Till The End of the Year Picks

Sept 17th @ 730pm---The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Oct 15th @730pm---5 quarters of the orange by Joanne Harris
Nov 12th @ 730pm-- The Razor's Edge by By W. Somerset Maugham
Dec 10th @ 730pm-- ?? TBD

Foodie Side to August Book Club

Now for the part that some of us (myself included) were even MORE excited for, the "Foodie" side to the book club.

For the "theme" for food we decided to go with this theme, where the book's story takes place:

The San Francisco Bay Area

For example you could cook up something that reminds you of that area or what that area if famous for.

If you aren't sure here are some good links:

Gayle eating her way through San Fransisco on Oprah (a slideshow) http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahandfriends/gking/20081029_oaf_gking_201

Famous "Food Blogger" in San Fransisco that reviews restaurants out there and talks about the area's food TableHopper.com




And if you want to sign up to bring food just leave a comment, your name and what you plan on bringing (like an appetizer or dessert or drink or finger food)

If you have better ideas of what San Franciscans eat please help me out :)

Not EVERYONE needs to sign up, if you don't feel like cooking this month, no pressure. I think if we had around 5/6 people sign up it would work great but if we have more that can't hurt either!

I will provide all the silverware, plates, etc.

August Book!

There was a 3 way tie so we chose one!

All the Little Live Things by Wallace Stegner---it has been out for YEARS which will make it easy to find (we hope!)



We wanted to mention that we (Becca and I) will also be reading The Penny Pinchers Club to go along with the Sweet Life In the Valleys online book club. So we can set aside 15 mins at the end for those who DID read it and see how we liked it!

Vote for August's Book

You can read more about each book in the previous post, vote away ladies! Then on Tuesday morning we will email you what the book is.

(We will see if this way works, if not we can try something else next month)

More About the Books for August

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Starred Review. SignatureReviewed by Megan Whalen TurnerIf there really are only seven original plots in the world, it's odd that boy meets girl is always mentioned, and society goes bad and attacks the good guy never is. Yet we have Fahrenheit 451, The Giver, The House of the Scorpion—and now, following a long tradition of Brave New Worlds, The Hunger Games. Collins hasn't tied her future to a specific date, or weighted it down with too much finger wagging. Rather less 1984 and rather more Death Race 2000, hers is a gripping story set in a postapocalyptic world where a replacement for the United States demands a tribute from each of its territories: two children to be used as gladiators in a televised fight to the death.Katniss, from what was once Appalachia, offers to take the place of her sister in the Hunger Games, but after this ultimate sacrifice, she is entirely focused on survival at any cost. It is her teammate, Peeta, who recognizes the importance of holding on to one's humanity in such inhuman circumstances. It's a credit to Collins's skill at characterization that Katniss, like a new Theseus, is cold, calculating and still likable. She has the attributes to be a winner, where Peeta has the grace to be a good loser.It's no accident that these games are presented as pop culture. Every generation projects its fear: runaway science, communism, overpopulation, nuclear wars and, now, reality TV. The State of Panem—which needs to keep its tributaries subdued and its citizens complacent—may have created the Games, but mindless television is the real danger, the means by which society pacifies its citizens and punishes those who fail to conform. Will its connection to reality TV, ubiquitous today, date the book? It might, but for now, it makes this the right book at the right time. What happens if we choose entertainment over humanity? In Collins's world, we'll be obsessed with grooming, we'll talk funny, and all our sentences will end with the same rise as questions. When Katniss is sent to stylists to be made more telegenic before she competes, she stands naked in front of them, strangely unembarrassed. They're so unlike people that I'm no more self-conscious than if a trio of oddly colored birds were pecking around my feet, she thinks. In order not to hate these creatures who are sending her to her death, she imagines them as pets. It isn't just the contestants who risk the loss of their humanity. It is all who watch.Katniss struggles to win not only the Games but the inherent contest for audience approval. Because this is the first book in a series, not everything is resolved, and what is left unanswered is the central question. Has she sacrificed too much? We know what she has given up to survive, but not whether the price was too high. Readers will wait eagerly to learn more.

The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale

magical retelling of the Grimms's fairy tale of the princess who became a goose girl before she could become queen. Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee, Crown Princess of Kildenree, is born with the ability to speak to animals, a gift that is nurtured by her aunt. When the king dies, the queen announces that Ani's younger brother, not the crown princess, will succeed her on the throne. Unbeknownst to anyone, the queen has promised Ani in marriage to the prince of neighboring Bayern. The devastated teen is sent with a retinue over the mountains to Bayem and is betrayed by Selia, her lady-in-waiting, and most of her guards during the journey. Ani escapes, takes the name "Isi," disguises her distinctive blonde hair, and becomes a tender of geese to survive until she can reveal her true identity and reclaim her crown from the imposter, Selia. Ani meets and falls in love with Geric, who is, conveniently, the prince she is to marry. She is able to convince him and the king of her identity, marry, become queen, and stop a war between the kingdoms. This retelling retains many similarities to the original tale, including the gruesome punishment for treason. Hale's retelling is a wonderfully rich one, full of eloquent description and lovely imagery, and with a complex plot, a large cast of characters, and a strong female protagonist. Fans of high fantasy will be delighted with this novel, the first in a planned trilogy, and impatiently await those to follow.

The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel (P.S.) by Barbara Kingsolver

As any reader of The Mosquito Coast knows, men who drag their families to far-off climes in pursuit of an Idea seldom come to any good, while those familiar with At Play in the Fields of the Lord or Kalimantaan understand that the minute a missionary sets foot on the fictional stage, all hell is about to break loose. So when Barbara Kingsolver sends missionary Nathan Price along with his wife and four daughters off to Africa in The Poisonwood Bible, you can be sure that salvation is the one thing they're not likely to find. The year is 1959 and the place is the Belgian Congo. Nathan, a Baptist preacher, has come to spread the Word in a remote village reachable only by airplane. To say that he and his family are woefully unprepared would be an understatement: "We came from Bethlehem, Georgia, bearing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle," says Leah, one of Nathan's daughters. But of course it isn't long before they discover that the tremendous humidity has rendered the mixes unusable, their clothes are unsuitable, and they've arrived in the middle of political upheaval as the Congolese seek to wrest independence from Belgium. In addition to poisonous snakes, dangerous animals, and the hostility of the villagers to Nathan's fiery take-no-prisoners brand of Christianity, there are also rebels in the jungle and the threat of war in the air. Could things get any worse?
In fact they can and they do. The first part of The Poisonwood Bible revolves around Nathan's intransigent, bullying personality and his effect on both his family and the village they have come to. As political instability grows in the Congo, so does the local witch doctor's animus toward the Prices, and both seem to converge with tragic consequences about halfway through the novel. From that point on, the family is dispersed and the novel follows each member's fortune across a span of more than 30 years.
The Poisonwood Bible is arguably Barbara Kingsolver's most ambitious work, and it reveals both her great strengths and her weaknesses. As Nathan Price's wife and daughters tell their stories in alternating chapters, Kingsolver does a good job of differentiating the voices. But at times they can grate--teenage Rachel's tendency towards precious malapropisms is particularly annoying (students practice their "French congregations"; Nathan's refusal to take his family home is a "tapestry of justice"). More problematic is Kingsolver's tendency to wear her politics on her sleeve; this is particularly evident in the second half of the novel, in which she uses her characters as mouthpieces to explicate the complicated and tragic history of the Belgian Congo.
Despite these weaknesses, Kingsolver's fully realized, three-dimensional characters make The Poisonwood Bible compelling, especially in the first half, when Nathan Price is still at the center of the action. And in her treatment of Africa and the Africans she is at her best, exhibiting the acute perception, moral engagement, and lyrical prose that have made her previous novels so successful.

The Penny Pinchers Club by Sarah Strohmeyer

Strohmeyer's bubbly farce finds a shopaholic New Jersey wife worried about hanging on to her husband and trying to curb her lavish lifestyle. Katarina Kat Griffiths, a 40-something interior designer, joins the eccentric supersavers of the Rocky River Penny Pinchers Club to get out of debt, put her daughter, Laura, through college and save her marriage to Emerly College economics professor Griff Griffiths. Suspecting that Griff is having an affair with the more economically sound Bree, his sexy assistant, Kat vows to save her marriage, even if it means giving up her Lexus and her Starbucks triple venti lattes. Hilarity ensues as Kat discovers, among other things, two Mint Tingle condoms in the pocket of her husband's khakis right before their 20th anniversary as well as his secret $10,000 bank account. When newly divorced Liam Novak, Kat's first love, returns to town, complications ensue. While Strohmeyer's plot may appear overly cutesy, she (The Cinderella Pact) finds ample humor in her family-centric story, and the list of Top 15 Dos and Don'ts from the Penny Pinchers Club is spot-on.

All the Little Live Things (Contemporary American Fiction) by Wallace Stegner

Retirees Joseph and Ruth Allston find their placid, rural California life disrupted by a hippie who builds a treehouse on their property and by a young married couple tragically affected by pregnancy and cancer. "Quite simply, a beautiful novel--strong, moving, wise, funny--as topical as today's newspaper," said PW. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

1st Meeting--August 20th @ 730pm

We found a day that works for everyone August 20th @ 7:30pm @ my home in Herriman, will email the address a couple days before.

Now...any book suggestions? For the first month we are going to try running a poll on this blog, everyone votes and whatever book wins we all read!

So put the date on your calender and post in a comment below any books you would like to see in the poll, maybe to help us just one suggestion per person for the 1st month...and if you don't have one no biggie it might make the poll easier...

We will see if this works! ;) We can always change how we do things next month.

If you have a suggestion give it to us by Saturday so we can put up the poll and have a book chosen by Monday/Tuesday! That way we can all request it at the library or find it online :)

Deciding on a Day & Time

Camille makeitworkmom.com--not Tuesdays 8/19, 8/20 8/24, 8/28, 8/31 DO work

Becca thrilledbythethought.com--teach until 6:45 on Wednesdays and Thursdays

Vanessa inevergrewup.net --doesn't matter aka no life ;)

Dee-Dee www.whateverdeedeewants.blogspot.com/

Jane seagullfountain.com Wednesdays and Mondays are bad for me, but other than that, I'm pretty open.

Catherine aka Kitty http://fahrenheit350.blogspot.com/ later in the month is better

Susan www.freshlypicked.blogspot.com/ late august works best for me. i live in the avenues, so later (after 7) also works better for me, because getting out of downtown around 5 is killer. i can do any day of the week.

Kelsey http://www.vanillajoy.com/ Tuesdays or Thursdays are the best, but not the first Thursday or the last Tuesday of each month

Holly http://phemomenon.blogspot.com/

Emily http://www.georgietees.blogspot.com/ --may come in sept.

Amy progressivepioneer.com Mondays, Tuesdays and Sundays are out for me, gone the week of the 10th

Natalie (my neighbor!)

Evonne partyofsell.com

Lauren supermomcentral.blogspot.com

and...a neighbor of Beccas


SO that is 15!! and we will close it at that :)