1) What is with all the Ikea labeling and Macintosh naming???
2) Lisbeth Salander and all her weirdness. (Maybe this is explained more in the next book.)
3) Obviously, abuse of women, and I'm thinking we may want to research a little about this topic in Sweden.
4) What to read next?
Post your own questions in the comment section!! Or make a post about suggested reads!
:)
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Saturday, September 25, 2010
October Meeting- Girl with Dragon Tattoo
I finished the book and I'm ready to talk about it! The meeting is at the Graves' house next Sunday from 11-?. Come over and drink some coffee and let's see what you thought!
I didn't watch the movie, but I felt like adding the trailer. Maybe someone can Netflix it and bring it over??
I didn't watch the movie, but I felt like adding the trailer. Maybe someone can Netflix it and bring it over??
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Book Nerds in the HOUSE
Nerdin' it up! Book club was AWESOME on Sunday! After BC, we had a little impromptu dance party! Hope you can make it next month for "Girl With a Dragon Tattoo"!
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Tomorrow and Girl With a Dragon Tattoo
Book club meets tomorrow at Sarah's house! We are discussing "Junky" and "Book on Fire" If anyone wants to join us next month we'll be reading "Girl with a Dragon Tattoo". We meet the first Sunday of every month. So pick up the book and start reading!
P.s. The irony was not lost on me when I started reading the book yesterday at school.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
August and September Choices
We've decided to read Junky for our meeting August 1st and Book on Fire for September to give us time to order or share the book.
Happy reading!
Happy reading!
Thursday, July 1, 2010
August Book Choices
1) The Book on Fire by Keith Miller
Balthazar, book thief and bon vivant, arrives in Alexandria to steal from the famous library. But from the moment he steps off the boat, a veiled figure shadows him. Zeinab, literary prostitute and avenging ghost, will be his chaperone through the city of books. With her help, he succeeds in penetrating the underground library. But once inside, instead of ransacking it, he becomes obsessed with the youngest librarian, Shireen, who was born in the library and is herself more than half book. Their love story forms the heart of the novel. Balthazar schemes to get Shireen out of the library. But Zeinab has plans of her own . . . In sumptuous, evocative prose, 'The Book on Fire' explores the relationships between creation and destruction, between belief and imagination, between desire and fulfillment.
2)The Way I See It by Temple Grandin (The author is autistic and there is a movie out about her called "Temple Grandin" and Clare Danes plays her.
In this innovative book, Dr. Temple Grandin gets down to the REAL issues of autism, the ones parents, teachers, and individuals on the spectrum face every day. Temple offers helpful do's and don'ts, practical strategies, and try-it-now tips, all based on her "insider" perspective and a great deal of research. These are just some of the specific topics Temple delves into:
How and Why People with Autism Think Differently, Economical Early Intervention Programs that Work, How Sensory Sensitivities Affect Learning, Behaviors Caused by a Disability vs. Just Bad Behaviors, Teaching People with Autism to Live in an Unpredictable World, Alternative Medicine vs. Conventional Medicine, Employment Ideas for Adults with Autism.
3) The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
Pollan (The Botany of Desire) examines what he calls "our national eating disorder" (the Atkins craze, the precipitous rise in obesity) in this remarkably clearheaded book. It's a fascinating journey up and down the food chain, one that might change the way you read the label on a frozen dinner, dig into a steak or decide whether to buy organic eggs. You'll certainly never look at a Chicken McNugget the same way again.Pollan approaches his mission not as an activist but as a naturalist: "The way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world." All food, he points out, originates with plants, animals and fungi. "[E]ven the deathless Twinkie is constructed out of... well, precisely what I don't know offhand, but ultimately some sort of formerly living creature, i.e., a species.
4) The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
Fans of Louise Fitzhugh's iconic Harriet the Spy will welcome 11-year-old sleuth Flavia de Luce, the heroine of Canadian journalist Bradley's rollicking debut. In an early 1950s English village, Flavia is preoccupied with retaliating against her lofty older sisters when a rude, redheaded stranger arrives to confront her eccentric father, a philatelic devotee. Equally adept at quoting 18th-century works, listening at keyholes and picking locks, Flavia learns that her father, Colonel de Luce, may be involved in the suicide of his long-ago schoolmaster and the theft of a priceless stamp. The sudden expiration of the stranger in a cucumber bed, wacky village characters with ties to the schoolmaster, and a sharp inspector with doubts about the colonel and his enterprising young detective daughter mean complications for Flavia and enormous fun for the reader. Tantalizing hints about a gardener with a shady past and the mysterious death of Flavia's adventurous mother promise further intrigues ahead.
Click your vote:
or text:
Don't cheat! Vote only once either by clicking OR texting! :)
See you Saturday at Yogurt Fusion after the parade!
Balthazar, book thief and bon vivant, arrives in Alexandria to steal from the famous library. But from the moment he steps off the boat, a veiled figure shadows him. Zeinab, literary prostitute and avenging ghost, will be his chaperone through the city of books. With her help, he succeeds in penetrating the underground library. But once inside, instead of ransacking it, he becomes obsessed with the youngest librarian, Shireen, who was born in the library and is herself more than half book. Their love story forms the heart of the novel. Balthazar schemes to get Shireen out of the library. But Zeinab has plans of her own . . . In sumptuous, evocative prose, 'The Book on Fire' explores the relationships between creation and destruction, between belief and imagination, between desire and fulfillment.
2)The Way I See It by Temple Grandin (The author is autistic and there is a movie out about her called "Temple Grandin" and Clare Danes plays her.
In this innovative book, Dr. Temple Grandin gets down to the REAL issues of autism, the ones parents, teachers, and individuals on the spectrum face every day. Temple offers helpful do's and don'ts, practical strategies, and try-it-now tips, all based on her "insider" perspective and a great deal of research. These are just some of the specific topics Temple delves into:
How and Why People with Autism Think Differently, Economical Early Intervention Programs that Work, How Sensory Sensitivities Affect Learning, Behaviors Caused by a Disability vs. Just Bad Behaviors, Teaching People with Autism to Live in an Unpredictable World, Alternative Medicine vs. Conventional Medicine, Employment Ideas for Adults with Autism.
3) The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
Pollan (The Botany of Desire) examines what he calls "our national eating disorder" (the Atkins craze, the precipitous rise in obesity) in this remarkably clearheaded book. It's a fascinating journey up and down the food chain, one that might change the way you read the label on a frozen dinner, dig into a steak or decide whether to buy organic eggs. You'll certainly never look at a Chicken McNugget the same way again.Pollan approaches his mission not as an activist but as a naturalist: "The way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world." All food, he points out, originates with plants, animals and fungi. "[E]ven the deathless Twinkie is constructed out of... well, precisely what I don't know offhand, but ultimately some sort of formerly living creature, i.e., a species.
4) The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
Fans of Louise Fitzhugh's iconic Harriet the Spy will welcome 11-year-old sleuth Flavia de Luce, the heroine of Canadian journalist Bradley's rollicking debut. In an early 1950s English village, Flavia is preoccupied with retaliating against her lofty older sisters when a rude, redheaded stranger arrives to confront her eccentric father, a philatelic devotee. Equally adept at quoting 18th-century works, listening at keyholes and picking locks, Flavia learns that her father, Colonel de Luce, may be involved in the suicide of his long-ago schoolmaster and the theft of a priceless stamp. The sudden expiration of the stranger in a cucumber bed, wacky village characters with ties to the schoolmaster, and a sharp inspector with doubts about the colonel and his enterprising young detective daughter mean complications for Flavia and enormous fun for the reader. Tantalizing hints about a gardener with a shady past and the mysterious death of Flavia's adventurous mother promise further intrigues ahead.
Click your vote:
or text:
Don't cheat! Vote only once either by clicking OR texting! :)
See you Saturday at Yogurt Fusion after the parade!
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Saturday, June 5, 2010
The Power of Language (Satanic Verses)
I am way behind with the club and just finished The Satanic Verses! I thought I'd post since I haven't been able to make it to the meetings lately.
One of my favorite quotations was this:
"Jumpy en route to his mistress tried to convince himself that his resentments of Hanif, his friend Hanif, were primarily - how to put it? - linguistic. Hanif was in perfect control of the languages that mattered: sociological, socialistic, black-radical, anti-anti-anti-racist, demagogic, oratorical, sermonic: the vocabularies of power... Language is courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true." (281)
This passage is just one of many in the book dealing with the power of language - there are the poets who speak their poems aloud, the prophets who change the course of history through their words, the voice-over artists who can portray so many different characters. It is ironic (or perhaps appropriate?), then, that the novel itself caused so much protest and violence. A novel about the power of language, whose author is hated and threatened by many in real life. I am appalled and fascinated that the protesters allowed the language in this book to have such power over them, and to cause them such fear.
One of my favorite quotations was this:
"Jumpy en route to his mistress tried to convince himself that his resentments of Hanif, his friend Hanif, were primarily - how to put it? - linguistic. Hanif was in perfect control of the languages that mattered: sociological, socialistic, black-radical, anti-anti-anti-racist, demagogic, oratorical, sermonic: the vocabularies of power... Language is courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true." (281)
This passage is just one of many in the book dealing with the power of language - there are the poets who speak their poems aloud, the prophets who change the course of history through their words, the voice-over artists who can portray so many different characters. It is ironic (or perhaps appropriate?), then, that the novel itself caused so much protest and violence. A novel about the power of language, whose author is hated and threatened by many in real life. I am appalled and fascinated that the protesters allowed the language in this book to have such power over them, and to cause them such fear.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
2 weeks till our meeting!
How is the reading coming? We've got about two weeks till our big breakfast meeting! I'm about halfway through the book. I got bogged down because I was actually trying to log all of his literary references. I looked up the Rimbaud poem on page 158. It's the "Tortured Heart" and it's a very strange one. Here is a link to the translation:LINK
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
The Savage Detectives
I started our new book this week, and my brow began to sweat because we keep picking these 600 page Spanish Magical Realism books! However, this book is a happy surprise compared to the others. The narrator is a little whiney and talks about sex too much (Holden Caufield! Get out of my brain!), but the story is strange and interesting. So far it's reminding me a lot of "The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao" and "The People of Paper". I hope everyone has picked up a copy and is ready to read!
Nerd out-
C
Nerd out-
C
Monday, April 12, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Jan/Feb/March Book - Salman Rushdie
At our meeting on Friday night, Sarah commented, " Why does Chamcha turn into a goat, and then turn back again?" It's been on my mind since then. Maybe Rushdie had dual reasons for Chamcha's metamorphosis. At first, I thought he morphed into a goat because he was commenting on the English's view of Indians. This thought came to me while reading about the police brutatlity on pages 158-159. The thought was supported when the other minorities where also transformed into beasts, one such transformation explained to Chamcha that "they describe us, they have the power of description and we succumb to the pictures they construct" (Rushdie 168). As Chamcha continues his journey and is rejected by his wife, the English, and he is only accepted by his friend Jumpy and some other Indians, he begins to get upset that he is rejected by the English, whom he so longed to be a part of. Finding that his new form is only acceptable in the presence of his own people, his heritage-- who he rejected so long ago --angers him greatly. At this point I think he is projected as a Goat because he is seen as beastly to his own people BECAUSE he rejected them for the Western World. So I think here, Rushdie is actually saying the opposite of above. His transformation is how the Indians view him for rejecting his own culture and trying to assimilate into another. I believe this is supported when Rushdie says, "because what you believe depends on what you've seen -- not only what is visible, but what you are prepared to look in the face" (252). So does this mean that Chamcha is a reflection of himself(Rushdie)?
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