Book Club meets on Sunday. I’m the moderator this month, the one who leads the discussion. I want it to be a lively dialogue, a reflection on the various themes, the research, the eloquent writing. I want to hear how people related to the characters, the relevance the story had on members’ own lives, the nuggets of Truth that were found on its pages.
There’s only one problem: I hated the selected book. Continue reading
…for posting such a lovely review of Allegra in the Fall 2013 issue. And thank you to my dear friend and photographer extraordinaire Leslie Thomas for the author photo!
Flight Behavior, by Barbara Kingsolver, is by far the best book I read this summer. (Well, State of Wonder by Ann Patchett was right up there. Two amazing books. One summer. Yes!)
From the back cover… “In a dazzling page-turner…Kingsolver quietly questions the future of our fragile planet.” (Elle)
That quote sums the book up nicely. I am flabbergasted at the way she can weave all kinds of science into a thoroughly compelling story.
Although the characters were unlike any people I know, they were fully nuanced, believable and sympathetic.
Okay, I suspect that at book club next week there will be some grumbling about ‘too much butterfly information’. Kingsolver certainly did her research and she did risk overloading the reader with too many facts, but I thought she did an impressive job of telling a story first, then subtlety sliding in an urgent message about climate change. This book entertains like a novel should, while simultaneously delivering unsettling scientific facts.
I feel less guilty about my obsessive novel-reading habit when I know I am learning something too.
Thank you Booklist!
“Hrdlitschka allows Allegra to tell her own story and her fine ear for teen emotion is well displayed in scenes that reveal Allegra’s social anxiety and panic attacks, her sorrow and disbelief over her parents’ crumbling marriage, and her resistance to unfamiliar feelings of love as handsome, young Mr. Rocchelli begins to fill the emptiness in her life. Allegra turns from dancing to composition as Mr. Rocchelli challenges her to write a full score from a melody he composed, and the metaphor is apt as Allegra runs with the assignment, sinking herself into a new obsession. Teens with a passion for the arts will see themselves in Allegra, whose intensity and flaws make her perfectly relatable.”
I rarely read a book twice ~ there are just too many books to read ~ but I have read Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh three times, over 10 year intervals, and I have loved it more with each reading. It shocks me that it was written in 1955, before I was even born. Lindbergh’s reflections on youth and age, love and marriage, peace, solitude and contentment are as relevant today as they were then. I kept a highlighter pen beside me as I read to note the wisest passages and now my book is filled with bright orange lines. It is a short book, but I have highlighted dozens of passages. A couple that really spoke to me are these:
But I want first of all – in fact, as an end to these other desires – to be at peace with myself. I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want, in fact – to borrow from the language of the saints – to live “in grace” as much of the time as possible.
Only when one is connected to one’s own core is one connected to others, I am beginning to discover. And, for me, the core, the inner spring, can best be refound through solitude.
How I would love to have known this wise, articulate woman.
… for this lovely review of Allegra!
…” but the intensity of creating music and the increasing time she spends alone with Mr. Rocchelli start to make everyone, including Allegra herself, wonder if there could be something more to their relationship. The musical creations – whether through a rock-band jam session, playing a classical harp, or composing with a digital program – are described with loving detail but a light touch, appealing to both veteran musicians and neophytes, who will relish this opportunity to better appreciate the power of music. Allegra’s artistic pursuits – and intense commitment – will resonate particularly with equally passionate teens, while her social anxiety and strained home life might be familiar, albeit painfully so, to a broader audience.”
That’s where the book club comes in. You are not alone with your reading experience. You get the chance to share how the story made you feel, why you connected with it, why you didn’t.
I am a book club junkie.
There. I’ve said it.
It’s an addiction – I belong to three. Each one has a different focus. In one we read only young adult fiction. In another we are a group of men and women, bringing our different perspectives to stories. The third is a large, social group of female friends. In each group we enjoy the fact that the book choices encourage us to read books we might otherwise have missed.
“Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul.” — Joyce Carol Oates
Through book club discussions we learn more about ourselves and our book club friends. The themes of the books are springboards for conversation, but the dialogue become so much more as we chew away on the ideas that the books present. We reflect on different ways of living, on different circumstances, on different reactions to events. We are challenged to open our minds to other ways of being. Without a chance to discuss books, the ideas they present have much less impact. I usually like a book even more after the discussion as I learn how other people connected to it or why they felt it was so meaningful.
Book club evenings are the most stimulating ones of the month. They are also the most fun.
This novel falls into the category of books-I-wish-I’d-written-myself. Clever and funny it is told through a wide mix of emails, letters, documents and more – my favourite kind of story-telling. The characters are all eclectic and fun. The plot twists are brilliant and I think I was smiling the entire time I was reading. I especially liked how the author poked fun at Canadians and people of the Pacific Northwest in general, especially those of us living in suburbs. An unexpected spin-off from reading this book is that I now have to put the Antarctic closer to the top of my list of places I want to visit, possibly right under the Galapagos Islands and Borneo. Who would have guessed?
I recently read The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams. I selected it because I knew it dealt with polygamy, just as my book Sister Wife does. It’s a subject that fascinates me so I was curious to see how Williams handled it. What I didn’t expect was that our two stories would share so many of the same elements. In each book the young protagonist is secretly meeting a teen boy, a hugely forbidden activity. They both have mothers who are struggling with their pregnancies. They are both about to be married to a much older 
man. They both have a little sister they are very attached to. They also both have a sister who is close in age and more committed to the religious practises. Forbidden books and librarians are featured in both stories. The list goes on…
I checked the publishing dates and they came out at about the same time which is not surprising, polygamous communities were being highlighted in the news then, but still, the similarities were uncanny. Most of us know that when two writers set out to write about the same subject, the books usually come out distinctly different. Not in this case.
Our writing styles are very different though and although the story endings are similar, they each have a different twist. Regardless, I find it amazing that someone else’s writing brain works so much like my own…
Over the weekend I read two young adult novels that tackled extremely difficult topics and yet both authors handled the themes brilliantly. I truly admire these two writers for taking on these subjects. It wouldn’t have been easy.
The first book was What Happened to Ivy by Kathy Stinson where she explores ‘mercy-killing’ and the implications of it. She shows the many different ways of looking at the ‘accidental’ death of a girl with multiple disabilities.
The second one was My Book of Life By Angel by Martine Leavitt which looks at child/teen prostitution on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside during the days of Robert Pickton. 
Both books deal with grim subjects but are told beautifully and with compassion. They ask the reader to reflect on the dilemmas the characters face, and perhaps see those situations in a new light. They are the kind of books I try to write myself, books that explore those ‘grey’ areas and try to make sense of an aspect of human behaviour that at first glance appears senseless .
These two authors inspire me to dig deep in my own writing, and to not shy away from the ‘tough stuff’. They are my heroes.
