Well, finally a recap

No doubt you have all been wondering where our most recent recap has been. The answer is in Kentucky, along with our book club members Mary Millhiser, Sally Eddows, Maggie Georgiadis and me. We were all at the premier horse event in the country, the Three Day Event sponsored by Rolex in Lexington, KY. There are pictures and they are amazing, will try to post them soon. This is one of only six events in the world at this level and it was absolutely amazing.

But, back to the real world, including the world of wonderful stories. A big thank you to Val for hosting, she was absolutely fabulous in getting so many of us around the table and we had a great turnout for Gone Girl. 

The consensus was that we liked this book and I was one of those in favor, although most of us HATED the characters. Among the main characters, Nick was weak and weaker, Amy was just too amazing and odious, and Margo "Go" was just useless. What kind of nickname is that? And they were so isolated from everyone else, even Amy's parents. How sad, how

I think it was Val who pointed out that "Go" was the unconditional love role of the story, showing Nick, her twin, all the support of the absent parents, or any other responsible adults. No doubt there was  a shortage of them as Amy's parents clearly used her as to create the life and the child they wanted. Should an issue arise, an Amazing Amy book could work it out, and show the real Amy what and how they wanted her to be.

Poor Amy, she grew up so amazing and so capable and so disassociated that she orchestrated her own life as if it were another episode, just along different lines. She wanted a handsome, compliant husband, playing out his assigned role and she finally got just what she wanted. Could any of us conceived of and executed such a plan, and adapted along the way as she did? Please say no.

I had to admit, this was a great read. I actually cancelled plans in order to get home and finish this book, it was so compelling and many of the group agreed. That being said, is there some reason why our younger writers have great stories and odious characters? This is far from the first book where we have not been able to find a character that we might identify with and champion. This may be the trend of current publications but I want to find someone to bring me into and along with the story and somehow that is missing from so many recent books.

Ok, then, moving on. Our next book is Lean In by Sheryl Sandburg, could not be a more different part of our intellects but an important one. We are meeting on May 13, but our place is uncertain. Wendy can't do it that night as we had hoped, and the Deep Run Hunt Club is also out that night. Can anyone volunteer to host?

Our June book is The Dinner, by Herman Koch, tentatively at Wendy's. Bring your ideas to the May or June meetings for July books, my pick is River of Dust, by Richmond's own Virginia Pye, I LOVED it.

Looking forward to seeing you all soon!

Additional Books to Consider

Jean asked me to include some upcoming books by authors we have read in the past (or at least I have) that I am looking forward to reading. Here is the list, feel free to add in your own ideas! 

Kate Atkinson - Life after Life, harkens back to Replay, a story of someone who dies and is reborn repeatedly

Elizabeth Strout - The Burgess Boys, I don't care what it's about, I am up for anything else the author of Olive Kitteridge has to offer

Elizabeth Berg - Tapestry of Fortunes, a midlife total change brings about the intertwining of multiples lives. 

Meg Worlitzer - The Interestings, six friends, some successful in finding the life they wanted, some not and now it affects them. I thought The Wife was very good, so will probably read this as well. 

For those who also enjoy Science Fiction/Fantasy, Gavriel Guy Key has a new book out called River of Stars. He wrote the amazing Under Heaven that I just LOVED, and this is a continuation of the same story line. It is waiting in my Amazon shopping cart as it comes out Tuesday. Can't wait! 

Frankenstein and other marvels

First of all, welcome to our newest member, Sally Eddows who is a friend of Mary's and mine from the Deep Run Hunt Club. Welcome aboard!! And a very special thank you to Ashley who presented a fabulous Moroccan tagine and cous cous as well as everyone else who contributed. Moroccan is my very favorite cuisine so thank you so much, it was a fantastic meal.

While the meal had no detractors, the book was not so lucky. There were some among us who loved the book, particularly its use of language. Others were neutral but there was a definite contingent of people who did not enjoy it at all, particularly because of its use of language.

Another thing that drew comment was the extensive and loving descriptions of the the landscape and terrain, even when it was the Arctic ice. Frankenstein doted on the landscapes around Geneva and in particular the lake and went there for refuge when he was particularly under stress, which seemed to be always.

There were a lot of questions unanswered in the book like why did Frankenstein obsess on creating a life, then abandon it immediately? How did the monster find his way and survive with no language, no help, no idea of what had happened and how he came to be? Why didn't Frankenstein ever tell his father or Elizabeth what he had done and why he was so worried? And why was there so much snow and ice in the story?

All in all, I was really happy to read this classic and find out the real story, which is so much different than the common belief. It is even more difficult to imagine that this was written by a 19 year old! Although precocious, this book raised many important questions about life and morality, how did she do it at such a young age?

Our next book is Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn and our next meeting is on April 22 at 6:30 pm at Val's house. In a burst of enthusiasm, we also picked our next TWO books. May's book will be Lean In, by Sheryl Sandberg, tentatively at Wendy's and our June book is The Dinner, by Herman Koch, tentatively at the Deep Run Hunt Club. May's date is the 13th, and June is the 10th.

See you all on the 22nd!

A wonderful gathering, all food all the time

Hi all, needless to say, with books about food, we spent way more time focusing on our dinner which was fabulous, than talking about our books for the month. As a reminder, they were The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.

As Lynn described them, both are manifestos for a better food supply and what we can do to bring one about. They were also quite different in tone and approach. The Kingsolver book was personal and some really liked that approach and of course others were put off by it.

The Pollan book was much further ranging in its commentary but in the end probably no less of an indictment. I read that one (sadly I am not a Kingsolver fan) and found it fascinating in its entirety and tedious page to page, particularly in the middle.

The boar hunt and mushroom hunting really dragged down the momentum although I did pick up one important tip. At the final dinner, Pollan found his chef guest putting a whole stick of butter into the mushrooms. "So that's how they do it" he thought. Take note, all you amateur chefs. As Julia Child always practiced, nothing tastes so good that more butter won't help.

A particular shout-out to Lynn, who brought Animal, Vegetable, Miracle to our Christmas book swap. It was the hit of the evening, swapping hands three or four times and so became our choice for February. Thank you Lynn!

Our turnout was fantastic with 13 of us at Mary Millhiser's lovely farm for a glamorous dinner. Thank you Mary for being such a warm and welcoming hostess and Karen for all her help. What a treat! The oxtail stew was incredible, as was Fiona's fabulous bread and all other contributions.

For those who asked, here is the carrot recipe. If you haven't found her already, run out and buy every cookbook Patricia Wells has ever published, she is my go-to source. This is from her At Home in Provence. It is one of my most requested recipes.

Cut 2 lbs of peeled carrots into diagonal slices. Heat 2 tbles of olive oil over moderately high heat and add the carrots. Stir to coat with the oil, cover and lower the heat to moderate. Braise for about 20 minutes, stirring regularly.

Add fresh garlic cloves to taste, peeled and halved or slivered. (I use about 10 cloves but you could use up to a whole head.) Season with salt if desired and stir. Reduce heat to low, cover and continue cooking until the carrots are almost caramelized and the garlic is soft and tender, about 15 more minutes. Don't forget to stir occasionally.

Sprinkle with pitted and halved best-quality black olives (about 30 or so), stir, check seasonings and serve hot or at room temperature.

So enough of that, on to our next book. We are back to the classics, reading Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. Yes, that one, not the Mel Brooks version. Much like Lolita, the book is nothing like the cultural impression of the story and the contrast is always interesting.

We are meeting on March 25, at 6:30 at Ashley Silverburg's house, close to Libbie and Grove. See you then!!

Another great read, couldn't resist sharing

     With all the buzz that surrounded the Dragon Girl series, I became intrigued with the numerous references to the "best" Swedish mystery writer who had been overlooked. During a recent flight to LA, (my favorite reading time), I finally dipped in to Hennig Mankell and I am hooked.

    Ever the conventionalist, I started with the first of the series of his signature character, Kurt Wallander, called Faceless Killers. All I can say is get your hands on anything this guy has written, it was fabulous! A quick but riveting read, great characters, great plot, great backstory, it was a ton of fun and kept me awake from Richmond all the way to LA, no small feat. OK, I might have had a short nap, but still...

     The best part of this book, in my opinion, is that Mankell was able to paint a horrific picture of crime without actually recounting all the details. I for one, do not want to have terrifying criminal acts of violence explicitly described, it is just too upsetting. For that reason, I really enjoyed the Swedish version of The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo, and refused to watch the American one; just too much information.

    In this novel, the intention and outcome was apparent without having to slog through the exact actions. Thank you, Hennig Mankell! So for those of you who love a great mystery, here is your guy.

   

Performing Texts at University of Richmond

Hi! If anyone is interested in going to any of these, let me know. It'd be fun to go and have a glass of wine/snacks at my house (just a minute off campus) afterwards. After reading The Round House, it seems that Sherman Alexie's reading  on March 5 might be interesting.
xo,
Fiona

"Performing Texts is a special series sponsored by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities that focuses not only on the way in which authors perform their texts, but also on the way in which texts themselves perform.
The readings and talks listed below are free and open to the general public. Most writers will make themselves available, following their appearance, to answer questions from the audience and sign copies of their books.

Amiri Baraka and Anne Waldman
Feb. 5, 7 p.m.
Keller Hall

Amiri Baraka was born Everett LeRoi Jones in 1934 in Newark, N.J. He published his first volume of poetry, Preface to a Twenty-Volume Suicide Note, in 1961. His Blues People: Negro Music in White America (1963) is still regarded as the seminal work on Afro-American music and culture. His reputation as a playwright was established with the production of Dutchman at Cherry Lane Theatre in New York in 1964; it subsequently won an Obie Award for Best Off-Broadway Play and was made into a film. Baraka’s numerous literary honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Rockefeller Foundation for Drama, and Poet Laureate of New Jersey. His book Digging: The Afro-American Soul of American Classical Music was released in 2009 and was selected by the Before Columbus Foundation as the winner of the American Book Award for 2010.

Internationally recognized and acclaimed poet Anne Waldman has been an active member of the “Outrider” experimental poetry community, a culture she has helped create and nurture for over four decades, as a writer, editor, master teacher, performer, scholar, curator, and activist. She is the author of more than 40 books including the mini-classic Fast Speaking Woman, a collection of essays entitled Vow to Poetry, and the monumental anti-war feminist epic, The Iovis Trilogy: Colors in the Mechanism of Concealment, a 25-year project in three volumes. Waldman is the recipient of the prestigious Shelley Memorial Award, and The Iovis Trilogy has been awarded the 2012 PEN Center USA Award for Poetry. She was one of the founders and directors of The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church In-the-Bowery, and cofounded with Allen Ginsberg the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University, the first Buddhist-inspired university in the western hemisphere.
Anne Waldman
The Voice's Daughter: Poet as Performer
Feb. 6, 4:30 p.m.
Brown-Alley Room, Weinstein Hall

Junot Diaz
February 19, 7 p.m.
Jepson Alumni Center

Junot Díaz was born and raised in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Time Out, Glimmer Train, Story, and African Voices. Díaz’s story collection Drown was published in 1996 and is in its 23rd printing and was sold in 15 countries. His first novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, won the Pulitzer Prize and remained on The New York Times and independent bookstore bestseller lists for two years. Díaz’s next story collection, This Is How You Lose Her, was published in September 2012 and was a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award. A recent MacArthur Fellow, he is a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Holly Hughes
Feb. 26, 7 p.m.
Modlin Center, Cousins Studio Theater
Holly Hughes is a performance artist and writer. She is the author of more than a dozen plays and performance pieces, five of which were collected in Clit Notes: A Sapphic Sampler published by Grove Press. She is also the co-editor of three other books, O Solo Homo: The New Queer Performance (with David Roman), Animal Acts: Performing Species Today (with Una Chadhuri), and Memories of the Revolution: The First Ten Years of the WOW Café (with Alina Troyano). She is the winner of numerous awards including a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lambda Book Award, a GLAAD Media Award, as well as funding from the NEA, NYSCA, and other sources. Currently she is professor of art and design, women’s studies, and theatre and drama at the University of Michigan, and director of the BFA Program in Interarts Performance.

Sherman Alexie
March 5, 7 p.m.
Jepson Alumni Center
Author, poet, and screenwriter Sherman Alexie was named one of The New Yorker’s top 20 writers for the 21st century. After growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington, Alexie tells tales of contemporary American Indian life laced with razor-sharp humor, unsettling candor, and biting wit. Alexie’s first novel, Reservation Blues, won Booklist’s Editor’s Choice Award for Fiction. His second book, Indian Killer, was a New York Times Notable Book. His 2009 book of short stories, War Dances, won the PEN/Faulkner Award. Alexie wrote and produced the film Smoke Signals based on his book, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, which won the Audience Award and Filmmakers Trophy at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. He released Blasphemy, an anthology of new stories and beloved classics, in October 2012.

Philip Auslander
March 19, 4 p.m.
Keller Hall
Philip Auslander’s primary research interest is in performance, especially in relation to music, media, and technology. He has written on aesthetic and cultural performances as diverse as theatre, performance art, music, stand-up comedy, robotic performance, and courtroom procedures. He is the author of five books and editor or co-editor of two collections. His most recent books are Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music (2006) and the second edition of Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture (2008). In addition to his work on performance, Auslander contributes art criticism regularly to ArtForum and other publications. He has written catalogue essays for museums and galleries in Austria, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He is the founding editor of The Art Section: An Online Journal of Art and Cultural Commentary, published online ten times a year at theartsection.com.

Sharon Olds
April 9, 7 p.m.
Keller Hall
Sharon Olds is the author of eight volumes of poetry. With sensuality, humor, and remarkable imagery, she expresses truths about domestic and political violence, sexuality, family relationships, love, and the body. Her numerous honors include an NEA grant, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and being named New York State Poet Laureate from 1998–2000. She won the San Francisco Poetry Center award for her collection Satan Says, and received the Lamont Poetry Selection and the National Book Critics Circle Award for The Dead and the Living. Her poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly, and The New York Times. Olds teaches graduate poetry workshops at New York University and helped found a writing workshop at a 900-bed state hospital for the severely disabled. Her most recent collection, Stag’s Leap, was published in September 2012 and recently won Britain's TS Eliot Poetry Prize."

The Round House and other interesting things

Hello, once again we had a fun, fun night and the discussion on the book went on and on and on. It is always interesting when so many people engage in the story and have a lot to say about it! And even better, the majority of us really liked the book and admired the way Louise Erdrich crafted the story. While this was not her finest writing, it was plenty good enough! 

Before we get there, terrific thanks to Maggie who not only hosted, but also made the most delicious chicken mole. This is truly food for the gods the way Maggie makes it and it bears no resemblance to the brown stuff out of a can that most Mexican restaurants offer up. Of course it also takes hours upon hours to prepare, so thank you so much! Much to our concern, Maggie tripped and had a bit of a hard fall resulting in a cracked collarbone and a trip to Patient First. The good news is that she is doing well and resting at home. Leave it to Maggie to make sure we all had dinner and our discussion before heading out to get checked out! 

There was so much talk about the book that it is hard to do it all justice. Many commented on the precocious attitude of Joe, who was supposed to be 13 years old. On the other hand, he did seem so typical of a teenage boy. Of course the situation was heartbreaking and the tangle of legal jurisdictions infuriating. What was so wonderful, and many commented on it, was how the story was so much more than this complicated story of his mother's rape and search for the person responsible. 

It was the human side of the story that was so compelling for most of us. That the author took this plot line and made it so personal; it was really impressive and also gripping. The difficult process of deciding on a course of action, the dread and determination to carry it out and the way his friend Cappy appeared at just the right time to help was a wonderful, if wrenching part of the book. 

Someone brought up the good twin/bad twin relationship between Linda and Lark; that she was deformed yet a kind and helpful person but he was handsome and evil, another interesting layer of detail in the book. Like so many of Erdrich's books, the characters have a bit of their future lives unfold in this story, and usually also ancestors who appeared in other books when their own stories were told, like Nanapush. Erdrich herself said that she feels that she really is writing only one novel, one that covers years and generations of the same families, the same tribes and how they all connect together in some way. 

Val had such an interesting perspective as she grew up in a tiny Minnesota town that was right by (or on?) a reservation. While she enjoyed the book, she also felt as it the general reservation experience is no where near as positive and intact as the characters in this book. Her experience was of disengaged or missing parents and isolated and directionless children, with low standards and lower expectations. Hopefully, life has improved on the reservations, but it is a reminder that perhaps these characters were the lucky ones in their environments, another element of interest. 

For those who enjoyed this, Erdrich's first novel was Love Medicine which still rates as one of my most beloved books and it is a great place to start on this long and lovely saga of the Northern Plains Indians. I am lucky enough to have a first edition from a print run of 5,000 so I have been a fan for a long time! My current favorite of the more recent books is The Painted Drum but it is hard to go wrong with any of her books. 

Thanks  to all who came and special thanks to our hostess Maggie! Our next meeting is at Mary Millhiser's house on Feb. 11 at 6:30. The books are either Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollen or Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. They are both about the food chain If you want to get even more riled up about it, watch the movie King Corn as well. 

The date for March is also the 11th, bring ideas for the March book as we didn't come to a consensus yet. Anyone interested in a fabulous Soviet murder mystery? Child 44 just might be my suggestion, it is awesome. 

Thanks everyone for coming, see you in February! 

Correction! Update on insights!

Hi all, a quick update - Lynn reminded me that she noted the change in style as Lilly Bart declined and it was Fiona who noted it was a world Edith Wharton didn't know as well. Thanks Lynn for the clarification; you two are brilliant.

Credit where due!

Meeting Dec. 10, what a fun time!

     Well, that was about the most fun book club meeting we have ever had. It was a delight and joy to see everyone laughing and talking and catching up. We had a full house with thirteen showing up! 

     First, our book exchange - a riot! We decided on a Yankee Swap (or White Elephant) format, where everyone's wrapped book went under the tree and we pulled numbers to select one. The person selecting could pick any of the books already opened if they didn't like their own choice. Most were pretty happy with their choices, but it was clear that the Barbara Kingsolver book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" was the big winner of the evening. It changed hands three times at least! Enough to make it our February selection, along with Michael Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemma". 

     We were supposed to write a quick note (without our names) on why we had selected that particular book to gift and for those who remembered the directions (not me by the way) it made a big difference and gave some context to the book. This was fun and funny, let's do it again next year! 

     Sadly, by the time we sat down to dinner and  "House of Mirth", it was a bit difficult to focus on an in-depth discussion. It sounded like everyone really liked it, several commented that they had never before read this book and one person said she had never read Edith Wharton!! OMG! Luckily, they got through it all, mostly enjoying it. 

     One excellent comment was that the writing lost its luster toward the end as Lily Bart sank further. Lynn thought perhaps that was because the author was no longer writing about the world she knew and so became less able to convince us. 

     Many of us agreed that the world Wharton created was very believable indeed, at least up to that point. The descriptions and characterizations were just wonderful, and while the people seemed so narrow and shallow, they did seem very authentic. Lilly Bart herself was a wonderfully drawn character, stuck in her world but unable to bring herself to do what it took to stay a part of it. I found that relatively admirable, others were impatient with her unwillingness to act on what she knew was necessary. 

     Net, net a fabulous evening. Our next meeting is set for Jan. 14, tentatively at Maggie's. The book is "Round House" by Louise Erdrich (another of my favorites). The books for February are "Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan and "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver. These are both food books, so should be fun to have two views. 

Thanks to all who came, I am so happy to be part of such a wonderful group. See you in the New Year! 

Authors can be so much fun!

Hello all, can it really be last Saturday that we met with the author of Into the Wilderness, David Ebenbach at the Fountain Book Store, followed by a stop at the Urban Farmhouse. We had an absolute blast talking with the author, and being part of the hip scene in Shockoe Slip was a welcome change. I am usually cleaning horses and tack on Saturday afternoons, so feeling like an urban sophisticate was kinda nice for a change.

And who better to be a hipster with than David Ebenbach. We owe Fiona a great debt of gratitude for not only bringing us a lovely book with actual likeable characters, but also a wonderful, warm and open author. He was genuinely interested in our questions and opinions and very open with his inspiration for the characters and the stories.  Including the fact that he actually once did lock his mother in the basement; don't tell.

So the Fountain Book Store - on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, right after the Richmond Marathon, with an author event, the place was deserted. We had David all to ourselves and it was a great luxury. What a beautiful spot, at a lovely table in the front looking out over the cobblestones. It was a wake-up call to me though to get out and support our local, independent book stores. The opportunity to wrap ourselves in the literary life in that environment is fast disappearing, so buy your books there!

David spent about an hour or so reading from the book and discussing the characters, the inspiration and the stories. Judith was a big topic as you might expect. As it turns out, she was once a novel and David spent years on it before redirecting to short stories and finding her voice. He talked about compassion for his characters and how much he really loved Judith, not as a creation, but as a living, breathing personality that drove her own story.

It was relatively easy for us to contrast his obvious care for the people of his stories with our last book, A Casual Vacancy, where J.K. Rowling may have liked her characters, but couldn't imagine a different life for them.

The group all loved the book and loved David. I for one, can't wait for his next effort. Thank you Fiona!

On to our next effort, one of my favorite books ever, House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton. We are meeting at my house on December 10 at 6:30 pm. Since it is Christmas time, I want to propose a gift exchange. Can each of us bring a book of our choice, wrapped, and have a random drawing? The book should be one that you love and want to share with others. Write your reasons why on the gift tag - but not your name! What do you think?

Can't wait to see you all!