Suggestion Box for Future Book Discussions ~

[JoanP]

Vote Today for NOVEMBER'S BOOK CLUB ONLINE
VOTE HERE
Titles are all linked to reviews or descriptions

Title Author We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves                    Karen Joy Fowler Uncle Tom's Cabin                    Harriet Beecher Stowe Miss Marjoribanks                    Margaret Oliphant Bully Pulpit                    Doris Kearns Goodwin Unbroken                    Laura Hillenbrand Flight of Gemma Hardy                    Margot Livesey Setting the Desert on Fire                    James Barr Kristin Lavransdatter   The Bridal Wreath                    Sigrid Unset

Contact:  JoanP

[JoanP]

OKay...are you ready?  The September/October Book Club Online discussion has just opened. It only took two surveys to see what the majority was interested in reading/discussing.   To find out more, click this link...and hopefully let us know that you will be there...on opening day, Sept 15.

The Girls of Atomic City

[JoanP]

We're into the September/October discussion now - and a good time to begin the nominations for November.  Hopefully we can put our heads together and come up with a title that sparks interest in a group discussion/

You are probably familiar with the author, Karen Joy Fowler?  Several years ago we discussed her delightful "Jane Austen Book Club" - and then some of us met with her for tea in Washington DC.  
She has a new book out now - We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves which has won the 2014 Pen/Faulkner Award - and it's just been elected to the 2014 Man Booker Prize short list - an honor for an American.

Would you like to consider it for discussion here?  (Be sure to read the comments at the bottom of the page provided in the link above.)

Since Uncle Tom's Cabin was such a close runner-up to The Girls of Atomic City, let's see if there is still interest in that title now.  Will enter it into the heading...

[BarbStAubrey]

This appears like a bit of overkill but I cannot make a choice of these three books that I think we would enjoy reading for our next selection - the first takes place in one of our favorite time, nineteenth century Britain - it is always included on a list of the books to read along with Jane Austin, Elizabeth Gaskell and Anthony Trollope - I do not thing we have read and it could be fun - Miss Marjoribanks, considered a comic masterpiece. The story is about Lucilla launching herself into Carlingford society after she returns home to care for her newly widowed father.

The second selection is worlds apart taking place in Southern India during the 1800s - Tiger Hills by Sarita Mandanna  - the story is about two children, boy and girl who when they are grown would probably marry except as children when roaming the hills they see a Tiger Wedding and there is an older man, a tiger hunter that the girl secretly decides she must marry. It is this love that sows "the seed of a devastating tragedy that will change the fate of all three --- an event that has unforeseen and far-reaching consequences for generations to come."

The third suggestion was included on the list last month but I still think there is much to talk about and a look at our American History that I would never have guessed -  George Washington's Secret Six: The Spy Ring That Saved the American Revolution by Brian
Kilmeade

[JoanP]

Miss Marjoribanks   http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/514761.Miss_Marjoribanks

Tiger Hills by Sarita Mandanna

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/books/review/book-review-tiger-hills-by-sarita-mandanna.html



George Washington's Secret Six: The Spy Ring That Saved the American Revolution by Brian
Kilmeade

http://www.amazon.com/George-Washingtons-Secret-Six-Revolution/dp/159523103X

[Ella Gibbons]

I just finished THE FLIGHT OF GEMMA HARDY by Margot Livesey, a sweet book.  The author has won numerous grants and awards; however I couldn't believe she would dupllicate in modern form Bronte's JANE EYRE (one of my all time favorites)  except for the circumstances surrounding her Mr. Sinclair and Mr. Rochester.Might be fun to read the two of them together.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/books/review/the-flight-of-gemma-hardy-by-margot-livesey-book-review.html

Then I nominate again THE BULLY PULPIT by Goodwin.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/books/review/doris-kearns-goodwins-bully-pulpit.html?pagewanted=all

UNBROKEN continues (for weeks and weeks) on the lists; would it make a good discussion?

http://laurahillenbrandbooks.com/

I nominate HARD CHOICES, need I tell you the author?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Choices

[Ella Gibbons]

Do you think we could do Hillary Clinton's book - if we could keep it from being political we could learn a lot about other countries and the role of our secretary of state.  She may be, will be, the Democratic candidate for president and we could discuss that to some length; differences in gender, etc.

We would have to control the discussion away from politics asking for NO PERSONAL OPINIONS, STICK TO THE BOOK.

[marjifay]

I'll second the nomination for Clinton's HARD CHOICES.  It's on my TBR list.

Marj

[JoanP]

We're celebrating another family birthday this weekend until Tuesday when I can get these nominations into the heading.  Please keep them coming! We'll vote next week.

Barbara,  Ella, some really good suggestions - though we'll have to give some thought to the Clinton book. The idea of avoiding politics when discussing a book by the
 likely Democratic candidate for president doesn't seem possible. The idea of asking participants to avoid personal opinions, which is what our book discussions are - and asking Discussion Leaders to "control" such a discussion is beyond what we ask of them.  It seems there are plenty of other titles from which to chose.

[bellamarie]

I agree, it would be difficult to read and discuss a book about a woman in politics and avoid political opinions in the discussion, especially since she is such a high political profile figure looking to the 2016 Presidential election.

[marjifay]

Re Hillary's book, Hard Choices, I withdraw my nomination.  I went to Amazon to read the reviews.  Too many readers said they were disappointed -- had looked forward to being informed by the book, but could not finish it because it contained too much political rhetoric, was too partisan, etc.  Sounds as if it would be hard not to get into politics were it to be discussed here.

Marj

[Jonathan]

The Middle East is so much in the news and probably will be for many more years. I would like to nominate Jame Barr's Setting the Desert on Fire: T.E.Lawrence and Britains Secret War in Arabia. It looks interesting. One reviewer at Amazon has this to say:

'Setting the desert on fire is a historical account of British Army missions in the Middle East during the First World War. However, its impact is a great deal more wide ranging than that sounds. Given the current delicate situation in this part of the world, this book takes the reader on a fascinating journey to the heart of the region, and certainly helped me to place some of our current follies in context.'

Or, how about, Lawernce's own Seven Pillars of Wisdom? Or Michael Korda's HERO: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia? From the back cover: 'This is the story of an epic life on a grand scale... HERO is the magisterial story of one of the most unique and fascinating figures of modern times - the arch hero whose life was, at once, a triumph and a sacrifice.'

[Frybabe]

Ah, Jonathan. I real Seven Pillars of Wisdom when I was in High School. My Dad took one look at the tome and told me I'd never get through it because it would be too "dry". Did I ever fool him. I hated to have to take it back to the library. It was a large book with a mousy grey cover and the publication year was 1926.

I have a paperback version that my sister gave me years ago for my birthday, but I never opened it. Somehow, paperback seemed undignified for such a book. I used to have a book of letters between Robert Graves and Lawrence and his book, The Mint (I wish I still had them, they were very interesting). Those two were traded to a friend, who was also a Lawrence follower, for Arabia Deserta. That volume was one of the books that Lawrence read/relied on during his pre-war travels. It did turn out to be dry and boring, so I no longer have that. My Lawrence library now consists of the aforementioned paperback, Jeremy Wilson's biography of Lawrence, Lawrence's Revolt in the Desert (which I believe is an abbreviated version of Seven Pillars), and Liddell Hart's Colonel Lawrence: The Man Behind the Legend.

The book you mention by Jame Barr is new to me. I'll look into it. I have not seen Korda's book either. Is that the new one that came out a short while back?

[BarbStAubrey]

ewww brilliant anything by or about T.E.Lawrence - great - I would go with any of them

[marcie]

I'd be interested in a book about or by "Lawrence of Arabia." I have to admit that my first knowledge of him was from the film, Lawrence of Arabia, which starred Peter O'Toole. See images at https://www.google.com/search?q=lawrence+of+arabia&client=firefox-a&hs=SlI&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=sb&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=Z60wVKBpl4HKBNjGgLAH&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAg&biw=1426&bih=833#facrc=0%3Blawrence%20of%20arabia%20peter%20o%27toole&imgdii=_&imgrc=_

[Frybabe]

Marcie, the movie was about as close to the book as I  have ever seen. The movie people only created one scene that stuck out as being a movie fabrication. That was the scene where the young Arab boy died when he blundered into a sand pit (I don't know exactly what you call it); he actually died of exposure during the winter. The other boy did indeed die when a detonator he was carrying went off when he tripped. To read Seven Pillars, itself, would probably take several months. The Mint is an autobiography of his life in the Army, after WWI. It has been a long while since I read it. I vaguely remember he first enlisted in the tank corps under an assumed name, and served in India for a while before coming back to England.

Lawrence was very much at odds with the politicians on how they treated the Arabs and how the tribal territories were ignored when they divided up the region into new countries. He pretty much warned that the high-handed treatment of the Arabs would eventually come back to bite them.

[marjifay]

Thanks, Jonathan, for recommending Setting the Desert on Fire.  I'm going to read it whether or not it is selected for discussion here.

While looking for other books by James Barr, I found what looks like a very interesting book I put on my TBR list:  A LINE IN THE SAND; THE ANGLO-FRENCH STRUGGLE FOR THE MIDDLE EAST, 1914-1948.  The book description at Amazon reads, in part: "It explains exactly how the old antagonism between these two powers (Britain and France) inflamed the more familiar modern rivalry between the Arabs and the Jews, and ultimately led to war between the British and the French in 1941 and between the Arabs and the Jews in 1948."  I had never heard of any war between the British and the French.

Marj

[BarbStAubrey]

I did not think Setting the Desert on Fire was written by Lawrence however, books by Lawrence that are of a manageable size are many - he has novels set in Italy and Mexico and he spent time in the US in New Mexico - there is a lot to choose from.  I am thinking of Lost Girl that is mostly set in Italy or White Peacock an early novel set in England about the industrialization of Britain. Then there is his travel book in Europe entitled, Twilight In Italy.

I'm not sure about getting a handle on the middle east by reading how Europe interfered without also reading the history of Zionism which was in place starting with Theodor Herzl in the late nineteenth century and going strong in the early twentieth - I think there are lots of fingers in the growth of mid-east conflict we see today that was engineered out of long held European conflicts.

The context of the mistrust and low opinion the French have to the Germans goes back to when the Roman Empire collapsed and this superior attitude by the French continued since France came out of the Roman experience as Roman territory that grew to include a monarchy and church as one unit where as, the German experience was more fractured, they were the barbarians breaking down the gates of Rome. Where some of the German lands included a monarchy that was also the church as one, they were not under the umbrella of Rome's sensibility as was France - Then in modern times, we only read in last months selection here the conflicts between France and Germany during the nineteenth century which takes place when Germany was united with Prussia - then we also need to take into account the Christian superiority to Jews that grew and grew from the time of Rome -

I just see reading one book as a great opportunity however, I am cautious as to identifying the cause of today's conflict placed at the alter of France and Germany without understanding that 1500 year old conflict and without seeing how the newly organized Zionists were in the mix wanting to establish a Jewish State on Arab held territory that was also happening during this time that Lawrence was in the middle east.

[Frybabe]

Wrong Lawrence, Barb. D. H. wrote those novels. T.E. was involved with getting the Arabs to revolt against the Turks in WWI. I don't recall that Lawrence said much, if anything, about Jewish interests in the Middle East.

[BarbStAubrey]

aha thanks for straightening me out on Lawrence - you are right, D.H. said nothing about Zionism although, that was a factor at the time and still is a factor in the middle east - my take on all of this is there is no right or wrong and everyone is coming from a view point of their history - there is so much finger pointing today that I just get exasperated as if things that happened in only the past 100 to 200 years can explain an area of the world that even those long ago players dividing up the area held a long and contentious history.

I've on my TBR pile Henry Kissinger's Diplomacy written some years back however, I understand it is filled with how decisions are ultimately made between and for nations. It is so easy for us to see history as a new slate with maybe history from the last 150 years so that I fear we are actors that are not that helpful.

What is amazing to me is how much European, Middle East and Asian history was ignored or probably with antiquated communication we as a nation felt removed with our isolationism in place and two oceans allowing us to do our thing with little to no care about the areas of the world we emigrated from and so, we did not learn in school the revolutions and changing map of the rest of the world during the nineteenth century. I remember learning more about the War of the Roses than I ever did about the unification of Germany or Italy much less the wars between Japan and China or the ancient differences between North and South Vietnam much less the ancient revelry between Sunni and Shia and how those conflicts are part of their DNA. Amazing to see one step of disrespect built on the next and the next and still affecting grudges and policy today.

[Jonathan]

Barb, I find your posts so stimulating. Yes, what a mess we're in. Anarchy rules the world. And judging by the title of his latest book, World Order, even Dr. Kissinger has given up on diplomacy. The world needs a policeman. The isolationists were right. Having turned our backs on the old world, with its zillion grudges, we should have stayed with our new frontier orientation.

For booklovers there's always another option. I found it put very well by T.E. Lawrence himself, quoted in Michael Korda's Hero: '...but if you can get the right book at the right time you taste joys - not only bodily, physical, but spiritual also, which pass one out above and beyond one's miserable self, as it were through a huge air, following the light of another man's thought. And you can never be quite the old self again.'

And Frybabe, you're right about Seven Pillars of Wisdom being too grand for a pocketbook format. According to another quote from the same book, Lawrence '...spent a fortune by any standard paying artists to do  the paintings and the drawings for Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and having the copies individually  bound in leather by the finest bookbinders in England

But back to the Sunni and Shia, revelling in their differnces. What an amazing spectacle. Barb, you turn history into a hall of mirrors. What fun!

[BarbStAubrey]

Hall of mirrors - wow that is a great analogy - and I still get my D.H and T.E. Lawrence's mixed  - if nothing else I need to imprint that T.E. was gallivanting all over Arab lands and I do have Seven Pillars on my shelf but only read the first 100 pages - it is a tome even in paperback isn't it where as, it is D.H. opening the Victorian eyes in the twentieth century to accepting we are sexual beings while he gallivanted all over Mexico and New Mexico. Think that would be a good project for me - to read one of his books and continue further with Seven Pillars and see the differences in their writing and subject matter. 

That is a wonderful quote you found Jonathan. I've heard Kissinger had another book published but did not hear his thesis - so he is seeing cracks or maybe giving up on the idea of diplomacy - hmmm is diplomacy part of history now and our thinking it is the end all is keeping us tied to a past - we sure are at a cross roads that seems like anarchy runs the show.

[marcie]

I've usually thought that "who done it" mysteries aren't a very good choice for our month-long discussions, since there is the very good chance of spoilers from those who might read ahead, as well as the chance that people's guesses about the clues and the identity of the "culprit" might disturb some of the participants in the discussion. With those thoughts, I want to see if any of you think that DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY, by P.D. James would be suitable for a discussion?  I haven't read the book and the main reason I'm suggesting it is because there will be a 2 episode (120 minutes each) adaptation of this who-done-it on most PBS stations at the end of October/early November. See http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/programs/series/death-comes-pemberley-s1/

What do you think about talking about the book?

[marjifay]

I read P.D. James' Death Comes to Pemberley, based on Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice, sort of a sequel that is a mystery.

IMO, I think it would make for a boring discussion.  This book is very repetitious.  I found myself skimming a lot.  Amazon readers say it repeats too much of the plot of Pride & Prejudice which people already know.  I would not recommend it to anyone, Jane Austen fan or not. 

Marj

[Jonathan]

Marcie, DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY is a splendid choice, and a Masterpiece version would be the icing on the cake. It will get my vote. Jane Austen and P. D. James puting their heads together. Awesome. But I wonder if James' attempt to get serious failed her. I've just started reading her TIME TO BE IN EARNEST, her autobiographical attempt published in 1999, at 77. But first, one should read P&P one more time. Life is too much fun to get serious.

[JoanP]

Lots of ideas here.  And differing opinions.  I'll get to work putting the Nominations in the heading and we'll see where a preliminary vote takes us at the end of the week...

[marcie]

Thanks, Marj, for your advice after your reading of the book. Jonathan, without my reading the book my reaction is the same as yours that I think a tandem viewing of the PBS series and reading of the mystery would be fun.

[JoanP]

Marcie, we wouldn't begin the next discussion until Nov. 1.  Your post says the two part Masterpiece DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY, begins the end of October and beginning of November.  I haven't read the book - but understand that it's a mystery.  Would viewing the Masterpiece adaptation of the book not give away the story before reading the book.  Do you see that as a problem?  How would we handle that?

[marcie]

I personally don't mind seeing a movie and then reading the book, even if it is a mystery but I know that other people might mind. For some of the mystery programs, they change the ending anyway in their "adaptation" of the book :-)  I don't know if that's the case with this one.

[JoanP]

Almost time to vote soon.  I have to be honest - there are a dozen titles suggested, but none of them seem to have captured group attention.  Sound familiar?  This has happened the last two months and we have had a bear of a time trying to narrow the list of scattered suggestions.  We're looking for a book most of us can get excited about.  Folks in the Library have been discussing the Nobel Prize winners over the years...


Would you mind taking a few minutes to look  over the Nobel list for titles you would consider reading in November?  We would really appreciate it! Nobel Prize Winners over the Years

[marcie]

Thanks very much, Joan, for that link. There are a number of authors there that I would like to read at some point. I haven't found one yet that I would suggest as a "real grab" for discussion. Maybe someone else will suggest such a book by one of these authors.

I've been thinking about the new film based on Lois Lowry's THE GIVER. I haven't seen the film and I've actually not read THE GIVER "quartet" of books. Even though they are categorized as "young adult" I've seen some comments that indicate that one or more of the books might make for a good discussion for adults. Is this something that would "grab" any of you?

[JoanP]

Marcie!...it's funny how you hear about a title turning up unexpectedly in many places.  For me, "the Giver" is one of those.  As you say, it can be catagorized as Young Adult, but there's much for adults too.  I'm wondering if it would be good for the December Holiday read - and for gift-giving too - for many ages.  Here's a link describing the book... The Giver

[BarbStAubrey]

JoanP I just looked at the list again - yes, I would remove the books I suggested - no one has talked about any of them but the easiest I think is simply go for a first round vote and get the list down to 4 or 5 and then vote on those - personally I think three is too small a list to choose from given the broad nature of the recommendations - the worst we end up with a tie or two within a vote apart - and yes, there are some I would prefer not to have to discuss - the last 4 titles interest me the most. I am doubtful of a consensus that would eliminate the need for a vote. Agree the thought of the Giver to be discussed during the Holiday season is a great idea.

[JoanP]

Barb, I'm out until this afternoon.  If you have a few minutes, would you mind letting me know the titles you suggested you wish to remove from the vote for November Book Club online. It's getting really, really close to Nov. 1!

[Frybabe]

If you are looking to remove a couple of books from the list, I would suggest two of the three books that are T. E. Lawrence related. I checked the number of pages for them all and discovered that Michael Korda's book, Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia is every bit, and maybe more, as lengthy as Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Setting the Desert on Fire is a more manageable size. What do you think, Jonathan?

[JoanP]

Thanks, Frybabe.  That will help!
We're going to get the vote out later today - with a few changes.

We"re working on a new method to select books for discussion, starting the new year.  Some good ideas here and in the Library. recently..

Pat H...yes'. I loved the Sigrid Unset years ago.  Would love to add it to our list to see how Kristin Lavransdatter   The Bridal Wreath withstands the test of  time!  Just the first book of the trilogy though?
Although I remember it was addictive!

 I noticed in today's paper that Karen Joy Fowler's latest book, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize edged out by Tasmanian writer, Michael Flanagan yesterday.  Still an honor for American KJ Fowler.  We'll leave her on our list for November.

[mabel1015j]

If you are looking for something not too heavy for the next months, i would again recommend Invention of Wings again, a fiction book about the Grimke sisters. It's historically correct, easy reading, entertaining and not too long

http://www.npr.org/2014/01/11/260192246/finding-flight-in-the-invention-of-wings

Jean.

[Jonathan]

That has really tidied up the list of proposals. I had been meaning to ask that two of my three be dropped. I just couldn't make up my mind which two. Setting the Desert on Fire is an exciting read, but not an easy one. The political sands do get in ones eyes.

But it's a great list. I would like to read them all. What was it about Uncle Tom's Cabin that fired up the abolitionist movement? How did it come to be written? Unbroken has been on my shelf for some time, waiting to be read. Louis Zamperini, the hero, died just three months ago, at 97. What an amazing life. A great picture of him in the book,at page 384, skateboarding at eighty-one! Bully Pulpit is just full of the movers and shakers of a hundred years ago. (Wasn't that a touching scene in the Roosevelt doc on PBS a few weeks ago? An elderly person, called Susanna, remembered being asked by FDR, when she was a young child, at the resort for polio victims in Georgia, Do you mind if we call you Susie? And she asked in turn: do you mind if we call you Roosie?)

They all look interesting.

[BarbStAubrey]

So glad to see Sigrid Unset on the list - her books kept coming up as contenders for years and then I think folks got weary of making the suggestion - there was always a newer or more compelling book that we chose over Kristin Lavransdatter. I wonder if she will make it this time or in the next couple of months.

Yes Jonathan, Uncle Tom sure got some folks to act however, it is a mixed assessment as most Blacks speak about the book with disdain accusing a less than aggressive, mild mannered Brother or Sister Black of being an Uncle Tom which is not considered admirable except to us whites - ah so... point of view.

I wonder Jonathan have you ever read a book that gives the Arab point of view during the early twentieth century when their vast lands were being divided by European Power. Lawrence I understand speaks for the Arab point of view but is there anything you know of that actually speaks to the conflicts within Arab Tribes and the viewpoint of the various Arab leaders as to how their land should be divided. Seems to me the downfall of Turkey was also in the middle of all this.    

[JoanP]

Vote Today for NOVEMBER'S BOOK CLUB ONLINE
VOTE HERE
Titles are all linked to reviews or descriptions in the heading above