Looking Ahead... Book Choices for Sept 2010 to April 2011

Hey Ladies... please take some time to check over this list before the September meeting.  If our Sept attendance is 6+, we'd like to decide on books for Nov-April... and it helps if everyone has had a chance to check out these titles and has some preference before the meeting.  :-)

September 2010- Banned Books Month

• meeting at Thea's house
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (menu is appetizers and desserts all having the word "mississippi" in the recipe title) 

October 2010 - "Kate's Pick"

• meeting at Kate's house
• Little Bee by Chris Cleave

November 2010- Muckraking Madness

• meeting at Tessa's house
• we have one book left here: Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

On that same theme, we could also read:

• The Bitter Cry of Children by John Spargo ( published in 1906 concerning the horrors of child labour)
• Welcome to Shirley by Kelly McMasters (a memoir about growing up in a town polluted by nuclear waste and chemical spills)
• The Body Project by Joan Jacobs Brumberg (a historical review of girl's changing relationships with their body throughout the last century)
• other suggestions?

December 2010- suggestions? someone have a "pick" for this month?  Shall we get a "Library Kit" for December?

• meeting at Jen's house

We could use the theme "Short and Sweet" and check out some short story collections by Canadian authors. This might be especially good for the busy month of December as you can read only a selection of the stories and still participate fully in the discussion!  Here are some options:

•  Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam;
• The Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro;
• Morley Callahan's Now That April's Here;
• The Roseate Spoonbill of Happiness by Marilyn Gear Pilling.
• other suggestions?

January 2011- Change Your World

• meeting at Karen's house
• we have one book left here: Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington

On that same theme, we could also read:

• Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng (the true story of one woman's sufferings during the Cultural Revolution in China... see review in July 2010) 
• Reading Lolita in Tehran/ Things I've Been Silent About (two memoirs - the first is based on her reading group and the second is more personal) by Azar Nafisi
• Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson (about building schools to educate women in Afganistan)
• Red Azalea by Anchee Min (about growing up in Communist China during the 1960-70's)
• Night by Elie Wiesel (a classic memoir about one teen's struggle to come to terms with guilt and God after surviving the death camps in WWII)
• The Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore (the true story of an unlikely friendship between an international art dealer and a modern day slave)
• other suggestions?

February 2011- Be My Valentine

• meeting at Michelle's house (switched with Chandra in July)
• we have one book left here: Emma by Jane Austen
• we could also chose another Austen book?

Other options include:

• The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan
• The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
• Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• The Summer Before the Dark by Doris Lessing
• The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
• other suggestions?

March 2011- The Classics... or if this is too heavy, we could get a "Library Kit" for March, too?

• meeting at Sherrie's house
• The Odyssey by Homer
• The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper

Other options include....

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• The Invisible Man by HG Wells
• Les Miserable by Victor Hugo
• any other classic you've always thought you should read but never got around to yet....

April 2011- How Does Your Garden Grow?

• meeting at Kate's house
• The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton (a novel about a young girl in 1913 abandoned on a ship travelling from England to Australia and her journey to discover her true identity... see Kate's review in July 2010)
• One Man's Garden by Henry Mitchell... a collection of newspaper columns about gardening that reveal practical tips as well as Mitchell's love of gardening. Menu: salads.
• A Patch of Eden by H. Patricia Hynes... a look at inner city gardens and the healing that gardening can bring (published in 1996). Menu: veggie pizzas.
• other suggestions?