Holiday 2010 Book Club

Thank you Martha Sullivan for the wonderful lunch and for hosting our October Book Club!

November are December are both short months due to the holidays so we are combining the two months into 

one book choice and discussion date.

Patti Callahan Henry has just released a holiday book:

The Perfect Love Song

 In The Perfect Love Song, Callahan Henry tells the story of Jimmy Sullivan, who has been living on the road with his brother, Jack, and their band The Unknown Souls. The road is Jimmy’s only home and music his only savior until he falls in love with a beautiful girl, Charlotte Carrington. Spending time with Charlotte inspires Jimmy to write a love song for her, which becomes an overnight sensation and is dubbed “The Perfect Love Song.”

As Jimmy finds himself caught up in the desire for fame and fortune, the genuine lyrics of the song are overshadowed by his career ambitions. He begins to lose touch with Charlotte and makes a decision to miss his brother’s wedding in Ireland for a chance to put on a show in New York City.

But on Christmas Eve Jimmy comes to a crossroads: Will he finally get the chance to perform on one of the biggest stages of his career?—or will he find his way back to his family, to Ireland…and to the love of his life, Charlotte?  (author's website)

The discussion date will be the first or second week of December.  I will send out more information as we coordinate the details!

October Book Club

Thank you Jenny Allen for hosting September book club!

October's Book

Pope Joan

by Donna Woolfolk Cross

For a thousand years, her existence has been denied. She is the legend that will not die--Pope Joan, a controversial figure of historical record who, disguised as a man, rose to rule Christianity in the 9th century as the first and only woman to sit on the throne of St. Peter. In this riveting novel, Donna Woolfolk Cross paints a sweeping portrait of a heroine whose strength of vision led her to defy the social restrictions of her day.

Brilliant and talented, young Joan rebels against medieval laws forbidding women to learn. When her older brother is brutally killed during a Viking attack, Joan takes up his identity and enters the monastery of Fulda, where she is initiated into the brotherhood in his place. As Brother John Anglicus, Joan distinguishes herself as a great scholar and healer. Eventually she is drawn to Rome, where she becomes enmeshed in a dangerous web of love, passion, and politics. Triumphing over appalling odds, she finally attains the highest throne in Christendom, wielding a power greater than any woman before or since.

But such power always comes at a price...

Pope Joan is a sweeping historical drama set against the turbulent events of the 9th century -- the Saracen sack of St. Peter's, the famous fire in the Borgo that destroyed over three-quarters of the Vatican, the Battle of Fontenoy, arguably the bloodiest and most terrible of medieval conflicts. This masterwork of suspense and passion brings the Dark Ages to life in all their brutal splendor and shares the dramatic story of an unforgettable woman who struggles against restrictions her soul cannot accept.  (http://www.popejoan.com/novel.htm)

~ The library only has four copies of this book! ~

We will meet at the clubhouse on

Friday, October 29 at 11:30

hosted by Martha Sullivan

Welcome Back to Book Club!!!

 

This month we are reading 

A Reliable Wife 

by Robert Goolrick.  

The book is about a woman answering an advertisement for a "reliable wife" placed by Ralph Truitt.  She responded that she was a "simple, honest woman" however she planned to marry this man and then kill him, leaving her a wealthy widow and able to take care of the one she really loved.  She travels to Wisconsin where Ralph discovers he has been deceived but marries her anyway.  The story unfolds as a "darkly nuanced psychological tale" with a surprising ending.

For more reviews:

The Washington Post - April 8, 2009

Mostly Fiction - March 28, 2009

The Christian Science Monitor - February 21, 2010

  

The book is available in paperback.

Please join us for a discussion at Jenny Allen's at 

11:30 am

on 

Friday, September 24

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

April Book Club 

The Help details the lives of black maids in the Mississippi 60's and the white women they work for.  This is Kathryn's first book and while it was rejected by 50 publishers it is now a wildly successful novel.  She creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own that forever changes their town, and the way that women--mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends---view one another.  This is a deeply moving book filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and those we don't.

Mark Your Calendars

Book Club Date ~ Friday, April 30

11:30 am at Evonne's

Book Signing ~ Thursday, May 20
7:00 p.m. Barnes & Noble (Buckhead)
2900 Peachtree Road NE
Atlanta, GA 
404-261-7747

The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway

 

This brilliant novel with universal resonance tells the story of three people trying to survive in a city rife with the extreme fear of desperate times, and of the sorrowing cellist who plays undaunted in their midst.

One day a shell lands in a bread line and kills twenty-two people as the cellist watches from a window in his flat. He vows to sit in the hollow where the mortar fell and play Albinoni’s Adagio once a day for each of the twenty-two victims. The Adagio had been re-created from a fragment after the only extant score was firebombed in the Dresden Music Library, but the fact that it had been rebuilt by a different composer into something new and worthwhile gives the cellist hope.

Meanwhile, Kenan steels himself for his weekly walk through the dangerous streets to collect water for his family on the other side of town, and Dragan, a man Kenan doesn’t know, tries to make his way towards the source of the free meal he knows is waiting. Both men are almost paralyzed with fear, uncertain when the next shot will land on the bridges or streets they must cross, unwilling to talk to their old friends of what life was once like before divisions were unleashed on their city. Then there is “Arrow,” the pseudonymous name of a gifted female sniper, who is asked to protect the cellist from a hidden shooter who is out to kill him as he plays his memorial to the victims.

In this beautiful and unforgettable novel, Steven Galloway has taken an extraordinary, imaginative leap to create a story that speaks powerfully to the dignity and generosity of the human spirit under extraordinary duress.

For information on the Cellist of Sarajevo:   The real Cellist of Sarajevo

FINALIST 2009 - BC Book Prize's Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize
NOMINEE 2009 - Canadian Booksellers Association Libris Award - Fiction Book of the Year
NOMINEE 2008 - Scotiabank Giller Prize

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We will be meeting at Diane Hicks' at the end of March.  

More details soon!

A Change In Altitude by Anita Shreve

Our book for February is a hard cover edition of Anita Shreve's most recent novel,
A Change in Altitude.

Margaret and Patrick have been married just a few months when they set off on what they hope will be a great adventure-a year living in Kenya. Margaret quickly realizes there is a great deal she doesn't know about the complex mores of her new home, and about her own husband.

A British couple invites the newlyweds to join on a climbing expedition to Mount Kenya, and they eagerly agree. But during their harrowing ascent, a horrific accident occurs. In the aftermath of the tragedy, Margaret struggles to understand what happened on the mountain and how these events have transformed her and her marriage, perhaps forever.

A Change in Altitude illuminates the inner landscape of a couple, the irrevocable impact of tragedy, and the elusive nature of forgiveness. With stunning language and striking emotional intensity, Anita Shreve transports us to the exotic panoramas of Africa and into the core of our most intimate relationships.

We will be meeting at Carolyn McGuirt's on Friday, February 26th
More details to come!


Author's website