

Where else can you find the following information:

*Mary Alice met Duff when she  dropped her grandmother’s pearls down the sink,
*persistent Anna plays Scrabble like a grand champion,
*guitarist Geof composes his own songs
*Duff hired Mary Smith because of her sassiness and extra-fine piping skills,
*baker Adam Goldstein once sold produce to Duff,
*their cakes really do taste good, all 50 flavors,
*although edible, fondant is rarely eaten
* employees frequently wash their hands even if their actions are not part of the final show. read more…

Her long-standing interest in the past compelled Sandra Dallas to produce 10 works of nonfiction before sharpening her pencil on fiction.

Even a failed, three-way collaboration and later a manuscript’s rejection didn’t scare this journalist away from storytelling.

Over lunch, Dallas and two friends plotted, divided up and crafted characters for a book later abandoned when their day jobs got in the way.

Later the fledgling novelist resurrected and rewrote a post-college manuscript only to receive the dreaded rejection letter from her agent.

Hooked on fiction, Dallas persevered eventually producing Buster Midnight’s Cafe, an end-of-depression look at the hell-roaring days of coal mining in Butte, Montana.

Steeped in history from an early age, Dallas covered the Rocky Mountain region as a staff writer and the first female bureau chief for Business Week magazine.

Schooled  daily in Virginia’s past by her mother, Dallas and her siblings toured Washington’s Mount Vernon and Arlington House, residence of Robert E. Lee as children.

But a 1945 move to Denver opened up the west for a writer who never ventured  back east again.

Subjects ranging from copper mining in Butte, Montana, and polygamy in Utah, to the role of women in business and sexual harassment provided future background for Dallas’ fiction dominated by female characters.

The Chili Queen

Set in Nalgitas, New Mexico, in the 1860s, The Chili Queen follows the life of Addie French, a con artist turned madam.

Returning by train from Kansas City, Addie befriends a prim and proper lady traveling west as a mail-order bride.  But when Emma, the spinster, is jilted, she seeks refuge in Addie’s ‘boarding house’ and life at the brothel is never the same again.

This psychological thriller cum detective story takes the reader on horseback through the plains of New Mexico and Colorado as the con men/women try to out run the person they swindled.   Through Dallas’ words, one can feel the wide open spaces and sniff the sweet-smelling air of the old west.

Tallgrass

Just after the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt signed an act forcing all of  California’s Japanese Americans into internment camps.

When Dallas’ pen hits paper, this relocation to Tall Grass (Amache) produces an  fearful atmosphere ripe with paranoia in Ellis Colorado,  a small town of sugar beet farmers.

From the viewpoint of Rennie Stroud, 13, the reader watches as the bigoted townspeople heap blame on the nearby Japanese when a crippled girl is found brutally murdered and raped.

Often compared to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Tall Grass highlights the struggle of the dirt-poor farmers in the sparsely populated southeast town of Granada.

Discussion questions can be found here.

The Diary of Mattie Spenser

In the post-civil war era, the stigma of being a spinster compels Mattie to accept an impromptu marriage proposal and accompany her new husband by wagon train to the western territories.

While Luke battles to shape the frontier into a homestead, the lone female endures hardship, frugality, betrayal, infant mortality and drought along with the constant threat of Indian attack.

In Mattie, Dallas gives us a woman of courage and faith in the treeless, inhospitable landscape of Eastern Colorado.

Don’t forget the Persian Pickle Club, another Sandra Dallas favorite.

A list of nonfiction titles can be found here.  Fictional titles here:

Thirty five years have elapsed since twelve giddy college girls emulated Huckleberry Finn by setting sail down the Mississippi on a raft.

Now, four of the original dozen reconnect at the famed Peabody Hotel in Memphis for a somber purpose. They will cruise the mighty river again-this time on the Belle of Natchez – to honor the memory of Margaret ‘Baby’ Ballou and commit her ashes to the ages.

The Old Maid School Teacher

Ill-at-ease in the hotel’s elegant furnishings, Harriet Holding, considers leaving almost upon arrival.  Like the novel’s acclaimed author, Lee Smith, Harriet teaches community writing workshops for women.

Even though men have found her attractive over the years, Harriet has shied away from attachments and remains unmarried at 53.  A scholarship student at Mary Scott College, Harriet identified with the cafeteria help that she worked with rather than her  fellow classmates. read more…

Touted solely as a woman’s writer by some, Elizabeth Berg fearlessly tackles the tougher moments in life.  She grabs hold of your heart by touching on topics that we all can relate to such as:  infidelity, loss, death and divorce.

Often termed sentimental, Berg draws an accurate picture of grief – “the doubts, the dailiness, the decisions, the daring to dream again”.

While some reviewers feel that Berg has a tendency to write scenes that are a little bit far fetched with predictable textbook characters, they still praise her eye for detail, simplicity, and beauty.

Two people, having read the same book, can come away with opposite opinions of its characters, plot and setting.  I suggest you decide for yourself by sampling one or more of Berg’s books listed below.  Happy reading!!

Durable Goods
(1993), 12-year-old Katie, struggles with the loss of her mother while  being dragged from town to town by her abusive father.

Discussion Questions here.

read more…

While I’m not usually a fan of memoirs or novels pieced together in diary form – These is my Words proved to be a welcome exception. (click here.)

Book #1 in Nancy Turner’s trilogy introduces the reader to a young girl who matures into a strong independent woman while traveling by wagon train and settling in the Arizona Territory.

In the year 1881, calamities come in many forms:  unfortunate accidents, Indian attacks and sickness plague the travelers as well as the unscrupulous bandits and ruffians who meet them at every turn of the wagon’s wheels.

Because 17 year-old Sarah Prine is uneducated, nearly illiterate, her early diary entries are peppered with spelling and grammatical errors making a slow, often painful reading process.

But when she acquires a wagon load of books, her education takes off as does her writing ability.

The author’s use of first-person narrative draws you into the story laying open Sarah’s thoughts, pain, despair, and insecurities for all to experience first hand.

One reviewer commented, “I cared so much that I dreaded turning the pages for fear of the horrific fate that could befall any of the characters at any time”.

The reader cheers as Sarah overcomes the obstacles barring her way to love, marriage and establishing a family in the far flung, often lawless, western territories of 1881-1902 while always, always waiting for disaster to strike as it so often does.

Readers recommended Sarah’s Quilt, the continuing story of an extraordinary pioneer woman and her 3-year struggle with drought on the family ranch.

Book #3, The Star Garden, finds Sarah, at 43, with grown sons, and the center of a large, unruly family. Living in a house built by the man she refused to marry and courted by her neighbor, Sarah is not so sure she wants to be a wife again.

Discussion Questions for These Is My Words follow:

1. Suggest why an illiterate girl would find it so important to keep a diary of her Arizona trip and life afterward.

2. Explain, if you can, why the Lawrence family shunned Sarah after she saved the lives of daughters, Savannah, Alice and Ulyssa.

3. If you had to debate the issue of the pioneers fighting the Indians to save their own lives and the lives of their families, which side would you take and why?

4. Whenever Sarah measures up against her sister-in-law, Savannah, she always finds herself wanting. Agree? Disagree?

5. A genuine thirst for knowledge compels Sarah to learn and grow as an individual. Who helps her? What does she learn and from whom?

6.Talk about Sarah’s marriages. What makes her attractive to Jimmy Reed? Jack Elliot?

7.What ultimately brings Jack and Sarah together? Sarah’s transformation? Jack’s transformation?

8. Any idea why Jack refused to resign her army commission leaving Sarah and the children alone and vulnerable?

9. Does Sarah’s picture of the West challenge or confirm your ideas of life on the frontier? Think of the many losses, the hardships and how the settlers surmounted them. Are we, in modern times, as tenacious and courageous as Sarah and her contemporaries?

10. Although Sarah’s story is fictional (there is no actual diary according to the author), it is based on stories about the author’s great grandmother. Do you feel the story is realistic or highly romanticized? Is Sarah credible? If so, what makes her story convincing?

11. Would you read Sarah’s Quilt or The Star Garden? Why or Why not?