2010-11 Books Read

The World Before Her – 1/10 – Carol

A Short History of Women – Kate Walbert – Marti - 2/10

Nine Stories – J. D. Salinger – Teresa 3/10

The Girl from Foreign  - Sadia Shepard  - Mindy – 4/10

The Story of a Marriage:  A Novel – Andrew Sean Greer – Gloria – 5/10

The Invention of Hugo Cabret – Brian Selznick – Lynnie - 6/10

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle – David Wroblewski – Andrea – 7/10

Skipped 8/10

Losing Mum and Pup – Christopher Buckley – Ellen – 9/10

The Good Soldiers – David Finkel – Teresa – 10/10

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake – Aimee Bender – Marti – 11/10

American Rust – Philipp Meyer – Mindi – 12/10

The Phantom Tollbooth – Norton Juster – no one’s real pick – 1/11
The Seven Sins of Memory -Daniel Schacter - Gloria 2&3/11
The Lonely Polygamist - Brady Udall - Lynnie  4&5/11
Sherry Turkle podcasts - Madeline -6/11
A Year of Jubilo - Howard Bahr - Andrea 7/11

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's       Berlin - Eric Larson - Ellen 8/11

The Poison Tree: A Novel by Erin Kelly - Teresa

NY Times - 10 Best Books of 2010

FREEDOM
By Jonathan Franzen.
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $28.

The author of “The Corrections” is back, not quite a decade later, with an even richer and deeper work — a vividly realized narrative set during the Bush years, when the creedal legacy of “personal liberties” assumed new and sometimes ominous proportions. Franzen captures this through the tribulations of a Midwestern family, the ­Berglunds, whose successes, failures and appetite for self-invention reflect the larger story of millennial America.

THE NEW YORKER STORIES
By Ann Beattie.
Scribner, $30.

As these 48 stories published in The New Yorker from 1974 through 2006 demonstrate, Beattie, even as she chronicled and satirized her post-1960s generation, also became its defining voice. She punctures her characters’ pretensions and jadedness with an economy and effortless dialogue that writers have been trying to emulate for three decades, though few, if any, have matched her seamless combination of biting wit and mordant humor, precise irony and consummate cool.

ROOM
By Emma Donoghue.
Little, Brown & Company, $24.99.

Donoghue has created one of the pure triumphs of recent fiction: an ebullient child narrator, held captive with his mother in an 11-by-11-foot room, through whom we encounter the blurry, often complicated space between closeness and autonomy. In a narrative at once delicate and vigorous — rich in psychological, sociological and political meaning — Donoghue reveals how joy and terror often dwell side by side.

SELECTED STORIES
By William Trevor.
Viking, $35.

Gathering work from Trevor’s previous four collections, this volume shows why his deceptively spare fiction has haunted and moved readers for generations. Set mainly in Ireland and England, Trevor’s tales are eloquent even in their silences, documenting the way the present is consumed by the past, the way ancient patterns shape the future. Neither modernist nor antique, his stories are timeless.

A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD
By Jennifer Egan.
Alfred A. Knopf, $25.95.

Time is the “goon squad” in this virtuosic rock ’n’ roll novel about a cynical record producer and the people who intersect his world. Ranging across some 40 years and inhabiting 13 different characters, each with his own story and perspective, Egan makes these disparate parts cohere into an artful whole, irradiated by a Proustian feel for loss, regret and the ravages of love.

Nonfiction

APOLLO’S ANGELS: A History of Ballet
By Jennifer Homans.
Random House, $35.

Here is the only truly definitive history of classical ballet. Spanning more than four centuries, from the French Renaissance to American and Soviet stages during the cold war, Homans shows how the art has been central to the social and cultural identity of nations. She meticulously reconstructs entire eras, describing the evolution of ballet technique while coaxing long-lost dances back to life. And she raises a crucial question: In the 21st century, can ballet survive?

CLEOPATRA: A Life
By Stacy Schiff.
Little, Brown & Company, $29.99.

With her signature blend of wit, intelligence and superb prose, Schiff strips away 2,000 years of prejudices and propaganda in her elegant reimagining of the Egyptian queen who, even in her own day, was mythologized and misrepresented.

THE EMPEROR OF ALL MALADIES: A Biography of Cancer
By Siddhartha Mukherjee.
Scribner, $30.

Mukherjee’s magisterial “biography” of the most dreaded of modern afflictions. He excavates the deep history of the “war” on cancer, weaving haunting tales of his own clinical experience with sharp sketches of the sometimes heroic, sometimes misguided scientists who have preceded him in the fight.

FINISHING THE HAT: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) With Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, ­Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes
By Stephen Sondheim.
Alfred A. Knopf, $39.95.

The theater’s pre-eminent living songwriter offers a master class in how to write a musical, covering some of the greatest shows, from “West Side Story”  to “Sweeney Todd.” Sondheim’s analysis of his and others’ lyrics is insightful and candid, and his anecdotes are telling and often very funny.

THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration
By Isabel Wilkerson.
Random House, $30.

Wilkerson, a former national correspondent for The Times, has written a masterly and engrossing account of the Great Migration, in which six million African-Americans abandoned the South between 1915 and 1970. The book centers on the journeys of three black migrants, each representing a different decade and a different destination.

March Book Nine Stories – J. D. Salinger

 

February Meeting

Our meeting is at Marty's  on Thursday Feb. 4,2010.  The book is:

Kate Walbert's 'A Short History of Women' 

'A Short History of Women' travels from suffrage to blogging...... more click here 

January 2009 Book Selection and Location

 The World Before Her by Deborah Weisgall.

To be held at the home of:
 Carol Hosmer
 3861 Constitution Dr. Dallas, Tx 75229

Past Book Selections

Past Book Selections

Ellen
The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
Conscience and Courage; Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust, Eva Fogelman
Eating Pavlova, D. M. Thomas
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
We're Right and They're Wrong, James Carville
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (9/98)
The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver (2/99)

Marsha 
Angels In America, Tony Kushner
Mating, Norman Rush (6/95)
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
A Christmas Memory, Truman Capote
Complete Stories, Flannery O'Connor
The Chess Garden, Brooks Hansen (6/98)
Cheri and The Last of Cheri, Colette (5/99)

Teresa and Marti
Snow Falling on Cedars, David Guterson (T)
Liar's Club, Mary Karr (T)
Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Gregory Maguire (M)
Banana Rose, Natalie Goldberg (M)
Good Bones and Simple Murders, Margaret Atwood (T)
The Angel of Darkness, Caleb Carr (M)
Blackwater, Kerstin Ekman (M)
Speaking Truth to Power, Anita Hill (M)
Bellwether, Connie Willis (5/98) (T)
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, (10/98)(M)
Einstein's Dreams, Alan Lightman (12/98)(T)
Fugitive Pieces, Anne Michaels (4/99) (T)

Barbara and Elena
Midnight at the Garden of Good & Evil, John Berendt (B)
Paula, Isabel Allende (E)
A Right To Privacy (B)
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, Jung Chang (B)
In the Lake of the Woods, Tim O'Brien (E)
Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, Robert Olen Butler (B)
+ Running in the Family, Michael Ondaatje (B)
The Reader, Bernhard Schlink (1/98)(E)
The Passion, Jeanette Winterson (8/98)(B)
The Blue Flower, Penelope Fitzgerald (1/99)(E)
Falling Leaves, Adeline Yen Mah (6/99)

Linda
Salinger Fest (A)
Paradise, Toni Morrison (2/98)(L)
Diary of Anne Frank
Vindication, Francis Sherwood (L)
At Weddings and Wakes, (7/98)(A)


B.J.
First Ladies : The Saga of the President's
Wives and Their Power, 1789-1961 by Carl Sferrazza Anthony
Journaling
A Debt to Pleasure, John Lancaster
Paradise, Toni Morrison (3/98)
Pushkin Short Stories (11/98)

Ginny
In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez
Stone Diaries, Carol Shields
Sugar Cage, Connie May Fowler
Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden (3/99)

American Pastoral, Phillip Roth, Elena (I think) 8/99

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald - Ellen (9/99?)

Disgrace, J. M. Coetzee - Marsha (10/99?)

The Hours, Michael Cunningham - Jane (2/00)

A Restricted Country, Joan Nestle - Teresa (3/00)

City of God, E. L. Doctorow - Marti (4/00)

The Orchid Thief, Susan Orlean - Barbara (5/00)

Local Girls, Alice Hoffman - Chris (6/00)

White Oleander, Janet Fitch - Mary Maddux 7/00

Catfish and Mandala, Andrew Pham - Ellen 8/00

My Family and Other Animals, Gerald Durrell- Marsha 9/00

The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood - Jane 10/00

The Last Life, Claire Messud- Jill 11/00 and 12/00

didn't meet in 12/00 due to snow.

Paris to the Moon, Adam Glopnik - Gloria 2/01

Trumpet, Jackie Kay - Barbara ?date?

Girl with the Pearl Earring, Barbara 3/01

Disobedience, Jane Hamilton - Marti 4/01

The Powerbook, Jeanette Winterson - 6/01- Lynnie

Comfort Me with Apples, Ruth Reichl - 7/01 - Jill

A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You, Amy Bloom = 8/01 - Teresa

White Teeth, Zadie Smith - 9/01 - Jane

The Clothes They Stood Up In, Alan Bennett - 10/01 - Marsha

The Last Report on the Miracles of Little No Horse, Louise Erdrich - 11/01 - Ellen

Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich - Gloria - 12/01

Zami, a New Spelling of My Name, Audre Lorde - 1/ 02 and 2/02 - Barbara

Eva Moves the Furniture, Margot Livesey - 3/02 - Lynnie

Nigger, Randal Kennedy - 4/02 - Jane

Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand - 5/02 - Marsha

Flights of Love, Bernhard Schlink - 6/02 and 7/02 - Gloria

White Swan, Black Swan, Adrienne Sharp - 8/02 - Ellen

Bee Season, Myla Goldberg - 9/02 - Teresa

Jim the Boy, Tony Earley - 10/02 - Barbara

The Partly Cloudy Patriot, Sarah Vowell 11/02 - Lynnie

Lovely Bones, Alice Seabold - 12/02 - Marti

No Book assigned for 01/03

Motherless Brooklyn, Jonathan Lethem - 2/03 - Jane

Survival of the Prettiest, Nancy Etcoff - 3/03 - Gloria

Peace Like a River, Leif Enger - 4/03 - Ellen

Look at Me, Jennifer Egan - 5/03 - Marsha

The Quiet American, Graham Greene - 6/03 - Teresa

Life of Pi, Yann Martel - 7/03 - Barbara

Lily Dale, Christine Wicker - 8/03 - Lynnie

The Eyre Affaire, Jasper Fforde - 9/03 - Marti

Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi - 10/03 - Gloria

Bel Canto, Ann Patchett - 11/03 - no one's book, everyone just wanted to read it

Madam Secretary, Madeleine Albright - Jane - 12/03 & 1/04

Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides - Barbara - 2/04

Citizen Cohn, Nicholas Von Hoffman - Marti - 3/2004

Empress Orchid, Anchee Min - Ellen - 4/2004

Mariette in Ecstasy, Ron Hansen - Marsha -5/2004

The Spiral Staircase, Karen Armstrong - Teresa - 6/2004

Plan of Attack, Bob Woodward - Jane - 7/2004

Bone-Out from Boneville & The GreatCow Race, Jeff Smith - Lynnie - 8/2004

The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson - Barbara - 9/2004

The Book of Salt, Monique Truong - Marti - 10/2004

The Good, the Bad and the Difference, Randy Cohen - Gloria - 11/2004

The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini - Ellen - 2/2005

American Gods, Neil Gaiman - Marsha - 3/2005

Love's Executioner, Irvin D. Yalom - Andrea - 4/2005

The Plot Against America, Philip Roth - Barbara - 5/2005

Guru: My Days with Del Close, Jeff Griggs - Lynnie - 6/2005

The House in Paris, Elizabeth Bowen - Teresa - 8/2005

Freakonomics, Levitt & Dubner - Gloria - 9/2005

The Way The Crow Flies, Anne-Marie MacDonald - Ellen - 10/2005

Everything Is Illuminated, Jonathon Safran Foer - Marsha - 11/05

Becoming Justice Blackmun, Linda Greenhouse - Jane - 12/05

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro - Marti - 1/06

The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion - Andrea - 2/06

The Tender Bar, J.R. Moehringer - BB - 3/06

Magic for Beginners, Kelly Link - Lynnie - 4/06

Tomorrow Now, Bruce Sterling - Teresa - 5/06

Who Do You Love: Stories - Gloria - 6/06

Dry: A Memoir - Ellen - 7/06

Cosmopolis, Don DeLillo - Marsha - 8/06

Saturday, Ian McEwen - Jane - 9/06

Call It Sleep, Henry Roth - Marti - 10/06

The Stranger, Albert Camus - Andrea 11/06

Runaway, Alice Munro - Jane (@M+T's) 12/06

On Beauty, Zadie Smith - BB - 1/07

The Girl in the Glass, Jeffrey Ford - Lynnie - 2/07

Bushwacked: Life in George W. Bush's America, Molly Ivins - Gloria 3/07

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic,

Alison Bechdel, Alison Bechdel (Illustrator) - M+T 4/07

Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris - Ellen 5/07

The Man in My Basement, Walter Mosley - Marsha 6/07

After This, Alice McDermott - Andrea 7/07

skipped August

The Book Thief, Markus Zusak - Marti 9/07

skipped October

Suite Francaise, Irene Nemirovsky - BB (@Ellen's) 11/07

The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, A. J. Jacobs - Lynnie (@BB's) 12/07

Skipped January 2008

The Nine – Jeffrey Toobin – Teresa – 2/2008

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time – Mark Haddon –Gloria - 3/2008

The Uncommon Reader – Alan Bennett – Marti– 4/2008

Berlin Stories – Christopher Isherwood – Ellen – 5/2008

The Stone Gods – Jeanette Winterson – Marsha – 6/2008

Wild Nights – Joyce Carol Oates – Marti – 7/2008

House Lights – Leah Hager Cohen – Andrea 9/2008 (skipped August)

Then We Came To the End – Joshua Ferris – Lynnie 10/2008

The Perks of Being a Wallflower – Norm Chbosky – Teresa – 11/2008

The World To Come – Dara Horn – 12/2008 – Gloria's

The Coffee Trader – David Liss – Mindy 1/2009

The Knife Thrower’s Assistant – Ronnie Claire Edwards – Ellen 2/2009

Nothing to Be Frightened Of – Julian Barnes – Andrea 3/2009

American Girl – Susan Choi – Marti 4/2009

World Made by Hand – James Howard Kuntsler – Gloria 5/09

Flu – Gina Kolata – Teresa 6/09

Crazy for God – Frank Schaeffer – 7/09 - Lynnie

Heart Like Water – Joshua Clark – 8 & 9/09 - Mindy

700 Sundays – Billy Crystal – 10/09 – Andrea

The Year of the Flood – Margaret Atwood – 11/09 – Ellen

Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell – 12/09 – Gloria

NY Times - 10 Best Books of 2009

Article
After so many years, and so many lists, you might think the task of choosing the 10 Best Books would get easier. If only. The sublime story collections alone created agonies of indecision. So did the superb literary biographies we read — and deeply admired. But in the end the decisions had to be made.

Not that drawing up the list — or rather, whittling it down — was a wholly painful exercise. One of the pleasures it afforded was the chance to resample the sometimes surprising chemistry of reviewers and authors, particularly when it came to fiction. Jonathan Lethem, whose “Chronic City” made our list, reviewed Lorrie Moore’s novel “A Gate at the Stairs,” which made it too, while Curtis Sittenfeld, whose novel “Prep” was one of the 10 Best in 2005, reviewed Maile Meloy’s story collection “Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It,” a winner this year. Any book review editor will attest that persuading fiction writers to assess other people’s fiction can be a struggle. These were heartening exceptions to the rule. May more novelists review for us in 2010!

This list will appear in print in the Dec. 13 Book Review. —The Editors

Article

February Book

The Knife Thrower's Assistant: Memoirs of a Human Target
by Ronnie Claire Edwards

February 3, 7 p.m. at Ellen's

Ronnie Claire will be with us to spin a few yarns and read from her memoirs.

From amazon.com –
For years, a close circle of friends have been thrilled and enchanted by actress Ronnie Claire Edwards' vivid and hilarious stories–tall tales and yarns that have earned her a reputation as one of Hollywood's greatest raconteurs. Now, for the first time, Edwards has taken pen in hand to write those precious stories down so she can share them with a larger audience. And the strangest thing is–they're all true! In a unique voice reminiscent of both Mark Twain and Eudora Welty, Edwards recounts the adventures that made hers a life unlike any other, filled with the quirky, the hair-raising, and the absurd. She writes about performing at rowdy (not to mention dangerous) mining camps, her strange and mystical experiences with the gypsies, and her true-life adventures as the Knife-Thrower's Assistant. Ronnie Claire Edwards creates a style all her own, what Fannie Flagg, in her Foreword, calls "Oklahoma Gothic." If there wasn't such a thing before–there certainly is now.

The "Picking Order"

By popular request (Andrea), here's the not-set-in-stone book selection order, starting January 2009:

• Mindy
• Ellen
• Marti
• Andrea
• Lynnie
• Teresa
• Gloria

As always, we're flexible and subject to changing our minds at any second. But now you know, roughly, when you pick the book.

Past Selections List

Has been updated with 2008 selections below.

Salon Book Awards 2008

Here's the link.

I haven't read a single one of them.

January book

The Coffee Trader
by David Liss

January 6, 7 p.m. at Mindy's
(see email for address and phone numbers)

New York Times review
David Liss site
Reading group guide


From Publishers Weekly
Liss's first novel, A Conspiracy of Paper, was sketched on the wide canvas of 18th-century London's multilayered society. This one, in contrast, is set in the confined world of 17th-century Amsterdam's immigrant Jewish community. Liss makes up the difference in scale with ease, establishing suspense early on. Miguel Lienzo escaped the Inquisition in Portugal and lives by his wits trading commodities. He honed his skills in deception during years of hiding his Jewish identity in Portugal, so he finds it easy to engage in the evasions and bluffs necessary for a trader on Amsterdam's stock exchange. While he wants to retain his standing in the Jewish community, he finds it increasingly difficult to abide by the draconian dictates of the Ma'amad, the ruling council. Which is all the more reason not to acknowledge his longing for his brother's wife, with whom he now lives, having lost all his money in the sugar trade. Miguel is delighted when a sexy Dutch widow enlists him as partner in a secret scheme to make a killing on "coffee fruit," an exotic bean little known to Europeans in 1659. But she may not be as altruistic as she seems. Soon Miguel is caught in a web of intricate deals, while simultaneously fending off a madman desperate for money, and an enemy who uses the Ma'amad to make Miguel an outcast. Each player in this complex thriller has a hidden agenda, and the twists and turns accelerate as motives gradually become clear. There's a central question, too: When men manipulate money for a living, are they then inevitably tempted to manipulate truth and morality?

December book

The World to Come
by Dara Horn

December 2, 7 p.m., at Gloria's

From Publishers Weekly
Former child prodigy Ben Ziskind—5'6", 123 pounds and legally blind—steals a Marc Chagall painting at the end of an alienating singles cocktail hour at a local museum, determined to prove that its provenance is tainted and that it belongs to his family. With surety and accomplishment, Horn (In the Image) telescopes out into Ziskind's familial history through an exploration of Chagall's life; that of Chagall's friend the Yiddish novelist Der Nister; 1920s Soviet Russia and its horrific toll on Russian Jews; the nullifying brutality of Vietnam (where Ben's father, Daniel, served a short, terrifying stint); and the paradoxes of American suburbia, a place where native Ben feels less at home than the teenage Soviet refugee Leonid Shcharansky. Ben's relationship with his pregnant twin sister, Sara, a painter who eventually tries to render a forgery of the painting to return to the museum, is a damply compelling exposition of what it means to have someone biologically close but emotionally distant. Horn, born in 1977, expertly handles subplots and digressions, neatly bringing in everything from Yiddish lore to Nebuchadnezzar, Da Nang, the Venice Biennale, recent theories of child development, brutal Soviet politics and Daniel's job as a writer for fictional TV show American Genius. Characters like Erica Frank, of the Museum of Hebraic Art, give tart glimpses into still-claustrophobic Goodbye, Columbus territory, which Horn then unites with a much grander place that furnishes the book's title.

November Book

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

November Book

The Perks of Being a Wallflower
by Stephen Chbosky

*Moved to Thursday due to Election Day*
November 6, 2008 at Marti & Teresa's house

Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.

This haunting novel about the dilemma of passivity vs. passion marks the stunning debut of a provocative new voice in contemporary fiction: The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

This is the story of what it's like to grow up in high school. More intimate than a diary, Charlie's letters are singular and unique, hilarious and devastating. We may not know where he lives. We may not know to whom he is writing. All we know is the world he shares. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it puts him on a strange course through uncharted territory. The world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends. The world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite.

Through Charlie, Stephen Chbosky has created a deeply affecting coming-of-age story, a powerful novel that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller coaster days known as growing up.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Then We Came to the End - Joshua Ferris

October 7, 2008 - Marti & Teresa's house (Lynnie hosts)

Salon Book Awards 2007
10 Best Books of 2007 New York Times

It's 2001. The dot-com bubble has burst and rolling layoffs have hit an unnamed Chicago advertising firm sending employees into an escalating siege mentality as their numbers dwindle. As a parade of employees depart, bankers boxes filled with their personal effects, those left behind raid their fallen comrades' offices, sifting through the detritus for the errant desk lamp or Aeron chair. Written with confidence in the tricky-to-pull-off first-person plural, the collective fishbowl perspective of the "we" voice nails the dynamics of cubicle culture--the deadlines, the gossip, the elaborate pranks to break the boredom, the joy of discovering free food in the breakroom. Arch, achingly funny, and surprisingly heartfelt, it's a view of how your work becomes a symbiotic part of your life. A dysfunctional family of misfits forced together and fondly remembered as it falls apart. Praised as "the Catch-22 of the business world" and "The Office meets Kafka," I'm happy to report that Joshua Ferris's brilliant debut lives up to every ounce of pre-publication hype and instantly became one of my favorite books of the year. --Brad Thomas Parsons

Once you've read the book, you'll probably enjoy the book's Web site.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Book selections update

This starts with 2008 -- previous selections are below.

Skipped January 2008
The Nine – Jeffrey Toobin – Teresa – 2/2008
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time – Mark Haddon –Gloria - 3/2008
The Uncommon Reader – Alan Bennett – Marti– 4/2008
Berlin Stories – Christopher Isherwood – Ellen – 5/2008
The Stone Gods – Jeanette Winterson – Marsha – 6/2008
Wild Nights – Joyce Carol Oates – Marti – 7/2008
House Lights – Leah Hager Cohen – Andrea 9/2008 (skipped August)
Then We Came To the End – Joshua Ferris – Lynnie 10/2008
The Perks of Being a Wallflower – Norm Chbosky – Teresa – 11/2008
The World To Come – Dara Horn – 12/2008 – Gloria's

I'll try to keep it updated.

Previous Book Selections

Past Book Selections

Ellen
The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
Conscience and Courage; Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust, Eva Fogelman
Eating Pavlova, D. M. Thomas
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
We're Right and They're Wrong, James Carville
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (9/98)
The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver (2/99)

Marsha
Angels In America, Tony Kushner
Mating, Norman Rush (6/95)
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
A Christmas Memory, Truman Capote
Complete Stories, Flannery O'Connor
The Chess Garden, Brooks Hansen (6/98)
Cheri and The Last of Cheri, Colette (5/99)

Teresa and Marti
Snow Falling on Cedars, David Guterson (T)
Liar's Club, Mary Karr (T)
Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Gregory Maguire (M)
Banana Rose, Natalie Goldberg (M)
Good Bones and Simple Murders, Margaret Atwood (T)
The Angel of Darkness, Caleb Carr (M)
Blackwater, Kerstin Ekman (M)
Speaking Truth to Power, Anita Hill (M)
Bellwether, Connie Willis (5/98) (T)
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, (10/98)(M)
Einstein's Dreams, Alan Lightman (12/98)(T)
Fugitive Pieces, Anne Michaels (4/99) (T)

Barbara and Elena
Midnight at the Garden of Good & Evil, John Berendt (B)
Paula, Isabel Allende (E)
A Right To Privacy (B)
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, Jung Chang (B)
In the Lake of the Woods, Tim O'Brien (E)
Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, Robert Olen Butler (B)
+ Running in the Family, Michael Ondaatje (B)
The Reader, Bernhard Schlink (1/98)(E)
The Passion, Jeanette Winterson (8/98)(B)
The Blue Flower, Penelope Fitzgerald (1/99)(E)
Falling Leaves, Adeline Yen Mah (6/99)

Linda
Salinger Fest (A)
Paradise, Toni Morrison (2/98)(L)
Diary of Anne Frank
Vindication, Francis Sherwood (L)
At Weddings and Wakes, (7/98)(A)


B.J.
First Ladies : The Saga of the President's
Wives and Their Power, 1789-1961 by Carl Sferrazza Anthony
Journaling
A Debt to Pleasure, John Lancaster
Paradise, Toni Morrison (3/98)
Pushkin Short Stories (11/98)

Ginny
In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez
Stone Diaries, Carol Shields
Sugar Cage, Connie May Fowler
Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden (3/99)

American Pastoral, Phillip Roth, Elena (I think) 8/99
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald - Ellen (9/99?)
Disgrace, J. M. Coetzee - Marsha (10/99?)
The Hours, Michael Cunningham - Jane (2/00)
A Restricted Country, Joan Nestle - Teresa (3/00)
City of God, E. L. Doctorow - Marti (4/00)
The Orchid Thief, Susan Orlean - Barbara (5/00)
Local Girls, Alice Hoffman - Chris (6/00)
White Oleander, Janet Fitch - Mary Maddux 7/00
Catfish and Mandala, Andrew Pham - Ellen 8/00
My Family and Other Animals, Gerald Durrell- Marsha 9/00
The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood - Jane 10/00
The Last Life, Claire Messud- Jill 11/00 and 12/00
didn't meet in 12/00 due to snow.
Paris to the Moon, Adam Glopnik - Gloria 2/01
Trumpet, Jackie Kay - Barbara ?date?
Girl with the Pearl Earring, Barbara 3/01
Disobedience, Jane Hamilton - Marti 4/01
The Powerbook, Jeanette Winterson - 6/01- Lynnie
Comfort Me with Apples, Ruth Reichl - 7/01 - Jill
A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You, Amy Bloom = 8/01 - Teresa
White Teeth, Zadie Smith - 9/01 - Jane
The Clothes They Stood Up In, Alan Bennett - 10/01 - Marsha
The Last Report on the Miracles of Little No Horse, Louise Erdrich - 11/01 - Ellen
Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich - Gloria - 12/01
Zami, a New Spelling of My Name, Audre Lorde - 1/ 02 and 2/02 - Barbara
Eva Moves the Furniture, Margot Livesey - 3/02 - Lynnie
Nigger, Randal Kennedy - 4/02 - Jane
Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand - 5/02 - Marsha
Flights of Love, Bernhard Schlink - 6/02 and 7/02 - Gloria
White Swan, Black Swan, Adrienne Sharp - 8/02 - Ellen
Bee Season, Myla Goldberg - 9/02 - Teresa
Jim the Boy, Tony Earley - 10/02 - Barbara
The Partly Cloudy Patriot, Sarah Vowell 11/02 - Lynnie
Lovely Bones, Alice Seabold - 12/02 - Marti
No Book assigned for 01/03
Motherless Brooklyn, Jonathan Lethem - 2/03 - Jane
Survival of the Prettiest, Nancy Etcoff - 3/03 - Gloria
Peace Like a River, Leif Enger - 4/03 - Ellen
Look at Me, Jennifer Egan - 5/03 - Marsha
The Quiet American, Graham Greene - 6/03 - Teresa
Life of Pi, Yann Martel - 7/03 - Barbara
Lily Dale, Christine Wicker - 8/03 - Lynnie
The Eyre Affaire, Jasper Fforde - 9/03 - Marti
Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi - 10/03 - Gloria
Bel Canto, Ann Patchett - 11/03 - no one's book, everyone just wanted to read it
Madam Secretary, Madeleine Albright - Jane - 12/03 & 1/04
Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides - Barbara - 2/04
Citizen Cohn, Nicholas Von Hoffman - Marti - 3/2004
Empress Orchid, Anchee Min - Ellen - 4/2004
Mariette in Ecstasy, Ron Hansen - Marsha -5/2004
The Spiral Staircase, Karen Armstrong - Teresa - 6/2004
Plan of Attack, Bob Woodward - Jane - 7/2004
Bone-Out from Boneville & The GreatCow Race, Jeff Smith - Lynnie - 8/2004
The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson - Barbara - 9/2004
The Book of Salt, Monique Truong - Marti - 10/2004
The Good, the Bad and the Difference, Randy Cohen - Gloria - 11/2004
The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini - Ellen - 2/2005
American Gods, Neil Gaiman - Marsha - 3/2005
Love's Executioner, Irvin D. Yalom - Andrea - 4/2005
The Plot Against America, Philip Roth - Barbara - 5/2005
Guru: My Days with Del Close, Jeff Griggs - Lynnie - 6/2005
The House in Paris, Elizabeth Bowen - Teresa - 8/2005
Freakonomics, Levitt & Dubner - Gloria - 9/2005
The Way The Crow Flies, Anne-Marie MacDonald - Ellen - 10/2005
Everything Is Illuminated, Jonathon Safran Foer - Marsha - 11/05
Becoming Justice Blackmun, Linda Greenhouse - Jane - 12/05
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro - Marti - 1/06
The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion - Andrea - 2/06
The Tender Bar, J.R. Moehringer - BB - 3/06
Magic for Beginners, Kelly Link - Lynnie - 4/06
Tomorrow Now, Bruce Sterling - Teresa - 5/06
Who Do You Love: Stories - Gloria - 6/06
Dry: A Memoir - Ellen - 7/06
Cosmopolis, Don DeLillo - Marsha - 8/06
Saturday, Ian McEwen - Jane - 9/06
Call It Sleep, Henry Roth - Marti - 10/06
The Stranger, Albert Camus - Andrea 11/06
Runaway, Alice Munro - Jane (@M+T's) 12/06
On Beauty, Zadie Smith - BB - 1/07
The Girl in the Glass, Jeffrey Ford - Lynnie - 2/07
Bushwacked: Life in George W. Bush's America, Molly Ivins - Gloria 3/07
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic,
Alison Bechdel, Alison Bechdel (Illustrator) - M+T 4/07
Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris - Ellen 5/07
The Man in My Basement, Walter Mosley - Marsha 6/07
After This, Alice McDermott - Andrea 7/07
skipped August
The Book Thief, Markus Zusak - Marti 9/07
skipped October
Suite Francaise, Irene Nemirovsky - BB (@Ellen's) 11/07
The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, A. J. Jacobs - Lynnie (@BB's) 12/07

Skipped January 2008
The Nine – Jeffrey Toobin – Teresa – 2/2008
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time – Mark Haddon –Gloria - 3/2008
The Uncommon Reader – Alan Bennett – Marti– 4/2008
Berlin Stories – Christopher Isherwood – Ellen – 5/2008
The Stone Gods – Jeanette Winterson – Marsha – 6/2008
Wild Nights – Joyce Carol Oates – Marti – 7/2008
House Lights – Leah Hager Cohen – Andrea 9/2008 (skipped August)
Then We Came To the End – Joshua Ferris – Lynnie 10/2008
The Perks of Being a Wallflower – Norm Chbosky – Teresa – 11/2008
The World To Come – Dara Horn – 12/2008 – Gloria's

The Coffee Trader – David Liss – Mindy 1/2009

The Knife Thrower’s Assistant – Ronnie Claire Edwards – Ellen 2/2009

Nothing to Be Frightened Of – Julian Barnes – Andrea 3/2009

American Girl – Susan Choi – Marti 4/2009

World Made by Hand – James Howard Kuntsler – Gloria 5/09

Flu – Gina Kolata – Teresa 6/09

Crazy for God – Frank Schaeffer – 7/09 - Lynnie

Heart Like Water – Joshua Clark – 8 & 9/09 - Mindy

700 Sundays – Billy Crystal – 10/09 – Andrea

The Year of the Flood – Margaret Atwood – 11/09 – Ellen

Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell – 12/09 – Gloria