I've been reading a great book--Broken for You by Seattle author Stephanie Kallos. It's definitely fun to have a lot of local references sprinkled throughout the book (as in our next discussion book, The Other), but I also love the characters. This is the author's first book, but I think she's got at least one more out. Is anyone else familiar with her work?

Nancy Pearl Gives ' A Mercy' A Big Thumbs Up

This week Nancy Pearl reviews and recommends 'A Mercy'. This is note worthy since Nancy admits she has never been a big Toni Morrison fan. You can read her review but I prefer listening to it (just double click on where it says listen). http://kuow.org/program.php?current=NP

The Zookeeper's Wife was incredibly moving, as we learned the horrors of the occupation of Warsaw and the bravery of so many as they outfoxed the Nazis. I loved this book. The author,Diane Ackerman and Antonina, the zookeeper's wife, both poetic writers, recounted many comic tales of the furry animals and memorable people to add some levity and magic as in this passage about Antonina's son, Rys and his pet arctic hare named "Wicek." At first, whenever Rys sat down to dinner, Wicek draped himself along Rys' foot like one furry black slipper, instinctively crouching as hares do in arctic windstorms. Then, as Wicek grew large and muscular, he bounced around the house like hard rubber, and at meals hopped from the floor straight onto Rys' lap, thrust his front paws onto the table, and grabbed Rys' food. Naturally vegetarian, arctic hares may resort to tree bark and pinecones at times, but Wicek preferred stealing a horse cutlet or slice of beef, and bouncing away to devour it in a shadowy corner.

As the Nazis' killings increased, Antonina noted in her diary, Why do animals sometimes subdue their predatory ways in only a few months, while humans, despite centuries of refinement, can quickly grow more savage than any beast?

Zookeeper

Thanks for hosting a great discussion last night. I really loved this book, largely, I think, because of the beautiful prose, and the almost magical elements of the story.
For those of you who weren't at the meeting--I'd love to hear your thoughts on this book.
Our next book is The Other by David Guterson. I heard Guterson recently when he interviewed John Updike during the late author's lecture here in Seattle. It was interesting to see him, but I found him fairly ineffective as an interviewer. He had a set of questions and never veered from them, or followed up on points made by Updike. Of course, that means nothing as far as his writing goes.

Linked to BookBound

I've just linked my site Bookbound to our group's blog. If you visit, scroll down and view under links. If we decide in the future to keep this blog for private use only, I can easily do the same.

"A Poem", by Paula Maratea Fuld

City Trucks

City trucks go thundering
along a city road.
Big trucks, little trucks
many as they go.
With peaches, pears and apples
and other fruits galore.
Delivering to the country folk
and many, many more.

Howdy

Just saying HI from Kansas. Tonight is the Wilson Estates book group meeting. We read "So Brave, Young, and Handsome" by Leif Enger. We enjoyed Peace Like a River so much we decided to read this one. It's not nearly as good, IMO.

Weather here has been amazing. We've had record highs around 70 degrees on and off for the past couple of weeks. It's windy, think Wizard of Oz windy. It's dry as can be with wild fires a real threat.

Enjoy your club. I'll enjoy reading this blog.

It was great to see everyone tonight. Checking to see if I can post without a gmail account.

Books for May and June

I've added our May and June books to the list. We still need a leader for June.

Hope you all had a good discussion

Sorry I missed the meeting tonight. It seems to be the story of my life.

I think the trick to posting is exactly what Virginia suspects - you need a gmail account.

Meeting on Feb. 9

Just a reminder about our meeting tomorrow night at Lynne's house. Looking forward to seeing everyone.
I haven't read any books that aren't on our list--I've been busy going to see all the Oscar-nominated films. I saw The Reader yesterday, based on a story by Bernard Schlink. This is just one of several nominated films based on books. We've read books and then gone to see the movie. I'm wondering if we should think about doing things the other way--reading the books that some of these movies are based on. What do you think?

About Wally Lamb

This note comes via Abby:
A woman from my novel writing class shared this with me today. It’s short and inspirational.
And if you happen to love Wally Lamb’s work like I do, really fun to see what he looks like!

http://www.authormagazine.org/interviews/Lamb_Interview.mov