Answer to Jenni's question.

I thought about this a couple of days after we last met, and then I thought I better post it before I forget to tell you at the next book group.

Question: Why didn't Amelia and Fred turn around and go back to Lae after that almost botched take-off?

Answer: Premium gas.

It was written about briefly in Amelia Earhart's Shoes, and then I remembered something else I read about it in With Our Own Eyes. The Engines on the Electra were designed to run on premium gas: 95 octane or so. The Electra could cruise at altitude on 85 octane, but only the premium stuff had enough energy in it to get the Electra moving with enough ground speed to create lift. In other words: the Electra needed premium to get off the ground.

Premium fuel was hard to come by in the more-remote parts of the world. She landed at Lae with half a tank of premium. Her other tanks were all refilled with regular. There was no premium fuel available on Lae at that time. She used the half-tank on the take-off, and thought that as long as she got to Howell (or some other military base) that she could get more premium.

So she didn't turn around because going back meant she was stuck there until somebody shipped in at least 50 gallons of premium gas just for her. Since she did get the Electra airborne she figured her best chance of finishing the flight was finding Howell. Too bad she got lost trying.

Biographies to read

The consensus for biographies was to read about those Hollywood types.

Here are the lucky winners:

Doris Day: The Untold Story of the Girl Next Door by David Kaufmann

David Kaufman has now written the long-awaited, definitive biography of Doris Day. By telling Day’s incredible, previously untold story, Kaufman takes the reader to the epicenter of American popular culture— a roller-coaster saga, from the 1940s to the 1980s. While Day symbolized virtuous America to the rest of the world—especially in her heyday, the 1950s and early 1960s—both she and that era are still perceived as being far more innocent and carefree than they really were. Indeed, what makes Day’s story so richly fascinating is the fact that she was in many ways the opposite of her image as “the girl next door.” She was also a real-life Cinderella who regretted having gone to the ball and who found a series of princes who proved far less than charming. Thanks to Kaufman’s dogged diligence in tracking down countless colleagues and intimates, he gives us: Scintillating tales of fame, beauty, money, tragedy, sexual ambiguity, and sexual conquests. Anecdotes about a vast array of major subsidiary players in Day’s life, including Ronald Reagan, Frank Sinatra, Alfred Hitchcock, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Charles Manson, Mickey Mantle, Candice Bergen, and Rock Hudson. Kaufman reveals Day’s demons while emphasizing the extraordinary credit she deserves as an artist. In the tradition of great biographies, Kaufman’s detailed work not only reveals the surprising story of one of America’s most beloved icons, but also compels us to rush back and see her best films—including The Man Who Knew Too Much, Pillow Talk, Love Me or Leave Me —and to listen to her unforgettable songs—“Sentimental Journey,” “Secret Love,” “Que Sera, Sera.” Though she made more than 550 recordings and starred in 39 movies—not to mention her own TV show for five years—the epic story of Doris Day’s life has never been told . . . until now.

This book is relatively new, coming out last year.

Julie Andrews: An Intimate Biography by Richard Stirling

Julie Andrews is the last of the great Hollywood musical stars, unequaled by any in her time. In My Fair Lady, Julie Andrews had the biggest hit on Broadway. As the title character in Mary Poppins, she won an Academy Award. And, in 1965, The Sound of Music made her the most famous woman in the world and rescued Twentieth Century Fox from bankruptcy. Three years later, the disastrous Star! almost put the studio back under, and the leading lady of both films fell as spectacularly as she had risen. Her film career seemed over. Yet Julie Andrews survived, with what Moss Hart, director of My Fair Lady, called “that terrible British strength that makes you wonder why they lost India.” Victor/Victoria, directed by her second husband, Blake Edwards, reinvented her screen image---but its stage version in 1997 led to the devastating loss of her defining talent, her singing voice. Against all odds, she has fought back again, with leading roles in The Princess Diaries and Shrek 2 . The real story of bandy-legged little Julia Wells from Walton-on-Thames is even more extraordinary; fresh details of her family background have only recently come to light. This is the first completely new biography of Julie Andrews as artist, wife, and mother in over thirty-five years---combining the author’s interviews with the star and his wide-ranging and riveting research. It is a frank but affectionate portrait of an enduring icon of stage and screen, who was made a Dame in the Millenium Honours List. Once dubbed “the last of the really great broads” by Paul Newman, she was the only actress in the 2002 BBC poll The 100 Greatest Britons. But who was Dame Julie, and who is she now? This is her story.

This one also came out last year.

Enchantment: The Life of Audrey Hepburn by Donald Spoto.

Her name is synonymous with elegance, style and grace. Over the course of her extraordinary life and career, Audrey Hepburn captured hearts around the world and created a public image that stands as one of the most recognizable and beloved in recent memory. But despite her international fame and her tireless efforts on behalf of UNICEF, Audrey was also known for her intense privacy. With unprecedented access to studio archives, friends and colleagues who knew and loved Audrey, bestselling author Donald Spoto provides an intimate and moving account of this beautiful, elusive and talented woman. Tracing her astonishing rise to stardom, from her harrowing childhood in Nazi-controlled Holland during World War II to her years as a struggling ballet dancer in London and her Tony Award–winning Broadway debut in Gigi , Spoto illuminates the origins of Audrey’s tenacious spirit and fiercely passionate nature. She would go on to star in some of the most popular movies of the twentieth century, including Roman Holiday , Sabrina , Funny Face , The Nun’s Story , Breakfast at Tiffany’s and My Fair Lady . A friend and inspiration to renowned designer Hubert de Givenchy, Audrey emerged as a fashion icon as well as a film legend, her influence on women’s fashion virtually unparalleled to this day. But behind the glamorous public persona, Audrey Hepburn was both a different and a deeper person and a woman who craved love and affection. Donald Spoto offers remarkable insights into her professional and personal relationships with her two husbands, and with celebrities such as Gregory Peck, William Holden, Fred Astaire, Gary Cooper, Robert Anderson, Cary Grant, Peter O’Toole, Albert Finney and Ben Gazzara. The turbulent romances of her youth, her profound sympathy for the plight of hungry children, and the thrills and terrors of motherhood prepared Audrey for the final chapter in her life, as she devoted herself entirely to the charity efforts of an organization that had once come to her rescue at the end of the war: UNICEF. Donald Spoto has written a poignant, funny and deeply moving biography of an unforgettable woman. At last, Enchantment reveals the private Audrey Hepburn—and invites readers to fall in love with her all over again. “She was as funny as she was beautiful. She was a magical combination of high chic and high spirits.” —Gregory Peck “In spite of her fragile appearance, she’s like steel.” —Cary Grant “Audrey was known for something which has disappeared, and that is elegance, grace and manners . . . God kissed her on the cheek, and there she was.” —Billy Wilder “There is not a woman alive who does not dream of looking like Audrey Hepburn.” —Hubert de Givenchy “Her magnetism was so extraordinary that everyone wanted to be close to her. It was as if she placed a glass barrier between herself and the world. You couldn’t get behind it easily. It made her remarkably attractive.” —Stanley Donen “She has authentic charm. Most people simply have nice manners.” —Alfred Lunt

This book came out in 2006.

All of these are available in limited quantities (2 or 3) at the library, and are in stock at Amazon (I checked).

May the best dame win.

October Books

Hey hello book clubbers! First off I am SO sorry I missed bookclub earlier this month!! I completely forgot and that is horrible! So sorry Tracy!! So for October books, I've been reading quite a few post-apocalyptic books lately and thought that might be an interesting theme for the October books. So here's what I've come up with (with some 'splainen cause yes there is a Stephenie Meyer book in there *chuckling evilly to myself*):


Life as We Knew It
-by Susan Beth Pfeffer

This is a young adult novel and was very real feeling through the eyes of this teenager. I was gripped by the book, but it didn't get into the super-nitty-gritty-grizzliness that some apocalyptic books get into. The Amazon review is below.

It's almost the end of Miranda's sophomore year in high school, and her journal reflects the busy life of a typical teenager: conversations with friends, fights with mom, and fervent hopes for a driver's license. When Miranda first begins hearing the reports of a meteor on a collision course with the moon, it hardly seems worth a mention in her diary. But after the meteor hits, pushing the moon off its axis and causing worldwide earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes, all the things Miranda used to take for granted begin to disappear. Food and gas shortages, along with extreme weather changes, come to her small Pennsylvania town; and Miranda's voice is by turns petulant, angry, and finally resigned, as her family is forced to make tough choices while they consider their increasingly limited options. Yet even as suspicious neighbors stockpile food in anticipation of a looming winter without heat or electricity, Miranda knows that that her future is still hers to decide even if life as she knew it is over. Veteran author Susan Beth Pfeffer, who penned the young adult classic The Year Without Michael over twenty years ago, makes a stunning comeback with this haunting book that documents one adolescent's journey from self-absorbed child to selfless young woman. Teen readers won't soon forget this intimate story of survival and its subtle message about the treasuring the things that matter most—-family, friendship, and hope.--Jennifer Hubert

The Road
-by Cormac McCarthy
Okay this one was HEAVY and hard sometimes, but I really liked it and I don't know whether I should have... It was definitely nasty in some of the bits but a story of hope nonetheless. If you don't want to read super-nitty-gritty-grizzliness don't pick this one, but even though there were really disgusting parts there was this amazing writing to help you through it. I don't know if that made any sense but there you go. The Publishers Weekly review is below.

Violence, in McCarthy's postapocalyptic tour de force, has been visited worldwide in the form of a "long shear of light and then a series of low concussions" that leaves cities and forests burned, birds and fish dead and the earth shrouded in gray clouds of ash. In this landscape, an unnamed man and his young son journey down a road to get to the sea. (The man's wife, who gave birth to the boy after calamity struck, has killed herself.) They carry blankets and scavenged food in a shopping cart, and the man is armed with a revolver loaded with his last two bullets. Beyond the ever-present possibility of starvation lies the threat of roving bands of cannibalistic thugs. The man assures the boy that the two of them are "good guys," but from the way his father treats other stray survivors the boy sees that his father has turned into an amoral survivalist, tenuously attached to the morality of the past by his fierce love for his son. McCarthy establishes himself here as the closest thing in American literature to an Old Testament prophet, trolling the blackest registers of human emotion to create a haunting and grim novel about civilization's slow death after the power goes out.

The Host
This is purely a selfish pick. I have always wanted to discuss this book in a group. I've discussed the Twilight series but not this one and I have some strong thoughts on it!:) So it's a post-apocalyptic/body-snatcher scifi book and it's by Stephenie Meyer... Just think of the discussion possibilities!! The Publishers Weekly review is below.

In this tantalizing SF thriller, planet-hopping parasites are inserting their silvery centipede selves into human brains, curing cancer, eliminating war and turning Earth into paradise. But some people want Earth back, warts and all, especially Melanie Stryder, who refuses to surrender, even after being captured in Chicago and becoming a host for a soul called Wanderer. Melanie uses her surviving brain cells to persuade Wanderer to help search for her loved ones in the Arizona desert. When the pair find Melanie's brother and her boyfriend in a hidden rebel cell led by her uncle, Wanderer is at first hated. Once the rebels accept Wanderer, whom they dub Wanda, Wanda's whole perspective on humanity changes. While the straightforward narrative is short on detail about the invasion and its stunning aftermath, it shines with romantic intrigue, especially when a love triangle (or quadrangle?!) develops for Wanda/Melanie.

Biographies

I really want to read a biography for my next book club selection. I have dozens that I want to read, but I do want to offer books about people you would be interested in reading about. I would hate to offer biographies about people you don't care about it.

The types of people I will offer biographies about are:

Authors: C.S. Lewis, Harper Lee

Actors/Actresses: Doris Day, Bette Midler, Julie Andrews

Founding Fathers: Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington

Other people in American History: Doc Holliday, Amelia Earhart

Musicians: Meat Loaf

Church Leaders: Past and/or present

Please note that those listed are only examples of people that I would choose from that group. If there is someone specific or a specific book you would like me to list, please comment. I realize there will probably be no consensus selection, leave comments (or email) primary and secondary selections and suggestions for books/people. I will strive to find books that are readily available (not out of print). Thanks for all that input.

September books

These three choices are all books I've been wanting to read. I realized they all had a common theme, so I thought it would be perfect for my September book club choices. Here are some non-fiction books (the Amelia Earhart book is not quite a biography) about some rather interesting women:

Amelia Earhart's Shoes: Is the Mystery Solved?, by Karen Ramey Burns

"Whatever happened to Amelia Earhart?" has been an enduring question since she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared somewhere in the Pacific on July 2, 1937. Since then, the mystery has been "solved" by people who claim, among other things, that she was flying as a U.S. agent against the Japanese, that she died in a prisoner-of-war camp and that she was abducted by aliens.

This book posits that due to bad weather, Earhart and Noonan missed their refueling stop on Howland Island in the mid-Pacific and landed on Nikumaroro, a small island south of their target. While most Earhart quests are based on imaginative, usually untested hypotheses, this volume is scrupulous in not making any unevidenced assertions. Working from a wide range of fields its authors are an archeological consultant, a geophysicist, a forensic anthropologist and an army engineer this book claims that human bones and a shoe found on Nikumaroro indicate that Earhart possibly landed and died there.

Unlike other Earhart detectives, the authors repeatedly emphasize that their conclusions are tentative and conjectural. While their judgments are tantalizing and plausible, the fun of the book is being in on the excitement of the discoveries and the scientific testing of the hypothesis. Written in a colloquial, good-humored style that takes itself seriously but is not above cracking a joke to make a point, this is a must for "what happened to Amelia" fanatics, and also those who are interested in how science can be used to test the veracity of theories about historical mysteries.
--Publishers Weekly


The Legend of Baby Doe, by John Burke

In her pulchritudinous prime Baby Doe was called the Silver Queen of Colorado by journalists and "that shameless hussy" by the proper wives of the men who eyed her. Flirtatious, adventurous, ambitious, Elizabeth McCourt Doe gave everyone a lot to talk about when she met Horace Tabor, the Silver King of Leadville, in 1880. Three years later they were free to legalize their passion. Although thirty years separated them, they were well matched in romantic recklessness. If The Legend of Baby Doe is the lowdown on the high jinks of two public lives, it is also the story of a love that survived spectacularly good times and bad.

Before bad times came, Baby and Horace went on a spending spree. They built an opulent opera house in Denver and bought an Italianate villa. Baby Doe went out bejeweled and ermined, and sat at home alone, snubbed by the social dragons. John Burke has written about the giddy rise of a bonanza king who dreamed of entering the White House with Baby Doe on his arm and about the disastrous fall they took together. Wiped out by unwise investments and the Panic of 1893, Tabor soon died, leaving Baby Doe and their two daughters penniless. Reportedly, his deathbed order was to "hang on to the Matchless," a played-out mine filled with water. She managed to do that for almost four decades, struggling heroically against loneliness, poverty, and heartbreak, and becoming one of the great legends of the American West.

Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire, by Amanda Foreman
(The new edition is titled The Duchess, but is the same book)

Georgiana Spencer was, in a sense, an 18th-century It Girl. She came from one of England's richest and most landed families (the late Princess Diana was a Spencer too) and married into another. She was beautiful, sensitive, and extravagant--drugs, drink, high-profile love affairs, and even gambling counted among her favorite leisure-time activities. Nonetheless, she quickly moved from a world dominated by social parties to one focused on political parties. The duchess was an intimate of ministers and princes, and she canvassed assiduously for the Whig cause, most famously in the Westminster election of 1784. By turns she was caricatured and fawned on by the press, and she provided the inspiration for the character of Lady Teazle in Richard Sheridan's famous play The School for Scandal. But her weaknesses marked the last part of her life. By 1784, for one, Georgiana owed "many, many, many thousands," and her creditors dogged her until her death.

Biographer Amanda Foreman describes astutely the mess that surrounded the personal relationships of the aristocratic subculture (Georgiana and the duke engaged for many years in a ménage à trois with Lady Elizabeth Fraser, who inveigled her way into the duke's bed and the duchess's heart). Foreman is, by her own admission, a little in love with her subject, which can lead to occasional lapses of perspective, but generally it adds zest to a narrative built on, rather than burdened by, scholarship, that is at once accessible and learned. An impressive debut, in every sense. --David Vincent, Amazon.co.uk

The winner

For our August book club (August 4th, if that works for everyone) we will be reading: Between a Rock and a Hard Place, by Aron Ralston.

August books

I know this is very late. Sorry. The books I have chosen are... Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston, Confessions of a Hero Worshiper by Steven J. Dubner. I was planning on going with Bethany Hamiltons Soul Surfer but I thought it was too easy a read, she was only 13 when she lost her arm so compared to Aron Ralston her book just wasn't as interesting. I thought I'd add abook Alex recommended to me Untamed Seas by Deborah Scaling Kiley I have not read this yet but she has. I loved both the Aron Ralston book and the Steven J. Dubner book. There is a little language in Aron Ralstons book but not excessive.



Confessins of a Hero-Worshiper



As a boy, Stephen J. Dubner's hero was Franco Harris, the famed and mysterious running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers. When Dubner's father died, he became obsessed -- he dreamed of his hero every night; he signed his school papers “Franco Dubner.” Though they never met, it was Franco Harris who shepherded Dubner through a fatherless boyhood.
Twenty years later, Dubner, an accomplished writer, sees Harris on a magazine cover. His long-dormant obsession comes roaring back. He journeys to Pittsburgh, certain that Harris will embrace him. And he is...well, wrong.
Told with the grit of a journalist and the grace of a memoirist, Confessions of a Hero-Worshiper is a breathtaking, heartbreaking, and often humorous story of astonishing developments. It is also a sparkling meditation on the nature of hero worship -- which, like religion and love, tells us as much about ourselves as about the object of our desire.

printed 2004-272 pages



Untamed Seas

One late autumn day in 1982, the fifty-eight-foot yacht TRASHMAN set sail on a routine trip from Annapolis to Florida, with Deborah Scaling and four others aboard. When the boat sailed into a seventy-knot gale, it went down quickly, leaving the crew adrift in the Atlantic in a rubber dinghy that was quickly surrounded by sharks. Five harrowing days and nights later, when a Russian freighter finally came to their rescue, only two crew members remained. Powerful, adrenaline-charged, utterly consuming, UNTAMED SEAS is a brave, unforgettable story that plunges to the depths of the human psyche and surfaces with the strength to survive.



printed 2001 - 256 pages



Between A Rock and A Hard Place


One of the most extraordinary survival stories ever told -- Aron Ralston's searing account of his six days trapped in one of the most remote spots in America, and how one inspired act of bravery brought him home.
It started out as a simple hike in the Utah canyonlands on a warm Saturday afternoon. For Aron Ralston, a twenty-seven-year-old mountaineer and outdoorsman, a walk into the remote Blue John Canyon was a chance to get a break from a winter of solo climbing Colorado's highest and toughest peaks. He'd earned this weekend vacation, and though he met two charming women along the way, by early afternoon he finally found himself in his element: alone, with just the beauty of the natural world all around him.
It was 2:41 P.M. Eight miles from his truck, in a deep and narrow slot canyon, Aron was climbing down off a wedged boulder when the rock suddenly, and terrifyingly, came loose. Before he could get out of the way, the falling stone pinned his right hand and wrist against the canyon wall.
And so began six days of hell for Aron Ralston. With scant water and little food, no jacket for the painfully cold nights, and the terrible knowledge that he'd told no one where he was headed, he found himself facing a lingering death -- trapped by an 800-pound boulder 100 feet down in the bottom of a canyon. As he eliminated his escape options one by one through the days, Aron faced the full horror of his predicament: By the time any possible search and rescue effort would begin, he'd most probably have died of dehydration, if a flash flood didn't drown him before that.
What does one do in the face of almost certain death? Using the video camera from his pack, Aron began recording his grateful good-byes to his family and friends all over the country, thinking back over a life filled with adventure, and documenting a last will and testament with the hope that someone would find it. (For their part, his family and friends had instigated a major search for Aron, the amazing details of which are also documented here for the first time.) The knowledge of their love kept Aron Ralston alive, until a divine inspiration on Thursday morning solved the riddle of the boulder. Aron then committed the most extreme act imaginable to save himself.
Between a Rock and a Hard Place -- a brilliantly written, funny, honest, inspiring, and downright astonishing report from the line where death meets life -- will surely take its place in the annals of classic adventure stories.
printed 2004 - 354 pages

New Polls!!

Take the quizzes on the sidebar so we can get scheduling and such worked out. Thanks!

July Book Club and other housekeeping

We obviously don't have a book picked to read for July yet. Since our host for July has left the bookclub and there's only about a week until the June bookclub, we have some decisions to make. Tracy will likely be out of town for the July 8th book club meeting. So, it will probably just be Jenni, Sox, and Jenny. So, what do you guys want to do about the meeting?

We can quickly pick a book, read it, and carry on as usual. Or, we could scrap the book for the month because we won't all be there anyway and go to dinner or see a movie or something. Or, we could just cancel for the month.

I'd rather not cancel, since I look forward to our discussions. Is anyone else going to be out of town on the 8th? I'm happy to host, but I'm hoping to do my book picks in September as usual. Personally I think it'd be fun if we went to dinner or a movie or something. I'm going to put up a poll--vote on what you want to do.

Also, our ward will be moving mutual night from Tuesdays to Wednesdays, starting August 1st, so we're going to need to move Book Club off of Wednesdays. What would work for everyone?

Book Choices for June

I thought I would have a theme for the book choices this month. All are books off which movies were based. A Beautiful Mind and Eight Men Out spawned Hollywood interpretations of the same names. Rumspringa inspired a documentary entitled Devil's Playground.  I have seen all of the movies.  I have read none of the books.

Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series  by Eliot Asinof

The headlines proclaimed the 1919 fix of the World Series and attempted cover-up as "the most gigantic sporting swindle in the history of America!" First published in 1963, Eight Men Out has become a timeless classic. Eliot Asinof has reconstructed the entire scene-by-scene story of the fantastic scandal in which eight Chicago White Sox players arranged with the nation's leading gamblers to throw the Series in Cincinnati. Mr. Asinof vividly describes the tense meetings, the hitches in the conniving, the actual plays in which the Series was thrown, the Grand Jury indictment, and the famous 1921 trial. Moving behind the scenes, he perceptively examines the motives and backgrounds of the players and the conditions that made the improbable fix all too possible. Here, too, is a graphic picture of the American underworld that managed the fix, the deeply shocked newspapermen who uncovered the story, and the war-exhausted nation that turned with relief and pride to the Series, only to be rocked by the scandal. Far more than a superbly told baseball story, this is a compelling slice of American history in the aftermath of World War I and at the cusp of the Roaring Twenties.

A Beautiful Mind: The Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash by Sylvia Nasar

At the age of 31 John Nash, mathematical genius, suffered a devastating breakdown and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Yet after decades of leading a ghost-like existence, he was to re-emerge to win a Nobel Prize and world acclaim. The inspiration for a major motion picture directed by Ron Howard, Sylvia Nasar's award-winning biography is a drama about the mystery of the human mind, a triumph over incredible adversity, and the healing power of love.

Rumspringa: To Be or Not to Be Amish by Tom Shachtman

Rumspringa is Tom Shachtman’s celebrated look at a littleknown Amish coming-of-age ritual, the rumspringa—the period of “running around” that begins for their youth at age sixteen. During this time, Amish youth are allowed to live outside the bounds of their faith, experimenting with alcohol, premarital sex, revealing clothes, telephones, drugs, and wild parties. By allowing such broad freedoms, their parents hope they will learn enough to help them make the most important decision of their lives—whether to be baptized as Christians, join the church, and forever give up worldly ways, or to remain in the world.

Book Choices for May

So I'm finally getting my choices for May on here and I hope to have a poll up soon (if I figure out how to do it:)).

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez

This sensitive story of four sisters who must adjust to life in America after having to flee from the Dominican Republic is told through a series of episodes beginning in adulthood, when their lives have been shaped by U. S. mores, and moving backwards to their wealthy childhood on the island. Adapting to American life is difficult and causes embarrassment when friends meet their parents, anger as they are bullied and called "spics," and identity confusion following summer trips to the family compound in the Dominican Republic. These interconnected vignettes of family life, resilience, and love are skillfully intertwined and offer young adults a perspective on immigration and families as well as a look at America through Hispanic eyes. This unique coming-of-age tale is a feast of stories that will enchant and captivate readers.

- Pam Spencer, Thomas Jefferson Sci-Tech, Fairfax County, VA

The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason

A compelling modern thriller that cleverly combines history and mystery. When four Princeton seniors begin the Easter weekend, they are more concerned with their plans for the next year and an upcoming dance than with a 500-year-old literary mystery. But by the end of the holiday, two people are dead, two of the students are injured, and one has disappeared. These events, blended with Renaissance history, code breaking, acrostics, sleuthing, and personal discovery, move the story along at a rapid pace. Tom Sullivan, the narrator, tells of his late father's and then a roommate's obsession with the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a 15th-century "novel" that has long puzzled scholars. Paul has built his senior thesis on an unpopular theory posited by Tom's father–that the author was an upper-class Roman rather than a monk–and has come close to proving it. While much of the material on the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili is arcane and specialized, it is clearly explained and its puzzles are truly puzzling, while the present-day action is compelling enough to keep teens reading. There is a love interest for Tom and a lively portrayal of Princeton life. This novel will appeal to readers of Dan Brown's TheDa Vinci Code (Doubleday, 2003) but it supplies a lot more food for thought, even including some salacious woodcuts from the original book as well as coded excerpts and their solutions.–Susan H. Woodcock, Fairfax County Public Library, Chantilly, VA

My Antonia by Willa Cather

“No romantic novel ever written in America . . . is one half so beautiful as My Ántonia.” —H. L. Mencken

Widely recognized as Willa Cather’s greatest novel, My Ántonia is a soulful and rich portrait of a pioneer woman’s simple yet heroic life. The spirited daughter of Bohemian immigrants, Ántonia must adapt to a hard existence on the desolate prairies of the Midwest. Enduring childhood poverty, teenage seduction, and family tragedy, she eventually becomes a wife and mother on a Nebraska farm. A fictional record of how women helped forge the communities that formed a nation, My Ántonia is also a hauntingly eloquent celebration of the strength, courage, and spirit of America’s early pioneers. - Gordon Tapper, Assistant Professor of English at DePauw University

Book Choices for April

I thought I'd offer some of my favorite books as choices for our April book club meeting. Little Women and Jane Eyre are two of my favorite books. I've never actually read Sense and Sensibility, but I love the story and I love Jane Austen, so I thought it'd be a good fit. Here are some descriptions, courtesy of shelfari and amazon:

Little Women:
In picturesque nineteenth-century New England, tomboyish Jo, beautiful Meg, fragile Beth, and romantic Amy come of age while their father is off to war. Despite having little money, the girls keep their spirits up with writing, gardening, homemade plays, and the occasional romp with wealthier pals. Their pal, "poor little rich boy" Laurie, joins in and becomes their adoptive brother, as the girls deal with Meg's first romance, Beth's life-threatening illness, and fears for their father's safety.

Jane Eyre:
Having grown up an orphan in the home of her cruel aunt and at a harsh charity school, Jane Eyre becomes an independent and spirited survivor—qualities that serve her well as governess at Thornfield Hall. But when she finds love with her sardonic employer, Rochester, the discovery of his terrible secret forces her to make a choice. Should she stay with him whatever the consequences or follow her convictions, even if it means leaving her beloved?

Sense and Sensibility:
Elinor and Marianne Dashwood are two strikingly different sisters. On their father's death, the Estate goes to their brother John who, encouraged by his wife, goes against his father's wishes of looking after his sisters and step-mother. They retire to a cottage in Devonshire, but not before Elinor and Edward Ferras become mutually attracted. In Devonshire Marianne falls desperately in love with John Willoughby, an attractive but unprincipled man. Each sister discovers that their suitors have become engaged to other women and the story centres on the different way they cope with this distress.

March Books

Here are our book choices for March. I hope that there is something we all will enjoy.



The Hunchback of Notre Dame

This extraordinary historical novel, set in Medieval Paris under the twin towers of its greatest structure and supreme symbol, the cathedral of Notre-Dame, is the haunting drama of Quasimodo, the hunchback; Esmeralda, the gypsy dancer; and Claude Frollo, the priest tortured by the specter of his own damnation. Shaped by a profound sense of tragic irony, it is a work that gives full play to Victor Hugo's brilliant historical imagination and his remarkable powers of description.


Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Young Tess Durbeyfield attempts to restore her family's fortunes by claiming their connection with the aristocratic d'Urbervilles. But Alec d'Urberville is a rich wastrel who seduces her and makes her life miserable. When Tess meets Angel Clare, she is offered true love and happiness, but her past catches up with her and she faces an agonizing moral choice.Hardy's indictment of society's double standards, and his depiction of Tess as "a pure woman," caused controversy in his day and has held the imagination of readers ever since. Hardy thought it his finest novel, and Tess the most deeply felt character he ever created. .
AuthorThomas Hardy (1840-1928) is one of England's greatest novelists. Most of his work is set in his native Dorset, on the south coast of England.

The Scarlet Letter

Novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in 1850. It is considered a masterpiece of American literature and a classic moral study. The novel is set in a village in Puritan New England. The main character is Hester Prynne, a young woman who has borne an illegitimate child. Hester believes herself a widow, but her husband, Roger Chillingworth, returns to New England very much alive and conceals his identity. He finds his wife forced to wear the scarlet letter A on her dress as punishment for her adultery. Chillingworth becomes obsessed with finding the identity of his wife's former lover. When he learns that the father of Hester's child is Arthur Dimmesdale, a saintly young minister who is the leader of those exhorting her to name the child's father, Chillingworth proceeds to torment the guilt-stricken young man. In the end Chillingworth is morally degraded by his monomaniacal pursuit of revenge; Dimmesdale is broken by his own sense of guilt, and he publicly confesses his adultery before dying in Hester's arms.

The Glass Castle

In case you haven't checked the poll results, the book we'll be reading for February is The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls. I'm really enjoying it and I think you all will too!