Tag Archives: book club pick

Traveling with Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor

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Having read The Mermaid Chair and  The Secret Life of Bees, both by Sue Monk Kidd,  I was excited when this was chosen as one of our book club selections. That was in November. I just finished reading the book now. What does that tell you?

Traveling with Pomegranates should have been a better book than it actually is. This is a mother(Sue)/daughter(Ann) memoir about travel, faith, love, creativity and writing. At the beginning, as I settled in, I thought that it was going to be quite compelling. I felt a kinship with Sue:

“I didn’t understand why I was responding to the prospect of aging with such shallowness and dread, only that there had to be more to it than the etchings on my skin” (4).

In Sue’s capable hands, this journey is – if not always engaging – at least well written and thoughtful. Sadly, I can’t say the same for Ann’s part. I found her whiny and entitled. I never warmed up to her.

Mother and daughter visit Greece together in 1998. Ann is 22 and Sue mourns the loss of the little girl she was. She is also acutely aware that something troubling is going on with her daughter. At first glance it might seem that Ann’s disappointment has to do with the fact that she didn’t get into graduate school, but as the mother/daughter writers unspool the story it turns out that they are both looking for something more complicated. And they spend the rest of the book kneeling at the feet of Madonnas (and other powerful female icons) in Greece and Crete and France…trying to find it.

Ultimately, it turns out that graduate school was never what Ann truly wanted; she wants to be a writer. And how wonderful for her that her mother is and that they could do this book together.

Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

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Out Stealing Horses has been on my tbr list for ages, so I was happy when it was chosen as the December read for my book club. I was also surprised because the woman who chose generally dislikes translations and this novel was translated from the original Norwegian. Anyway, I settled in and finished the book (one of the few in the group who actually did) and even after discussing it – I am not sure how I feel about the book.

The story concerns 67 year old Trond Sander who is living in isolation after the death of his second wife. The novel moves seamlessly between Trond’s every day concerns (getting his driveway plowed and stacking wood) and his memories of his youth. The summer he was 15 he and his father had left Trond’s mother and sister in Oslo and come to a cottage quike like the one Trond is currently inhabiting. It was there that Trond’s world was knocked off-kilter – not only by a tragedy that occurred in his friend Jon’s family, but also by events in his own life.

It took my a while to settle into this book. It’s a quiet novel and while the writing is quite powerful (particularly Pettersen’s descriptions of the natural world), I found the long sentences strangely difficult…too many commas or something. Still, I eventually stopped wanting to add full stops and gave myself over to Trond’s remarkable childhood recollections.

I’m not sure this book will appeal to everyone and so it’s not one that I can whole-heartedly recommend. That said – I do think it achieves something quite remarkable. As Trond’s story unfolds we learn a universal truth – sometimes there are no satisfactory explanations for life’s mysteries.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

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My mother was a geriatric nurse for most of her career. When I was in my late teens I had a summer job working at the nursing home where she was head nurse. Many of the patients had dementia and I remember one lady in particular, Annie. She was sweet and over the summer we became friends…except she never remembered who I was from one day to the next.

Lisa Genova’s novel Still Alice is the story of Alice Howland, renowned Harvard professor, mother of three, happily married to John, also a Harvard prof. After seeing her doctor because she’s suffering from strange lapses in her memory, Alice is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. She is 50.

The novel traces Alice’s diagnosis and subsequent decline. At first she merely struggles to find words (and I don’t do this, but sometimes I start a story and totally forget what I was going to say!) but then her lapses in memory become more pronounced: she gets lost walking a familiar route, she forgets people who were introduced to her only moments before, she mistakes a mat on the floor for a black hole.

Still Alice isn’t literature. Okay, yes, it tells a story, but often times I felt like the author was trying to convey information. Alice says to her neurologist:

“You should also tell them about DASNI. It’s the Dementia Advocacy and Support Network International.”

There are several other instances of this sort of writing, places where I felt Genova had an agenda and she was writing to fulfill it. Somehow it lessens the emotional impact of the story because as a reader I was more interested in Alice and her life than I was in hearing about clinical trials.

I can only imagine that being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s is the worst torture imaginable. The disconnect between your life and the lives of the people you love would be beyond horrific. The thought of losing the ability to read (I can’t even imagine my life without books!), to watch a movie, to do simple tasks, or to recognize the faces of my children fills me with dread. Yet near the end of the novel, Alice still has the wherewithal to stand up in front of the delegates of a Dementia Care Conference and give an impassioned lecture about how, despite her symptoms, she is still a person worthy of note.

“Please don’t look at our scarlet A’s and write us off. Look us in the eye, talk directly to us. Don’t panic or take it personally if we make mistakes, because we will.”

The whole lecture seemed like  authorial commentary…and it didn’t work for me. Strangely, the part that I found most moving in the novel was when Alice attends the graduation of her last grad student, Dan. Even though we’ve seen very little of their relationship and hardly anything of Dan in the novel, his post-graduation moment with Alice is very touching.

People will love Still Alice. My feeling about it is that it’s a timely topic written without artifice.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

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Several months ago Muriel Barbery’s novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog was chosen as the book for the bookstore reading group I lead. We have a sort of willy nilly way of choosing our books and this novel ended up on the top of the heap. When we came together to discuss it a month later, other than the woman who had thrown it into the pile, no one else had finished the book- including me. I got about halfway through…and I just really didn’t like the book at all. So imagine my dismay when the novel was chosen by my longstanding book club as our first novel for our new reading year! I had no choice but to finish the book.

So, I started again. And strangely, this time around, I didn’t find the book so grating. That’s not to say that I found it all that plausible, either. Still, I did manage to get through it.

Barbery’s novel tells the story of Renee, a concierge at an elegant apartment building in Paris.

I am short, ugly and plump, I have bunions on my feet and, if I am to credit early mornings of self-inflicted disgust, the breath of a mammoth. I did not go to college, I have always been poor, discreet and insignificant. (19)

Renee has, despite what she considers her considerable flaws, a deep and abiding love for literature, art and music. Seriously, the novel opens with a rumination on Marx – which is perhaps the reason why I didn’t groove to the novel straight away the first time around: I know nothing about Marx.

Paloma lives in the building with her parents and older sister. At twelve, Paloma is already sick of the world and everyone in it.

My parents are rich, my family is rich and my sister and I are, therefore rich….Despite all that, despite all this good fortune and all this wealth, I have known for a long time that the final destination is the goldfish bowl. How do I know? Well, the fact is that I am very intelligent. Exceptionally intelligent. (23)

The Elegance of the Hedgehog is about appearances. Renee is forever fearful about giving away her love of the finer things; after all, she’s just a concierge. Paloma,  is keeping a journal of profound thoughts and plotting her own death. And then into their lives comes a Japanese gentleman named Kakuro Ozu. He sees straight through these women, into their very heart of hearts and changes them in ways they might have never imagined.

This novel was a sensation in France. As with any translation, it’s important to remember that you are not reading it in its original form; something is bound to be lost in the translation no matter how good it is.

I have a feeling that when we discuss this novel tomorrow night, most everyone will have loved it. I didn’t love it (in fact I didn’t like the ending at all!), but I did see the novel’s charms- even though I often found the novel pretentious (all these mini-lessons on art and literature) and perhaps just a tad contrived.

Thoughts for book clubs…

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I recently answered questions for BookJourney, who is featuring book clubs in a Q and A at her blog.  I’ve been in my current book club for 11 years now and they’re a great group so it was fun to think about how my group works…and why it does. It also reminded me that I put together a little book club primer for people who wanted to start a book club, but weren’t sure how to get going. I thought I’d share it here with you.

Some thoughts for book clubs…

Book clubs work best if everyone is on the same page…so if you have two or three members who just want to get out of the house, never read the book, are more interested in talking about the last movie they saw than the book – maybe they’re in the wrong group…or maybe you are.  So once you have a group of like-minded readers, you’re good to go.

The keys to a successful book club are:

  1. Having a venue conducive to talking
  2. Having a designated leader or system for discussing the book.
  3. Choosing a great book- which doesn’t necessarily mean reading War and Peace

There are all sorts of ways to choose books for your book club and you have to find a way that works the best for your group. One piece of advice I have heard from other clubs, though, is to choose a book that is unknown to you- that is, if it’s your pick don’t choose your favourite book of all time because there are bound to be hurt feelings when someone in your group doesn’t like it.

Some of the ways to choose a book include:

Everyone come to the first meeting of the year with a couple of choices and put all of the choices into a hat and pick randomly. The group can decide out of all the picks what they want to read.

Everyone gets one pick per year. That person is then responsible for hosting the meeting (whatever that means for your book club). In our group it means the person who chose the book hosts at their house, provides the nibblies (or, as is often the case in our group a three course meal!) and leads the discussion.

Leading the discussion can take many forms…and again, there’s many ways to do it depending on your group. We have 11 really chatty women so the leader has to be a bit of a tyrant in order for everyone to have the opportunity to speak. Usually she’s prepared with a list of questions…but we’ve also done it other ways, for example, inviting everyone to make up their own question about the book, putting the questions in a dish and allowing everyone to answer one question and then, if anyone wants to add thoughts, they can.

Vigorous discussion comes from well-thought out questions and a little bit of planning on the part of the hostess. The questions need not necessarily be related to the book, either. Or at least not directly.

Here are my questions for the novel The Myth of You and Me – which was my choice, only mediocre, imho, but we had a great chat about it.
1. When Ruth and Cameron start to pack Oliver’s things up Cameron remarks: “It’s astonishing what a single life accumulates. These things we endow with a certain life- the possibilty that we might use them, the memory we attach to them- and then, when we die, they become just things again.”

What things do you save and what meaning do they have for you? Do you ever purge? What is something you own that is likely meaningless without the weight of your attached memory.

2. When we finally discover what ended the friendship- what is your reaction? How does it change your feelings about Cameron and Sonia? Is it enough of a reason to sever the ties between them?

3. While Cameron searches for Sonia she meets Suzette again and remarks: “All at once it strikes me that as well as I know Sonia, I only know one version of her- that all you know of a life are the places where it touches your own.” Do you think it’s true that we offer people different versions of ourselves? Why? Who has the clearest picture of you?

4. Oliver’s second letter to Cameron reveals the truth about his life and his story and, for me at least, offers the book’s most important lesson. Why do you think he waits to tell Cameron the story of Billie, the story of his life?

5. If you could track down one person from your past who would it be and why?

How do you choose your next book?

The Internet makes it easy to do research…but how do you find titles?

Some great blogs:

ReadySteadyBook

Bookgirl’s Nightstand

A Guy’s Moleskine Notebook

SavidgeReads

(generally if you find a blog you like, it’s easy to follow that person’s links to other similar blogs- trust me, there’s a HUGE network out there)

 

There’s a whole raft of book communities

Chapters/Indigo

Shelfari

Fantastic Fiction – info on over 300,000 books!

There are also lots of useful sites if you are looking for ways to keep your book club thriving…try this one:

I am always happy to talk bookclubs…and answer questions if you have them!

(Originally posted August 3, 2009)

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

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When B. pulled The Story of Edgar Sawtelle out of her bag at last month’s book club reveal there was a silent sigh of dismay. I know I felt it. Despite the fact that the book has garnered heaps of praise and was flying off the shelf at Indigo last summer, I had no desire to read it. When my friend said she was going to take it with her when she went to England with her mom I said: “Don’t do it; this book weighs a ton!”

As it turned out,  of the ten members of my book club I was (along with B.) the only person who read it. Er…finished it. One person got about half way through, a few others read 50-100 pages. The book is l-o-n-g…562 pages but lest you think I actually judge a book by its length, let me say that The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is very well written. I would have said that dog lovers would eat this book up- but this wasn’t the case with the dog lovers in my book club; none of them finished.

It’s hard to put my finger on exactly why I didn’t love this book in the way most others have- well, the critics at least, who have compared this book to Shakespeare, an “American Hamlet” even (Mark Doty). The book concerns the Sawtelle family, parents Trudy and Gar and their son, Edgar, who is born mute. They live on a farm in Wisconsin where they breed dogs known as the ‘Sawtelle’ dogs, remarkable because they can read Edgar’s signs. When Gar’s younger brother, Claude, returns to the farm Edgar’s idyllic life starts to unravel and when his father dies suddenly, Edgar’s grief is palpable. As Claude grows closer to his mother and assumes more of a role on the farm, Edgar becomes obssessed with proving that Claude had something to do with his father’s death.

Things don’t work out quite as Edgar plans though, and he leaves the farm, taking three ‘Sawtelle’ dogs with him. Eventually, though, he returns to the farm to confront his uncle – with dramatic results. (I actually thought the ending was spectacularly melodramatic.)

Why do some books work and others not so much? I can’t fault Wroblewski’s writing. In some ways I felt like he jammed the book with every possible theme, like maybe this debut might mark the beginning and end of his literary career. Ultimately, though, there was just too much ‘dog talk’ – sits and stays and day-to-day kennel business that just wasn’t of interest to me and, in some ways, diluted the book’s larger themes of revenge and love.  It wasn’t that I had a hard time reading the book…I just never really invested my heart in Edgar’s story.

The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill

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Everyone has been talking about Lawrence Hill’s novel The Book of Negroes for the past few months. When I worked at Indigo, it flew off the shelf; everyone wanted to read it. It’s one of those books – topical, controversial, well-written, award-winning  and with a central character that it is impossible not to admire. And I did  admire her, but  I didn’t love this book. I finished The Book of Negroes a few days ago and I’ve been trying to figure out what it was exactly that failed to inspire me to talk about it in absolutely glowing terms.

I am a child of the 70s. By that I mean, I was a teenager when Roots hit the small screen. Every night for however many nights that mini-series was on the tube, my family and I would gather around the TV, mesmerized and horrified by Kunta Kinte’s story. I haven’t seen it since, so I have no idea whether or not it holds up, but that story devastated me and made me ashamed, for the first time in my life, to be white. The Book of Negroes failed to reach me on some level.  Does that mean in the years since I’ve seen Roots I’ve just gradually become desensitized? God, I hope not.

Aminata Diallo, born in Bayo, West Africa, in 1745, is captured by slave traders when she is just eleven. We have barely settled into the rhythm of her life as a ‘free-born Muslim’ adored by her parents, before they are killed and she is captured. What follows is her life story. No question, it makes for fascinating, accessible and easy reading. But there was something missing for me, some emotional centre.

Aminita reaches America  after a long, brutal journey across the ocean. She is sold and quickly learns a new language and a new way of life. It is impossible not to admire her: she’s smart and resilient and tough. She has to be as she endures one tragedy after another.

And perhaps this is where I feel let down by the book: despite knowing Aminita’s story, I never felt like I knew her. In telling the story of her life, she relays the facts, all but stripping the emotion from them. The slightly unbelievable denouement, therefore, had little impact on me.

Should you read this book? Absolutely. Is it worthy of all the praise?  Yes, of course it is, because we should always be reminded that the struggle for equality is ongoing, that people still suffer because of their race or religious beliefs. Let’s face it, the world hasn’t really come all that far since Aminita’s day.

There’s a part of me that feels slightly guilty that I didn’t love it.  But I am glad I read it.

At A Loss For Words by Diane Schoemperlen

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It sometimes happens that a book that no one particularly likes generates an excellent discussion. This was the case with Canadian writer Diane Schoemperlen’s book At A Loss For Words.  One woman in my book club actually said: “I knew you wouldn’t want me to finish it.”

I didn’t actually have any trouble finishing the book, but not because it was the most original or beautiful or innovative book I’ve ever read about the nature of love. The story is rife with cliches and prose so purple you might think you’re scarfing grape jelly by the jar.

An unnamed woman rekindles a relationship with an old boyfriend. She and this guy (also unnamed) had a  fairly serious thing which, one gathers, ended rather badly 30 years ago. She’s a writer, but since renewing her relationship with this guy, she’s unable to write. The story (such as it is) consists mostly of her lists of writing prompts and her e-mail correspondence with the man a sort of he said, she said only in this case it’s I said, you said.

To say that I didn’t believe a word of what they said to each other would be harsh, but really who talks like this?

“I do appreciate these thoughts. I want to say how much I welcome and treasure everything you say. Your letters are too wonderful! You life my spirits immeasurably with all that you write. You warm me up on this gray damp day”  (59).

As soon as this relationship is consummated, it begins to unravel. The woman starts clinging and the man starts pulling away and the denouement is neither original or shocking. In addition, you sort of wanted to shake her a little; I mean, she’s a successful writer and she’s not 20- couldn’t she sort of see this coming?

Still, who hasn’t been in love with the wrong guy…maybe even the wrong guy on more than one occasion. Hands up! So, while none of us were enamoured with Schoemperlen’s rather writerly tale, we had lots and lots of fun talking about rekindled passion, first love and our very first (after 10 years in book club) discussion of orgasms.

Charlotte and Claudia Keeping in Touch by Joan Barfoot

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At the end of every book club year, the members choose their most and least favourite reads. We don’t call it ‘best’ and ‘worst’ book- we’re kinder than that. We call it “Book I enjoyed reading the most” and “Book I enjoyed reading the least”. That way, we assume, there will be no hurt feelings. Of course, the way our book club works, we’re not allowed to choose our most favourite book of all time as our pick, anyway. Ten years later, no one has left in a huff because the rest of the group didn’t love a book with quite the same fervor as the person who picked it did. Still, as each member only picks one book a year everyone is highly aware that if their book’s a flop they might be the recipint of ” the poopie prize.”

I deliberate endlessly over my book club choice. I read reviews and I spend a lot of time making my choice. Although I’ve had a few excellent choices over the years, I’ve only ever won favourite book once (with last year’s choice Fingersmith by Sarah Waters) I was afraid that I might win this year’s poopie award with At A Loss For Words. I think I was saved by providing a fabulous dessert on the night I hosted (review and dessert recipe are posted here). Also, despite the book’s limited scope, I had really great questions that generated excellent discussion.

Tonight we meet to discuss Joan Barfoot’s novel Charlotte and Claudia Keeping in Touch. While reading this book I couldn’t help but think, “well, at least I won’t win the booby prize this year.” The novel plods along without momentum and consists mainly of ruminations on the loss of youth, spouses, lovers, children, and perky boobs. I hated the title. I mostly disliked the two main characters: Charlotte an unmarried 70 -year -old retired social worker and Claudia, a 70 -year -old home maker whose philandering husband has just died of cancer. Their life-long friendship seems contrived especially given that we see it through the filter of their own personal stories and not much else.

And yet – I found the story strangely affecting. I mean, I’m not anywhere near 70, but I could somehow relate to these women. What have you got a the end of your life? Your children, in Claudia’s case, are grown with their own families and concerns. Your husband, (also in Claudia’s case) lying cheat that he is, is by turns loving and nasty as he dies a slow painful death in the bed you once shared. As for Charlotte, she’s taken to hiding in the hedge next to the house of her former, married lover. Former as in they parted ways 30 years ago. So there’s poor Charlotte wedged in the cedar trying to make sense of her feelings for this guy, who stayed with his wife and children after all.

The novel’s plot- such as it is- turns on a huge secret Claudia wants to reveal to Charlotte. It’s not really that great a secret and hardly worth the wait and the whole tidy ending is just sort of dull. Still.

So, while I have a feeling that I won’t be taking home any plastic flowers this year, I bet we’ll have lots to talk about tonight.

Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones

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Lloyd Jones’ Mister Pip won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book in 2007. Books with pedigree always make me nervous. What if I don’t like it? What does that say about me as a reader? No chance of not liking Mister Pip, though. This is a terrific book.

Thirteen-year-old Matilda lives on the tropical island of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea. Many of the island’s inhabitants have fled, including Matilda’s father, because of a brutal civil war. Redskins and rambos are fighting, and the island is all but cut off from civilization. The only white inhabitant left in the village is a man called Mr. Watts, also known as Pop Eye. It is decided that he will teach the children, as the school teachers have all fled.

As they clean up the building they will use as a school room, Mr. Watts tells the children “I want this to be a place of light, no matter what happens.”

Mr. Watts begins to read the children Great Expectations which he claims is “the greatest novel by the greatest English writer of the nineteenth century.” And as Pip’s story unfolds, so does Jones’ novel. Not everyone agrees with Mr. Watts’ estimation of Dickens’ worth. Matilda’s mother, Dolores, in particular thinks Mr. Watts should be teaching the children about God and the devil. She and Mr. Watts are adversaries, but there can be no mistaking the impact Watts is having on Matilda.

Mister Pip is a fantastic book about the power of reading and imagination. It is also a powerful and startling novel about bravery and sacrifice, love and forgiveness.

I can not recommend it highly enough.