Book & Movie Pairings

I wrote about our recent meeting over a ReadingGroupGuides.com. Below is a link to the post ... I think you'll get a kick out of it. :)

http://www.readinggroupguides.com/blog/2008/06/book-and-movie-pairings.asp

Our Book Club is Famous!

Ok, well maybe not famous, but we are getting some hometown attention (thanks to Carrie!).

The Baltimore Sun profiled us today on their new book blog. According to one of the editors, our blog "is the best one I've ever seen!". Cool, huh? Click here to read what they wrote.

You may recall that I'm now doing monthly book giveaway on my other blog. Click here if you'd like to enter to win. And yes, the contest IS open to people in my book club too!

Summer Schedule

It looks like it's going to be a busy summer for everyone so we're planning ahead a bit more than usual:

Sunday, July 20 - meeting to discuss Unholy Grail with the author - location is currently the Odenton library but that's subject to change if the libraries start closing on Sundays

Sunday, August 3 - meeting to discuss Eat, Pray, Love (Steph's pick) - Nancy's our pool party hostess again - yeah!

If the weather is good, we might be able to squeeze in one more pool party at Annette's in early September.

The next book picker will be Kelli, followed by Annette, Nancy, then Joan. At that point we've reached the end of our current list and we'll have to draw names to come up with the 2009-2010 book picker list. Wow - that seems so far off!


PS. Mom - don't you wish your pool looked like this?!

Recap: The Kite Runner

Yesterday we met to discuss The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, and to watch the movie. Thank you to Nicole for being our wonderful hostess, and to everyone for bringing delicious goodies to eat!

Our discussion was very brief this time because we knew the movie was over 2 hrs long. A few interesting things to note from our meeting:

• Everyone liked this book, although we all found it disturbing. We agreed it was well written and hard to put down.
• Those who listened to the audio book were very impressed. The author did the reading and he's an excellent speaker.
• One gal's husband has been in Afganistan several times ... he told her that events like those in the book still happen there today.

About the book vs. the movie:

• We all agreed the book was far better than the movie.
• Too many of the scenes or characters that we thought were vitally important in the book were missing or shortened in the movie.
• One gal who couldn't attend watched the movie with her husband last week; she said she didn't like it at all and that her husband had a hard time following it.
• The subtitles make it hard to watch with a group.

I know that this is not like my usual summary posts, but we really didn't have an official discussion; otherwise there wouldn't have been time for the movie.

If you're interested, here are some links to other bloggers who have reviewed this book:
Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin'? - Trish's site is one of my favorites.
Maw Books - I read Natasha's site every day too.
The Hidden Side of a Leaf - Dewey hosts the Weekly Geeks (which you'll understand if you read that part of my blog)

Our next meeting is set for Sunday, July 20. We're reading Unholy Grail and meeting with the author.

Steph got to pick the next book and she chose Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. We will be meeting to discuss this in early August, so please start reading it as soon as you finish Unholy Grail.

I have our books!

Hi ladies - David dropped off signed copies of his book Unholy Grail today! I'll have them for you at our meeting on Sunday. He was also kind enough to give me an extra signed copy that I can give away on my other blog - how cool!

As I mentioned in the emails, David is looking for constructive criticism on this book. He suggested that we each make of list of the three things we like most and the three things we like least about his book. I think this is an excellent idea that will lead to a great discussion.

FYI, David is very easy to talk to; I think our meeting with him will be very comfortable and informative. He brought the books to my office this afternoon and we had a few minutes to chat before he left again. He let me know that he asked our club to read his book for two main reasons. First, we read books from different genres (unlike some other clubs who stick with the same types of books each month). Second, we don't always agree about the books. He wants to hear from diverse readers who know how to verbalize their thoughts - good or bad - on a book. Like I said, he was very easy to talk to and I'm looking forward to our meeting more than ever.

For those of you who will not be at the meeting at Nicole's on Sunday, I'll work out a time/place to get your book to you. I hope you are enjoying The Kite Runner ... I'm sure we'll have LOTS to talk about at the meeting!

Upcoming Meeting: The Kite Runner

Our next meeting is set for June 8th at Nicole's house. We'll be discussing Bev's pick - The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini. This is a perfect meeting to bring a friend to since the plan is to discuss the book then watch the movie.

Check out these reviews by other readers...

• This reader WANTED to hate the book but couldn't
• This book club read it in 2007
• And here are comments on the book vs. the movie

This is an intense book and should make for a great discussion!

Recap: The Poisonwood Bible (Part II)

We had our final meeting for The Poisonwood Bible this past Saturday at Bev's house. Bev had a wonderful brunch for all of us - thanks Bev!

Our discussion was a bit crazy this time. From what I can tell, everyone really enjoyed this book. ALMOST everyone liked the 2nd half better than the first. One person liked the first better, and the rest of us decided that the 2 halves together are what makes the book so fascinating.

Here's a recap of some of our main discussion topics:

• the death of the daughter (I won't say which, in case those who didn't read it still want to!)
• Leah's marriage to Anatole (Annette fell in love with him through the audio book!)
• Nathan's death, and the biblical story it reflected
• how Nathan's decisions affected the girls throughout their lives
• the concepts of "muntu" and "nommo" and how that relates to the "eyes in the trees"
• more explanation of The Apocrypha - what it is, which churches accept it, etc.
• the position of women in society - in many ways they were limited by the resources they could control (not many resources in most cases) and oblivious or perhaps deliberately not aware of the larger political/social/etc. situation around them (Orleanna is a great example of this)
• Rachel as a character (this caused much debate as one member tried to defend Rachel's opinions and another member tried to justify her actions and most of the other members disagreed with both of them), and her amusing misuse of language (gotta love her for that!)
  
• Adah before and after "losing her slant"
• how each daughter changed from the first half of the book
• how the author shows the Congo to be a woman, and a character of the book
• the difference between European colonization in America and in Africa

Here's how we rated the book: there was one 8, four 9s, and five 10s. That gives us an average of 9.4 ... the second highest rating we've ever given! (FYI, the highest rating was 9.8 ... but only 6 people voted in that pole. That book was Memoirs of a Geisha.)

Our next meeting is set for June 8 at 2pm at Nicole's house. Bev chose our book, The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini. Since there is a movie version, we MAY watch it at the meeting ... we'll decide as time gets closer.

As always, feel free to post any comments about the book, the discussion, or anything related to our club. Happy Reading!