Book Swap From July

August 2005 -- Book Swap Discussion
Location: Missy's Place

Carmyn read Carumba! by Nina Marie Martinez and I read House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer .... both recommended by Pam.

Judy read About a Boy by Nick Hornby recommended by Carmyn.

Missy read ??? by ???? recommended by Larry.

Larry read Handling Sin by Michael Malone recommended by Pam.

Pam read True Notebooks by Mark Salzman recommended by Missy.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

July 2005 -- Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (fiction)

Location: Kristi's Country Home

The Kite Runner by Khaled Housseni

June 2005 -- The Kite Runner by Khaled Housseni (fiction)

Location: Pam's Place

Catch-Up Session

May 2005 -- Catch Up Session at Judy's

Carmyn finished Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi.

Pam finished The Known World by Edward P. Jones.

Reader's Choice of Kathleen Norris Titles

April 2005 -- Any book by Kathleen Norris ( Writer's Conference author)
Meeting Location: Christus Rex Fireside Room

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

March 2005 -- Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi (memoir)

Location: Pam's House

The Known World by Edward P. Jones

February 2005 -- The Known World by Edward P. Jones (fiction)
Meeting Location: Marci's House

Reader's Choice of a Young Adult Book

January 2005 -- Reader's Choice of a Young Adult Book
Meeting Location: Kristi's house in town

House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
Tales of Despereaux by Kate diCamillo

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

December 2004 -- Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn (fiction)
Meeting Location: Judy's House

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris

October 2004 -- Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris (essays)
Meeting Location: Carmyn's Apartment
Attire: Corduroy and Denim

The Shadow of the Wind (La Sombra del Viento) by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

September 2004 -- The Shadow of the Wind (La Sombra del Viento) by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (fiction) Meeting Location: Blue Moose

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman -- The Quality of Life Report by Meghan Daum

July 2004 -- Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman and The Quality of Life Report by Meghan Daum (fiction) Meeting Location: Grizzly's

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

June 2004 -- Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (fiction)
Meeting Location: Pam's House

Bella Tuscany by Frances Mayes

May 2004 -- Bella Tuscany: The Sweet Life in Italy by Frances Mayes (memoir)
Meeting Location: Lola's Italian Restaurant

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

April 2004 -- Fast Food Nation The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser (nonfiction) Meeting Location: Blue Moose

The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich

March 2004 -- The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich (fiction)
Meeting Location: Branigans

What I Think I Did by Larry Woiwode

February 2004 -- What I Think I Did: A Season of Survival in Two Acts by Larry Woiwode (writer's conference author)

Reader's Choice of a Young Adult Title

January 2004 -- Reader's Choice of a Young Adult Title

Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting By in America by

November 2003 -- Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenrich

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

October 2003 -- The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (fiction)

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

September 2003 -- The Secret History by Donna Tartt (fiction)

Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand

August 2003 -- Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand (nonfiction)

Reader's Choice from our Summer Reading Lists

July 2003 -- Reader's Choice from our Summer Reading Lists
Meeting Location: Blue Moose

Larry read 334 by Thomas Disch
Brian read Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War & Other Battles by Anthony Swofford
Carmyn read The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

June 2003 -- Life of Pi by Yann Martel (fiction)

The Dream of the Marsh Wren by Pattiann Rogers

April 2003 -- The Dream of the Marsh Wren: Writing as Reciprocal Creation by Pattiann Rogers (poetry and writing)
2003 Writer's Conference Author

the Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks

March 2003 -- The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks (nonfiction)
2003 Writer's Conference Author

Reader's Choice of a Louise Erdrich book

February 2003 -- Readers Choice of a Louise Erdrich book (fiction)
Meeting Location: East Grand Forks Campbell Library

Judy read Tracks by Louise Erdrich
I attempted to read Tales of Burning Love by Louise Erdrich
Larry read ???

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

January 2003 -- The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (fiction)

Christmas Party Book Talk

December 2002 -- Christmas Party at Carmyn's
We each shared a book or two we enjoyed to swap if someone was interested

Judy shared Janet Evanovich mysteries. Here's her website.

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

November 2002 -- Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (fiction)

Sula by Toni Morrison

October 2002 -- Sula by Toni Morrison (fiction)
Meeting location: East Grand Forks Campbell Library

Reader's Choice of a Young Adult Book Title

September 2002 -- Reader's Choice of a Young Adult Book

A Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus

August 2002 -- A Thousand White Women The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus (fiction)

A Little Yellow Dog by Walter Mosley

July 2002 -- Little Yellow Dog by Walter Mosley (fiction-- an Easy Rawlings Mystery)

Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland

June 2002 -- Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland (fiction)

The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan

May 2002 -- The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan (fiction)

Bee Season by Myla Goldberg

April 2002 -- Bee Season by Myla Goldberg (fiction)

A Heart Can Be Filled Anywhere by Bill Holm

March 2002 -- A Heart Can Be Filled Anywhere by Bill Holm
2oo2 Writer's Conference Author

Plainsong by Kent Haruf

February 2002 -- Plainsong by Kent Haruf (fiction)
2002 Writer's Conference Author

Stones From the River by Ursula Hegi

January 2002 -- Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi (fiction)
2002 Writer's Conference Author

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

November-December 2001 -- The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (fiction)
Meeting Location: Sara D.'s apartment

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

October 2001 -- Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (essays)

For this book we met at Sara Jelliff's place. For me, this was my first experience with David Sedaris and I was not disappointed. He was so funny in a sort of tragicomediac way. We took turns reading our favorite parts in the many sections of the book. We also discovered that some of the selections in the audiobook were different.


FROM THE PUBLISHER

ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY contains far more than just the funniest collection of autobiographical essays - it quite well registers as a manifesto about language itself. Wherever there's a straight line, you can be sure that Sedaris lurks beneath the text, making it jagged with laughter; and just where the fault lines fall, he sits mischievously perched at the epicenter of it all.

No medium available to mankind is spared his cultural vision; no family member (even the dynasties of family pets) is forgotten in these pages of sardonic memories of Sedaris's numerous incarnations in North Carolina, Chicago, New York, and France.

One essay, punctuated by a conspicuous absence of s's and plurals, introduces the lisping young fifth-grader David "Thedarith," who arms himself with a thesaurus, learns every nonsibilant word in the lexicon, eludes his wily speech therapy teacher, and amazes his countrified North Carolina teachers with his out-of-nowhere and man-size vocabulary.

By an ironic twist of fate, readers find present-day Sedaris in France, where only now, after all these years, he must cling safely to just plural nouns so as to avoid assigning the wrong genders to French objects. (Never mind that ordering items from the grocer becomes rather expensive.) Even the strictest of grammarians won't be able to look at the parts of speech in the same way after exposing themselves to the linguistic phenomena of Sedarisian humor.
Just why is a sandwich masculine, and yet, say, a belt is feminine in the French language? As he stealthily tries to decode French, like a cross between a housewife and a shrewddetective, he earns the contempt of his sadistic French teacher and soon even resorts to listening to American books on tape for secret relief.

What David Sedaris has to say about language classes, his brother's gangsta-rap slang, typewriters, computers, audiobooks, movies, and even restaurant menus is sure to unleash upon the world a mad rash of pocket-dictionary-toting nouveau grammarians who bow their heads to a new, inverted word order.

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

September 2001 -- Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer (nonfiction)

This is one of the books that I really enjoyed in part because I might never have read it on my own. We had a really good discussion on this one.

From Publishers Weekly

After graduating from Emory University in Atlanta in 1992, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandoned his possessions, gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska, where he went to live in the wilderness. Four months later, he turned up dead. His diary, letters and two notes found at a remote campsite tell of his desperate effort to survive, apparently stranded by an injury and slowly starving. They also reflect the posturing of a confused young man, raised in affluent Annandale, Va., who self-consciously adopted a Tolstoyan renunciation of wealth and return to nature. Krakauer, a contributing editor to Outside and Men's Journal, retraces McCandless's ill-fated antagonism toward his father, Walt, an eminent aerospace engineer. Krakauer also draws parallels to his own reckless youthful exploit in 1977 when he climbed Devils Thumb, a mountain on the Alaska-British Columbia border, partly as a symbolic act of rebellion against his autocratic father. In a moving narrative, Krakauer probes the mystery of McCandless's death, which he attributes to logistical blunders and to accidental poisoning from eating toxic seed pods.

Jake's Orphan by Peggy Brooke

August 2001 -- Jake's Orphan by Peggy Brooke (juvenile fiction)

We chose this book because Peggy Brooke was visiting for the Writer's Conference in Children's Literature held each September. This was actually one of the few book club meetings I have missed, though I did read the book.

From Publishers Weekly

Tree, a 12-year-old orphan so rootless that no one seems to notice his lack of a proper name, is the hero of this compelling debut novel set in 1926. When he is lent out to a dour North Dakota farmer for a year, he is glad to escape the dreary St. Paul orphanage and get a chance (so he thinks) at family life, even though his joy is tempered by anxiety about leaving his reckless 10-year-old brother, Acorn. But Mr. Gunderson, the farmer, makes it clear he is not looking for a son in Tree, and Tree is quick to realize how much of an outsider he is. When Acorn runs away from the orphanage and shows up at the farm, Tree's own precarious position falls into jeopardy. There are flaws here--overly neat timing, a somewhat easy (and easily foreseen) resolution with Mr. Gunderson's kindhearted brother, Jake, coming to Tree's rescue--but the prose itself is solid. Brooke's ability to build characters through small snippets of dialogue and her sensitivity to details give texture and depth to her poignant themes. Ages 10-14.