White Tiger

Yesterday, we discussed The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga.

Feel free to leave comments discussing this novel!

Lady Chatterley's Lover

Today we discussed Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence. To quote one of our members' husbands: "His foreplay is kinda rapey."

That is pretty much the consensus among the ladies, that this bodice-ripper was definitely written by a man -- one who appears to scorn sexual aggression in women but celebrates it in men. Couple that with the political messages behind the book that the post-WWI British intellectual is impotent and the class struggle would bring down the country, it makes for a very interesting read. He also likes to talk a lot about the wonders of the penis. He may have spent more time thinking about penis than he did class warfare in the wake of Bolshevism.

If you were unable to make the meeting and would like to comment on the book, feel free!




The next book will be The White Tiger: A Novel by Aravind Adiga. A synopsis is as follows:

"In this darkly comic début novel set in India, Balram, a chauffeur, murders his employer, justifying his crime as the act of a "social entrepreneur." In a series of letters to the Premier of China, in anticipation of the leader’s upcoming visit to Balram’s homeland, the chauffeur recounts his transformation from an honest, hardworking boy growing up in "the Darkness"—those areas of rural India where education and electricity are equally scarce, and where villagers banter about local elections "like eunuchs discussing the Kama Sutra"—to a determined killer. He places the blame for his rage squarely on the avarice of the Indian élite, among whom bribes are commonplace, and who perpetuate a system in which many are sacrificed to the whims of a few. Adiga’s message isn’t subtle or novel, but Balram’s appealingly sardonic voice and acute observations of the social order are both winning and unsettling."

The meeting will be held on Sunday, April 10, 2011 at 1pm, in Frankfort, Kentucky.

Book Club: The Resurrection!

We are resurrecting Book Club.



The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.

The next meeting will be on Sunday, January 9, 2011 at 11:30 a.m. at my house. There will be brunch! If anyone wants to be fancy and make Swedish food, go for it. Otherwise, it'll probably be quiche and maybe some left-over panettone from the holidays, who knows.

Updating!

Sometimes I forget this blog even exists! I was recently reminded of it by a publisher who contacted me, offering to send an advanced copy of the paperback of this new novel. It's historical fiction, and sounds really interesting, so I'm excited to read it. Since the suck of law school is over, and in two weeks the EPIC SUCK of the bar exam is over, I can use my free time (Free time? What's free time?) to reading books for fun again!

So... I was thinking, if anybody is still out there, that if anyone else wanted to read the same book (and I'd be happy to loan out my copy), we can discuss it virtually through the blog. Since we all seem to be in different cities/states these days, it might be a good way to keep in touch!

It's been a long time, but...

Over the weekend I watched Perfume: The Story of A Murderer. The movie is just as f*cked up as the book.

That is all.

Book Review: World War Z by Max Brooks

i think one of the weaknesses of the fantasy/sci-fi genre is that it is, by its nature, often escapist and self-indulgent and irrelevant to what's going on in the world today. world war z, is still escapist, et al (that's why i like the genre), but it is at the same time a caustic commentary on current world dynamics.

the whole book is a compendium of retrospectives from different characters - political, military, average joe/jane-turned hero, and less savory types - 10 years after the world was finally able to turn back the tide of a widespread virus that killed the living and turned the dead into zombies.

it offers reasonable depictions of how certain countries and peoples might respond to disaster and their regrets and what-ifs years after.

while there is not really a single protagonist, the work is tied together by an "interviewer" who just keeps the words going. i recommend this to people who can appreciate sharp fiction that involves zombies and insightful social/political commentary.

Next date

Book club will be taking place on May 10. There is no book, however. There will be Meredith and some "fancy hats."

After that, Book Club will be May 18. My place. The book will be Birdsong (still). Sorry for such a long hiatus, all our lives have been a bit crazy, eh?

For the girls...

Attempting to get Book Club back up and running... stop by and give some feedback!

Review

Okay, does anyone actually read this blog anymore? Oops. I'm a bad, bad administrator.

How about setting the next meeting for May 18? Does that work for everyone? Did anyone actually read Birdsong? I'll probably just finish it and review it here and pick a different book.

Funny enough, I was contacted by a publisher to review a new law fiction book on my blog. I think I might pick that one instead and we can all read it. More news on that to come soon.

Rescheduling again

Yeah, book club ended up not happening again. Oops. We will reschedule soon. Once we actually read the book.

Book Club Rescheduled

New date is Sunday, August 26th at 2pm. My house.

A Non-Book Post

I came across the following post through the lawyer-mom network... it was written by a blogger who has breast cancer. I thought it was really important to share:

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We hear a lot about breast cancer these days. One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetimes, and there are millions living with it in the U.S. today alone. But did you know that there is more than one type of breast cancer?

I didn’t. I thought that breast cancer was all the same. I figured that if I did my monthly breast self-exams, and found no lump, I’d be fine.

Oops. It turns out that you don’t have to have a lump to have breast cancer. Six weeks ago, I went to my OB/GYN because my breast felt funny. It was red, hot, inflamed, and the skin looked…funny. But there was no lump, so I wasn’t worried. I should have been. After a round of antibiotics didn’t clear up the inflammation, my doctor sent me to a breast specialist and did a skin punch biopsy. That test showed that I have inflammatory breast cancer, a very aggressive cancer that can be deadly.

Inflammatory breast cancer is often misdiagnosed as mastitis because many doctors have never seen it before and consider it rare. “Rare” or not, there are over 100,000 women in the U.S. with this cancer right now; only half will survive five years. Please call your OB/GYN if you experience several of the following symptoms in your breast, or any unusual changes: redness, rapid increase in size of one breast, persistent itching of breast or nipple, thickening of breast tissue, stabbing pain, soreness, swelling under the arm, dimpling or ridging (for example, when you take your bra off, the bra marks stay – for a while), flattening or retracting of the nipple, or a texture that looks or feels like an orange (called peau d’orange). Ask if your GYN is familiar with inflammatory breast cancer, and tell her that you’re concerned and want to come in to rule it out.

There is more than one kind of breast cancer. Inflammatory breast cancer is the most aggressive form of breast cancer out there, and early detection is critical. It’s not usually detected by mammogram. It does not usually present with a lump. It may be overlooked with all of the changes that our breasts undergo during the years when we’re pregnant and/or nursing our little ones. It’s important not to miss this one.

Inflammatory breast cancer is detected by women and their doctors who notice a change in one of their breasts. If you notice a change, call your doctor today. Tell her about it. Tell her that you have a friend with this disease, and it’s trying to kill her. Now you know what I wish I had known before six weeks ago.

You don’t have to have a lump to have breast cancer.

Don't worry, no spoilers

I stayed up late last night to finish the last Harry Potter book. (That made it fun to get up for mass, since I was cantoring.) I won't give anything away, but I wanted to express some thoughts on the series of books in general. (I guess if you haven't read up to Book 6, maybe you shouldn't read this afterall, but I won't give away anything that happens in Book 7.)

1) The black, the white and all the grey in between. The thing I like most about the books is that, along with the main characters, the books mature and develop into something more than one dimensional stories of good versus evil. By the last book, it is finally very clear to Harry that, with a few notable exceptions, people are not just "good" and "bad." These are lessons we (hopefully) learn as we become adults. While there might clearly be a side of right and a side of wrong, the players are not always such. Good people are capable of terrible things, and bad people are capable of kindness and compassion. The ability for abstract reasoning comes with age, maturity and development. I once heard a high school teacher discuss such differences between sophomores and seniors. By the time we reach adulthood, we have the ability to understand such things previously lost on us only a couple years prior. Doesn't mean we necessarily ever do understand, of course, there are still plenty of people who don't, but we at least have the capacity.

In Book 5, Harry finds out that his father wasn't this awesome role model he believed him to be (and neither were his buddies). He was a rather arrogant bully instead, and was pretty cruel to Snape, which paved the way for Snape's own torment of Harry throughout school. Harry had wanted to paint Snape as the bully, a grown-up version of Draco Malfoy, but he soon realizes that his father may have had more in common with Draco instead. Harry is disturbed by this, because he doesn't realize that, first of all, people are flawed, including his sainted parents. But mostly he can't yet comprehend how his father could have been this great wizard, a freedom fighter, a hero, but have acted like a prat during adolescence. His belief that his father wasn't "good" is quite devastating to him.

Those themes continue throughout the next two books as loyalties are tested and people are faced with their own limitations, regardless of what side they had already chosen. Fear also plays a role in this.

2.) Fear as a catalyst for choice. In Book 3, Pettigrew is revealed as the traitor to the Order, and to the Potters. A long-time trusted friend of the Potters, Pettigrew betrays his friends. He wants to be on the winning side, but I think maybe not completely for his own glory or what he believes Voldemort and the Death Eaters can provide. I think fear had something to do with it as well. There is a lot about fear throughout Book 6 and especially in Book 7. When faced with the fear, some man-up, some run away, and some crumble. Others simply ignore the problem altogether and try to stay neutral. I noticed a lot of WWII type themes, which is really the historical prototype for the rise of the evil empire and subsequent resistence. In Book 5, the Ministry of Magic provides us with the political element and acts as a stereotypical government would: deny there's a problem; but even if there's a problem, we've got it under control; and blame someone else. All the while acting as inefficiently as only a bureaucracy can.

But again, back to the whole good-bad dichotomy, fear is in many cases what leads to several characters' chosen paths, good and bad.

3.) The theme of love. Here's the heartwarming, squishy one. Although it is clear J.K. wants to use "love" as the ruling element, I would almost say loyalty and compassion before actual love. The whole reason Harry survived Voldemort's original attack is because of his mother's sacrifice. But for a "good" person, and maybe not even a particularly good person, that person might usually kick puppies and cheat on his taxes, but in a crisis, in a life-and-death situation, many people, without even thinking, risk their lives, or sacrifice their lives for another, even a stranger. Isn't a mother sacrificing herself for her child more of an instinct rather than a conscious act of love? Soldiers sacrifice themselves for their countries, and isn't that more consciously about duty and loyalty than about love? I don't doubt that love is a factor, but I think in those moments of choice, that love isn't the main factor.

So, that's pretty much it for now. I liked the last book, I thought it was well-done. Not my favorite, I think Book 4 is still my favorite. I have a soft-spot for the awkward, coming-of-age Harry, who likes a girl he can barely speak to, competes in the wizarding tournament and acts like a "normal" teenage boy, but who at the end, loses the last of his innocence. Oh, and I love Cedric plus David Tennant is in the movie as Barty Crouch, Jr., which just makes it that much more awesome.

But it's over and done. Sad, but I'm excited for the final two movies, and I think the last movie will really require some impressive acting by the kids (who aren't actually kids anymore). Anyone have any thoughts? Just mark any spoilers if you include them.

Local events

The International Book Project hosts its annual Spring Book Sale on Fri July 20 and Sat July 21 from 9 am to 6 pm. The sale will be held at the IBP warehouse, 1440 Delaware Ave., Lexington. The sale will feature thousands of books, covering a variety of fiction and nonfiction genres. All books will be half off already low prices. For over forty years, the International Book Project has distributed books across the developing world and in underserved communities at home. In 2006, the not-for-profit organization shipped over 200,000 volumes to 63 countries. Proceeds from the book sale support IBP’s advocacy of global literacy, educational opportunity, and intercultural understanding. For more information about the sale, call the International Book Project at 859-254-6771.

Next book -- Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

In 1910, England's Stephen Wraysford, a junior executive in a textile firm, is sent by his company to northern France. There he falls for Isabelle Azaire, a young and beautiful matron who abandons her abusive husband and sticks by Stephen long enough to conceive a child. Six years later, Stephen is back in France, as a British officer fighting in the trenches. Facing death, embittered by isolation, he steels himself against thoughts of love. But despite rampant disease, harrowing tunnel explosions and desperate attacks on highly fortified German positions, he manages to survive, and to meet with Isabelle again. The emotions roiled up by this meeting, however, threaten to ruin him as a soldier. Everything about this novel, which was a bestseller in England, is outsized, from its epic, if occasionally ramshackle, narrative to its gruesome and utterly convincing descriptions of battlefield horrors. Faulks (A Fool's Alphabet) proves himself a grand storyteller here. Enlivened with considerable historical detail related through accomplished prose, his narrative flows with a pleasingly appropriate recklessness that brings his characters to dynamic life.

Meeting will be held at my house on Sunday, July 29, 2007 at 2:00 pm.

Book Review: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Christopher Boone, the autistic 15-year-old narrator of this revelatory novel, relaxes by groaning and doing math problems in his head, eats red-but not yellow or brown-foods and screams when he is touched. Strange as he may seem, other people are far more of a conundrum to him, for he lacks the intuitive "theory of mind" by which most of us sense what's going on in other people's heads. When his neighbor's poodle is killed and Christopher is falsely accused of the crime, he decides that he will take a page from Sherlock Holmes (one of his favorite characters) and track down the killer. As the mystery leads him to the secrets of his parents' broken marriage and then into an odyssey to find his place in the world, he must fall back on deductive logic to navigate the emotional complexities of a social world that remains a closed book to him. In the hands of first-time novelist Haddon, Christopher is a fascinating case study and, above all, a sympathetic boy: not closed off, as the stereotype would have it, but too open-overwhelmed by sensations, bereft of the filters through which normal people screen their surroundings. Christopher can only make sense of the chaos of stimuli by imposing arbitrary patterns ("4 yellow cars in a row made it a Black Day, which is a day when I don't speak to anyone and sit on my own reading books and don't eat my lunch and Take No Risks"). His literal-minded observations make for a kind of poetic sensibility and a poignant evocation of character. Though Christopher insists, "This will not be a funny book. I cannot tell jokes because I do not understand them," the novel brims with touching, ironic humor. The result is an eye-opening work in a unique and compelling literary voice.

I just finished this book the other night, and have to say that I was pretty impressed that I enjoyed it. (It has been compared to Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, and I bloody hate Faulkner.) This book is really interesting and insightful, although there are entire sections of the book that go into detail on math problems, and I skipped those, because I wouldn't understand it anyway. It's an interesting trip inside the mind of an autistic teenage boy, and to observe the world around him through his perspective. If anyone wants to borrow it, they're welcome to do so. (It won't be my pick for book club though, I have another one in mind.)

New date

Please take note of the newly rescheduled date for book club, June 21.

If anyone would like to host next month, and you have a book in mind, please let me know! I have a couple books in mind if I don't hear from anyone.

Hope to see you next Thursday! If not, feel free to leave your thoughts on the book here.

Half of a Yellow Sun

I saw this article this morning and thought I would pass it along as a possible book club selection. I have not read the book, but winning Britain's Orange Prize seems like a pretty good endorsement.

Anybody Out There? by Marian Keyes

If you liked the other Marian Keyes book that we read for book club, you'll like this one too!

Bestselling author Marian Keyes has delighted readers with the lives, loves, and foibles of the irrepressible Walsh sisters and their eccentric mammy. In this Life in the Big Apple is perfect for Anna. She has the best job in the world, a lovely apartment, and great friends. Then one morning, she wakes up in her mammy's house in Dublin with stitches in her face, a dislocated knee, hands smashed up, and no memory at all of what happened. As soon as she's able, Anna's flying back to Manhattan, mystified but determined to find out how her life turned upside down. As her past slowly begins coming back to her, she sets out on an outrageous quest—involving lilies, psychics, mediums, and anyone who can point her in the right direction.

Marrying life's darker bits with wild humor and tender wit, Anybody Out There? is a strange and wonderfully charming look at love here and ever after.

In The Company Of The Courtesan

I finished this book, also by Sarah Dunant yesterday. What I really like about this book, (and The Birth Of Venus) is that it is based around historical figures, places, and events. It isn't 100% accurate, but it's close.



What attracted me to the book in the first place was the cover. It is a portion of the Venus of Urbino, by Titian which was painted in 1538, one of my favorite renaissance painting.



"My lady, Fiammetta Bianchini, was plucking her eyebrows and biting color into her lips when the unthinkable happened and the Holy Roman Emperor’s army blew a hole in the wall of God’s eternal city, letting in a flood of half-starved, half-crazed troops bent on pillage and punishment."

Thus begins In the Company of the Courtesan, Sarah Dunant’s epic novel of life in Renaissance Italy. Escaping the sack of Rome in 1527, with their stomachs churning on the jewels they have swallowed, the courtesan Fiammetta and her dwarf companion, Bucino, head for Venice, the shimmering city born out of water to become a miracle of east-west trade: rich and rancid, pious and profitable, beautiful and squalid.

With a mix of courage and cunning they infiltrate Venetian society. Together they make the perfect partnership: the sharp-tongued, sharp-witted dwarf, and his vibrant mistress, trained from birth to charm, entertain, and satisfy men who have the money to support her.

Yet as their fortunes rise, this perfect partnership comes under threat, from the searing passion of a lover who wants more than his allotted nights to the attentions of an admiring Turk in search of human novelties for his sultan’s court. But Fiammetta and Bucino’s greatest challenge comes from a young crippled woman, a blind healer who insinuates herself into their lives and hearts with devastating consequences for them all.

A story of desire and deception, sin and religion, loyalty and friendship, In the Company of the Courtesan paints a portrait of one of the world’s greatest cities at its most potent moment in history: It is a picture that remains vivid long after the final page.