Hi all,
I did a recap of our last book club, but it appears as though some of us didn't get it. I am hoping that this email goes to all of us. If you are interested in what happened at our last meeting and would like to know what books we are reading for our next meeting and when that meeting is you can go to www.rhondasbookclub.blogspot.com (it will be the post before this one).
-Heather
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Book Club Recap 12/1/09
Our last book club of 2009!
Attendees: Callah, Christopher, Denise, Heather, Julie, Lisa, Rambo, Rhonda, & Tina.
First, I must say that Rhonda is on the ball this year! She had all of her Christmas and Hanukkah decorations up and she had TWO Christmas trees! Her place looked really good. She said "this is what happens when you don't have a job!"
Callah, Rhonda, and I were the only ones that read Last Night In Twisted River by John Irving. We all three liked it, but all of us are Irving fans and we all recognized that if you are not an Irving fan you may not like this book. Some members said that it was hard to get into the book. We all did not think that it was our favorite Irving book, but we liked it.
Rhonda had a hard time with the big time lapse of the characters. The main character Danny starts off in the book at 12 and at the end of the book he is in his 60s.
I thought that it felt like this book was John Irving's autobiography. So much of the book seemed to be about him. To me, it felt like he sometimes made fun of himself and his style of writing. A similarity that I pointed out was that Irving and Danny Angel both wrote stories that went on to receive Academy Awards for the screenplay in the same year. There were many times when I knew what was in the book was something that happened to Irving. It made me question what was real and/or true in this book and what was not.
We all thought that Irving tied up the book really well and there were really no loose ends. We talked about how Irving ties up his books really well and the reader doesn't feel like they need the story to continue on. Callah wasn't so sure she liked the ending about Lady Sky (I liked the story of Lady Sky when we were first introduced to her). Callah and Rhonda also wished that Irving told us who was driving the Blue Mustang. We also discussed how the themes of the bear, New Hampshire, cutting off of a hand, and other stuff I can't remember that seems to be in many of his novels.
Keo did not make it to book club :(, but he said that it wasn't his favorite book. I would have to agree, but I liked it. If anyone wants to read an Irving novel you should read The World According To Garp.
Valesca had suggested the book The Hunger Games at the last book club as another selection after LNITR. She had said that it was a great book. Rhonda and Tina read the book and they said that it was great! They said that they couldn't put it down. It took Rhonda a day to read and Tina three days, which is a record for her. They really loved the book and couldn't praise it more. They didn't want to talk about it since they wanted all of us to read it. That means that this book will be one of our next books for book club!
Our next book club is going to be on Tuesday February 2, 2010 at Rhonda's house 7pm. We will be reading TWO books! The first one is The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins http://www.amazon.com/Hunger-Games-Suzanne-Collins/dp/0439023483/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259822212&sr=8-1 If you get your books from the library you will have a long wait. I went to put a hold on it the other day and I was #100 in the hold list, yikes! Rhonda and Tina have a copy and if you want to borrow the book I am sure that they would lend it out. The other book is Push by Sapphire http://www.amazon.com/Push-Novel-Sapphire/dp/0679766758/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259822367&sr=1-1 This book is what the movie Precious to based off of. I went and saw the movie last weekend and I really liked it. I suggested that if you want to watch the movie and read the book you should go and watch the movie first. The performances were so well done and I think that it will enhance the characters in the book. Also, most books are better than the movie and since the movie was good you should watch it first so that you won't be disappointed :)
After we discussed the books we talked about other stuff, which I am drawing a blank on now :) We talked about Rhonda's new spin bike and the trapeze class she took with Denise. We talked about running and if anyone is interested Denise is going to be doing the LA marathon next year!
See you at Rhonda's party or in the New Year!!!!!
-Heather
Attendees: Callah, Christopher, Denise, Heather, Julie, Lisa, Rambo, Rhonda, & Tina.
First, I must say that Rhonda is on the ball this year! She had all of her Christmas and Hanukkah decorations up and she had TWO Christmas trees! Her place looked really good. She said "this is what happens when you don't have a job!"
Callah, Rhonda, and I were the only ones that read Last Night In Twisted River by John Irving. We all three liked it, but all of us are Irving fans and we all recognized that if you are not an Irving fan you may not like this book. Some members said that it was hard to get into the book. We all did not think that it was our favorite Irving book, but we liked it.
Rhonda had a hard time with the big time lapse of the characters. The main character Danny starts off in the book at 12 and at the end of the book he is in his 60s.
I thought that it felt like this book was John Irving's autobiography. So much of the book seemed to be about him. To me, it felt like he sometimes made fun of himself and his style of writing. A similarity that I pointed out was that Irving and Danny Angel both wrote stories that went on to receive Academy Awards for the screenplay in the same year. There were many times when I knew what was in the book was something that happened to Irving. It made me question what was real and/or true in this book and what was not.
We all thought that Irving tied up the book really well and there were really no loose ends. We talked about how Irving ties up his books really well and the reader doesn't feel like they need the story to continue on. Callah wasn't so sure she liked the ending about Lady Sky (I liked the story of Lady Sky when we were first introduced to her). Callah and Rhonda also wished that Irving told us who was driving the Blue Mustang. We also discussed how the themes of the bear, New Hampshire, cutting off of a hand, and other stuff I can't remember that seems to be in many of his novels.
Keo did not make it to book club :(, but he said that it wasn't his favorite book. I would have to agree, but I liked it. If anyone wants to read an Irving novel you should read The World According To Garp.
Valesca had suggested the book The Hunger Games at the last book club as another selection after LNITR. She had said that it was a great book. Rhonda and Tina read the book and they said that it was great! They said that they couldn't put it down. It took Rhonda a day to read and Tina three days, which is a record for her. They really loved the book and couldn't praise it more. They didn't want to talk about it since they wanted all of us to read it. That means that this book will be one of our next books for book club!
Our next book club is going to be on Tuesday February 2, 2010 at Rhonda's house 7pm. We will be reading TWO books! The first one is The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins http://www.amazon.com/Hunger-Games-Suzanne-Collins/dp/0439023483/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259822212&sr=8-1 If you get your books from the library you will have a long wait. I went to put a hold on it the other day and I was #100 in the hold list, yikes! Rhonda and Tina have a copy and if you want to borrow the book I am sure that they would lend it out. The other book is Push by Sapphire http://www.amazon.com/Push-Novel-Sapphire/dp/0679766758/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259822367&sr=1-1 This book is what the movie Precious to based off of. I went and saw the movie last weekend and I really liked it. I suggested that if you want to watch the movie and read the book you should go and watch the movie first. The performances were so well done and I think that it will enhance the characters in the book. Also, most books are better than the movie and since the movie was good you should watch it first so that you won't be disappointed :)
After we discussed the books we talked about other stuff, which I am drawing a blank on now :) We talked about Rhonda's new spin bike and the trapeze class she took with Denise. We talked about running and if anyone is interested Denise is going to be doing the LA marathon next year!
See you at Rhonda's party or in the New Year!!!!!
-Heather
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Book Club Tuesday Dec 1st
Hi everyone!
Just a reminder that this coming Tuesday we are having book club at Rhonda's house. We will be discussing Last Night In Twisted River by John Irving.
-Heather
Just a reminder that this coming Tuesday we are having book club at Rhonda's house. We will be discussing Last Night In Twisted River by John Irving.
-Heather
Friday, November 20, 2009
Interview with John Irving
Hi all,
I found this interview with John Irving and thought that some of you may want to read it. http://www.goodreads.com/interviews/show/375.John_Irving?utm_medium=email&utm_source=Nov_newsletter
-Heather
See you on 12/1!
I found this interview with John Irving and thought that some of you may want to read it. http://www.goodreads.com/interviews/show/375.John_Irving?utm_medium=email&utm_source=Nov_newsletter
-Heather
See you on 12/1!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Book Club Recap 10/27/09
Attendees: Callah, Christopher, Denise, Heather, Julie, Lisa, Michelle, Rambo, Rhonda, Tina, & Valesca. (Sandra and Nathan were also there briefly)
The book that we discussed was The Help by Kathyrn Stockett. Since the book takes place in the south we decided to have a Southern food theme for the evening. We had black-eyed pea soup, biscuits & gravy, collard greens, fried chicken, hush puppies, mac & cheese, fruit crisp, & a caramel cake. All of the food was very delicious!
The evening started with some of the members saying that they have a friend that is very similar to Hilly! Not someone I would want to be compared to :) We all LOVED the book and commended Valesca on her great choice for a book. We talked so much about the book, which is rare for us to do. I think that all of our favorite part was about two-slice pie that Minny made for Hilly. We especially loved the fact that it was Hilly's mom that was the one that got her the pie in the auction. We thought that Hilly was a horrible character, but Valesca made the point that even though she wasn't a good character she did love her children very much, which we all agreed. We thought that the stories that Aibileen told Mae Mobley were great and we loved how Mae Mobley retold those to her brother. We all loved the relationship between Celia and Minny. Some of us wondered what Celia was up to in the rooms and most of us didn't expect it was a drinking problem (which it turned out not to be). We also thought that Celia's husband was a great guy, especially when he told Minny that she had a job for life. Julie was impressed by how all of the meals were made from scratch by the maids! I decided that I want a maid (I can do the raising of Nathan, but all the other stuff I wouldn't mind a maid doing and I would even let them use the same bathroom!). There were various stories of housekeepers that we have currently and how we treat them (we all treat them well!). Lisa told us how they had one housekeeper that was like a part of the family and she wishes that she could have talked to her about her feelings towards her family. Christopher couldn't believe that our country was like this only 40 years ago and made a comparison to the Middle East and what is going on over there.
There was a lot said and I don't remember it all. It was a great book and everyone loved it. If you have not read it, you should. We thought that it will probably be made into a movie.
Oh, Rambo and Julie listened to the book and they both said that it was one of the best books to listen to. For the characters of Minny, Aibileen, & Skeeter they had three people read the parts. So each person had their on unique voice. I listened to part of the book when we were taking Julie home and what a difference that made! It was very interesting to hear how the the book is supposed to be read! The voices were great and had more of an accent then what I gave them when I was reading it. We also discussed how in our book club it is alright by all of us if you listen to a book instead of read it!
Our next book will be Last Night In Twisted River by John Irving. http://www.amazon.com/Last-Night-Twisted-River-Novel/dp/1400063841 Rhonda and I are big fans of John Irving and we already got this book. The next book club will be on Tuesday December 1, 2009 at 7pm at Rhonda's house. If you finish the John Irving book Valesca recommended Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.
Again, we missed everyone who could not make it and we hope that you will be able to join the next book club!
-Heather
The book that we discussed was The Help by Kathyrn Stockett. Since the book takes place in the south we decided to have a Southern food theme for the evening. We had black-eyed pea soup, biscuits & gravy, collard greens, fried chicken, hush puppies, mac & cheese, fruit crisp, & a caramel cake. All of the food was very delicious!
The evening started with some of the members saying that they have a friend that is very similar to Hilly! Not someone I would want to be compared to :) We all LOVED the book and commended Valesca on her great choice for a book. We talked so much about the book, which is rare for us to do. I think that all of our favorite part was about two-slice pie that Minny made for Hilly. We especially loved the fact that it was Hilly's mom that was the one that got her the pie in the auction. We thought that Hilly was a horrible character, but Valesca made the point that even though she wasn't a good character she did love her children very much, which we all agreed. We thought that the stories that Aibileen told Mae Mobley were great and we loved how Mae Mobley retold those to her brother. We all loved the relationship between Celia and Minny. Some of us wondered what Celia was up to in the rooms and most of us didn't expect it was a drinking problem (which it turned out not to be). We also thought that Celia's husband was a great guy, especially when he told Minny that she had a job for life. Julie was impressed by how all of the meals were made from scratch by the maids! I decided that I want a maid (I can do the raising of Nathan, but all the other stuff I wouldn't mind a maid doing and I would even let them use the same bathroom!). There were various stories of housekeepers that we have currently and how we treat them (we all treat them well!). Lisa told us how they had one housekeeper that was like a part of the family and she wishes that she could have talked to her about her feelings towards her family. Christopher couldn't believe that our country was like this only 40 years ago and made a comparison to the Middle East and what is going on over there.
There was a lot said and I don't remember it all. It was a great book and everyone loved it. If you have not read it, you should. We thought that it will probably be made into a movie.
Oh, Rambo and Julie listened to the book and they both said that it was one of the best books to listen to. For the characters of Minny, Aibileen, & Skeeter they had three people read the parts. So each person had their on unique voice. I listened to part of the book when we were taking Julie home and what a difference that made! It was very interesting to hear how the the book is supposed to be read! The voices were great and had more of an accent then what I gave them when I was reading it. We also discussed how in our book club it is alright by all of us if you listen to a book instead of read it!
Our next book will be Last Night In Twisted River by John Irving. http://www.amazon.com/Last-Night-Twisted-River-Novel/dp/1400063841 Rhonda and I are big fans of John Irving and we already got this book. The next book club will be on Tuesday December 1, 2009 at 7pm at Rhonda's house. If you finish the John Irving book Valesca recommended Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.
Again, we missed everyone who could not make it and we hope that you will be able to join the next book club!
-Heather
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Book Club Tuesday October 27th
Hi all,
Just sending out a reminder that book club is in two weeks! We are reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I have heard rave reviews from Valesca, Tina, Rambo, and Rhonda and I am excited to start reading it! Valesca had suggested that we do a Southern food theme and I think that is a great idea, but what does everyone else think? If we decide to have a Southern food theme we can then organize who will make what :)
I also wanted to let you guys know of this website that I was recently introduced to. It is goodreads.com and it is a site where you log in all of the books that you have read, are reading, or want to read. You can rate the books from 1-5 stars and give your own reviews of them. You can also be friends with your friends (like Facebook) and get notified of what they are reading and if they liked it. So far I am liking the site :)
I think that is it for now. I hope to see most of you in two weeks!
-Heather
Just sending out a reminder that book club is in two weeks! We are reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I have heard rave reviews from Valesca, Tina, Rambo, and Rhonda and I am excited to start reading it! Valesca had suggested that we do a Southern food theme and I think that is a great idea, but what does everyone else think? If we decide to have a Southern food theme we can then organize who will make what :)
I also wanted to let you guys know of this website that I was recently introduced to. It is goodreads.com and it is a site where you log in all of the books that you have read, are reading, or want to read. You can rate the books from 1-5 stars and give your own reviews of them. You can also be friends with your friends (like Facebook) and get notified of what they are reading and if they liked it. So far I am liking the site :)
I think that is it for now. I hope to see most of you in two weeks!
-Heather
Monday, August 31, 2009
Book Club Tuesday Sept 8th
Hi all,
This is a reminder that a week from tomorrow (9/8) we are having our book club meeting. We will be discussing The Guersney Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society and the Lost Continent. We really hope that everyone can make it and it would be good to see some members that we haven't seen in awhile :)!
-Heather
This is a reminder that a week from tomorrow (9/8) we are having our book club meeting. We will be discussing The Guersney Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society and the Lost Continent. We really hope that everyone can make it and it would be good to see some members that we haven't seen in awhile :)!
-Heather
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Book Club Recap 7/21/09
Attendees: Callah, Christopher, Denise, Heather, Julie (new member) & her dog Mary, Michelle (new member), Rhonda, Tina, and Valesca.
I think that this was our biggest meeting that we have had in a long time! It was great to have a couple of new members join our group and it was a great pleasure to have Tina and Valesca there! Of course, we did miss everyone else! Since we met over a week ago and my memory doesn't seem to be as good as it once was this will probably be a short recap :)
We talked about the book The Unthinkable by Amanda Ripley. The author looked into what type of person survives a disaster, how they react in a disaster, and talked about ways a person could improve their chances of getting out of a disaster alive. The people that read the book really enjoyed it. Tina said that she knows that she would be a person that would not survive in a disaster. Rhonda agreed with her statement and told us a funny story about flying with Tina to San Francisco and hitting some turbulence (you will have to ask Rhonda for more details!). Christopher told us many stories about how he would confront "suspicious" people and he thinks that he will do good in a disaster. Denise thought that she would do well in a disaster and be a leader type. Julie mentioned that there was a 20/20 special on this subject and it basically covered the same topics as the book. She thinks that they probably got the idea from the book. Lastly, we learned that Valesca has almost died a lot of times (swimming, rapist, & a pedophile). We actually talked about the book for a REALLY long time and I wish that I could remember what we talked about because it was some good stuff!
The other book that we were given as "extra credit" to read was Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. Only Rhonda and Christopher read it so we didn't talk about it, but they both raved about it. I just finished the book and thought that it was really really good. It is especially inspiring if you are a runner.
We have two date options for our next book club. Tuesday August 25th or Tuesday September 8th. Please let us know what date works better for you.
For our next book club we are reading two books.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer
http://www.amazon.com/Guernsey-Literary-Potato-Peel-Society/dp/0385340990/
This book is a very quick read and I am almost done with it. I am really enjoying it. I noticed that at the back of the book they mention how there is a chance for six members of your book club to be flown to Guernsey for a 4 day/ 3 night trip that includes airfare, accommodations, a three course dinner with another winning book club from the UK, and a tour of the island. We have until 9pm PST July 31, 2009. Go to http://www.randomhouse.com/rhpg/guernsey/sweepstakes/ It would be pretty awesome if we won! You can enter once a day.
The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America - Bill Bryson
http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Continent-Travels-Sm
Looking forward to seeing you at the next meeting!
-Heather
P.S. To see the actual blog go to www.rhondasbookclub.blogspot.com
I think that this was our biggest meeting that we have had in a long time! It was great to have a couple of new members join our group and it was a great pleasure to have Tina and Valesca there! Of course, we did miss everyone else! Since we met over a week ago and my memory doesn't seem to be as good as it once was this will probably be a short recap :)
We talked about the book The Unthinkable by Amanda Ripley. The author looked into what type of person survives a disaster, how they react in a disaster, and talked about ways a person could improve their chances of getting out of a disaster alive. The people that read the book really enjoyed it. Tina said that she knows that she would be a person that would not survive in a disaster. Rhonda agreed with her statement and told us a funny story about flying with Tina to San Francisco and hitting some turbulence (you will have to ask Rhonda for more details!). Christopher told us many stories about how he would confront "suspicious" people and he thinks that he will do good in a disaster. Denise thought that she would do well in a disaster and be a leader type. Julie mentioned that there was a 20/20 special on this subject and it basically covered the same topics as the book. She thinks that they probably got the idea from the book. Lastly, we learned that Valesca has almost died a lot of times (swimming, rapist, & a pedophile). We actually talked about the book for a REALLY long time and I wish that I could remember what we talked about because it was some good stuff!
The other book that we were given as "extra credit" to read was Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. Only Rhonda and Christopher read it so we didn't talk about it, but they both raved about it. I just finished the book and thought that it was really really good. It is especially inspiring if you are a runner.
We have two date options for our next book club. Tuesday August 25th or Tuesday September 8th. Please let us know what date works better for you.
For our next book club we are reading two books.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer
http://www.amazon.com/
This book is a very quick read and I am almost done with it. I am really enjoying it. I noticed that at the back of the book they mention how there is a chance for six members of your book club to be flown to Guernsey for a 4 day/ 3 night trip that includes airfare, accommodations, a three course dinner with another winning book club from the UK, and a tour of the island. We have until 9pm PST July 31, 2009. Go to http://www.randomhouse.com/rhpg/guernsey/sweepstakes/ It would be pretty awesome if we won! You can enter once a day.
The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America - Bill Bryson
http://www.amazon.com/Lost-
Looking forward to seeing you at the next meeting!
-Heather
P.S. To see the actual blog go to www.rhondasbookclub.blogspot.com
Monday, June 15, 2009
Movies of the books we have read
There seems to be a lot of movies coming out of books that we have read this summer. I thought that I would post the links to the trailers. I am excited to see all of them and if we wanted to do a group trip to the movie theater I would be up for that! I hope that the links work :)
My Sister's Keeper 6/26/09 /http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810003155/video
Julie & Julia 8/7/09 http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810006886/video
The Time Traveler's Wife 8/14/09 http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809937231/video
The Road 10/16/09 http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810037227/video
-Heather
My Sister's Keeper 6/26/09 /http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810003155/video
Julie & Julia 8/7/09 http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810006886/video
The Time Traveler's Wife 8/14/09 http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809937231/video
The Road 10/16/09 http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810037227/video
-Heather
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Book Club Recap 5/19/09
Attendees: Christopher, Denise, Heather, Keo, Rambo, & Rhonda (Raven was an excellent hostess!)
This is hard to believe, but we jumped right in and started talking about the book that we read. We even talked about it for awhile! We all thought that the writing was excellent. Rhonda felt like the book was a bit of a downer, which it was, but it was written really well. Christopher felt like he got a good glimpse into what life would be like for people who were poor and grew up in shitty situations like the characters of the novel. I said that I loved the story about his inability to keep from throwing up in his dad's van. Keo said that his favorite story was about him getting masturbated by another guy :) Christopher's favorite story was about the pig face boy. We all agreed that he was able to tell these stories with a bit of humor in them which didn't make them as depressing as they could have been. We found it interesting that the main character didn't seem to stay constantly high even though he was a drug dealer (his girlfriend always seemed tweaked out). A member (we won't mention names) talked about how an acquaintance of theirs was a heroin addict and this member shared a wealth of information on heroin addiction. Denise said that she got her book from the library and what made it more interesting for her was that there were comments written in the book from a previous reader who she assumed had to have been a student. If you haven't read this book you should because we all liked it. It was also a very fast read and it is all short stories.
After talking about this book it was time to pick our next book. This was HARD! We didn't know what to read so we went to the Internet to see what other sites had listed as the top reads. Rambo found some book about a lady who wasn't a Mexican or a maid, but was a detective! It sounded cheesy! Rhonda had suggested a book, but when reading the synopsis we couldn't pronounce the names of the characters and nixed that book. Rambo found a book about how to run correctly, but only half of us were interested in that. I had suggested a book about a lady who has Alzheimer's, but once we read the review that said it wasn't a good book we tossed that one out. I don't think that we have ever spent this much time trying to pick a new book. Rhonda then remembered that Gary and Ben had this book that they really enjoyed. She called them up and Ben got to make a special voice guest appearance at our book club! The book is The Unthinkable by Amanda Ripley. The author looks into who survives when disaster strikes and why. To read more about the book you can go to the authors website or you can buy the book here!
We decided to have book club on 6/30, but Rhonda just let me know that she will have to travel on business earlier that day. That means that Rhonda will pick a new date for us to meet.
Once again, if you want to check out the actual blog instead of just reading the emails you can go to rhondasbookclub.blogspot.com
If you read the book and want to make any comments please do!
Hope to see everyone next time!
-Heather
This is hard to believe, but we jumped right in and started talking about the book that we read. We even talked about it for awhile! We all thought that the writing was excellent. Rhonda felt like the book was a bit of a downer, which it was, but it was written really well. Christopher felt like he got a good glimpse into what life would be like for people who were poor and grew up in shitty situations like the characters of the novel. I said that I loved the story about his inability to keep from throwing up in his dad's van. Keo said that his favorite story was about him getting masturbated by another guy :) Christopher's favorite story was about the pig face boy. We all agreed that he was able to tell these stories with a bit of humor in them which didn't make them as depressing as they could have been. We found it interesting that the main character didn't seem to stay constantly high even though he was a drug dealer (his girlfriend always seemed tweaked out). A member (we won't mention names) talked about how an acquaintance of theirs was a heroin addict and this member shared a wealth of information on heroin addiction. Denise said that she got her book from the library and what made it more interesting for her was that there were comments written in the book from a previous reader who she assumed had to have been a student. If you haven't read this book you should because we all liked it. It was also a very fast read and it is all short stories.
After talking about this book it was time to pick our next book. This was HARD! We didn't know what to read so we went to the Internet to see what other sites had listed as the top reads. Rambo found some book about a lady who wasn't a Mexican or a maid, but was a detective! It sounded cheesy! Rhonda had suggested a book, but when reading the synopsis we couldn't pronounce the names of the characters and nixed that book. Rambo found a book about how to run correctly, but only half of us were interested in that. I had suggested a book about a lady who has Alzheimer's, but once we read the review that said it wasn't a good book we tossed that one out. I don't think that we have ever spent this much time trying to pick a new book. Rhonda then remembered that Gary and Ben had this book that they really enjoyed. She called them up and Ben got to make a special voice guest appearance at our book club! The book is The Unthinkable by Amanda Ripley. The author looks into who survives when disaster strikes and why. To read more about the book you can go to the authors website or you can buy the book here!
We decided to have book club on 6/30, but Rhonda just let me know that she will have to travel on business earlier that day. That means that Rhonda will pick a new date for us to meet.
Once again, if you want to check out the actual blog instead of just reading the emails you can go to rhondasbookclub.blogspot.com
If you read the book and want to make any comments please do!
Hope to see everyone next time!
-Heather
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Book Club Tuesday May 19th
Hi all,
I just wanted to remind everyone that book club is scheduled to meet next week on Tuesday at Rhonda's at 7pm. We will be discussing Drown by Junot Diaz. We hope that everyone can make it!
-Heather
I just wanted to remind everyone that book club is scheduled to meet next week on Tuesday at Rhonda's at 7pm. We will be discussing Drown by Junot Diaz. We hope that everyone can make it!
-Heather
Monday, April 27, 2009
Book Club Recap 4/26/09
Attendees: Callah, Christopher, Cindy, Denise, Ed, Heather, Keo, Rambo, & Rhonda
This was our first book club that met on the weekend and I think that it turned out pretty good! We did miss those that could not make it!
The evening started out with Christopher playing Wii Fit and finding out that he has balance like a Ninja, but he is overweight! Once everyone arrived we all ate some yummy food that everyone brought. Denise, Rhonda, & Callah were true to the book Food Matters and made recipes from it.
Denise brought her friends Ed Lin and Cindy (I don't know her last name) to book club. Ed is the author of This Is A Bust, a book that we read last year for book club. We started out our discussion talking about This Is A Bust with Ed. Rhonda had a lot of questions that were really good (since I am feeling a little under the weather my memory is a bit not there so I can't give a very good recap of exact questions and answers!). I do have to say that it was very interesting having an author at book club discussing what it is like to publish a book and what the process is of creating a book. Ed talked about how he has written the sequel to This Is A Bust that will be out in January 2010. St. Martins is publishing the book and Ed will be doing book tours for this. We were lucky enough to have Ed read a section of his new book. Ed definitely made the reading GREAT! He gets into the characters and what they would sound like. Cindy also talked about the movie that she is in, Children Of Invention that is playing at many festivals. You can check out childrenofinvention.com to see more about it.
Ed and Cindy were REALLY nice! It was great having them at book club. It would be cool if Ed came back to book club after we read his second book :) During our talk with Ed we asked him what he likes to read and what he would recommend. He said that we should read Drown, short stories by Junot Diaz. Diaz won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2008 for his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Here is the link to Drown http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1573226068
After Ed and Cindy left we talked about Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult and Food Matters by Mark Bittman. Most everyone liked Change of Heart. Christopher and I were the only ones against it (Christopher didn't read it though!). I thought that it was just like all of her other books. The same themes were there and it was like she did a find and replace with a previous novel. I did think that it was a fast and easy to read. Her books are really formulaic. It was funny because Rhonda had bought the wrong book at first and she got that book out and read the back of it and it had all of the same themes again! We did talk about the death penalty and what our stance was on it. Rambo thinks that people who get parking tickets should be sentenced to death :). We all thought that Food Matters was about stuff that we already knew and should be doing. I really don't remember what else we discussed in regards to this book.
If I got anyone sick I do apologize! Our next meeting will be on Tuesday May 19th at 7pm at Rhonda's house. We hope that our missing members will be able to attend!
If you want to check out the blog it is rhondasbookclub.blogspot.com
-Heather
This was our first book club that met on the weekend and I think that it turned out pretty good! We did miss those that could not make it!
The evening started out with Christopher playing Wii Fit and finding out that he has balance like a Ninja, but he is overweight! Once everyone arrived we all ate some yummy food that everyone brought. Denise, Rhonda, & Callah were true to the book Food Matters and made recipes from it.
Denise brought her friends Ed Lin and Cindy (I don't know her last name) to book club. Ed is the author of This Is A Bust, a book that we read last year for book club. We started out our discussion talking about This Is A Bust with Ed. Rhonda had a lot of questions that were really good (since I am feeling a little under the weather my memory is a bit not there so I can't give a very good recap of exact questions and answers!). I do have to say that it was very interesting having an author at book club discussing what it is like to publish a book and what the process is of creating a book. Ed talked about how he has written the sequel to This Is A Bust that will be out in January 2010. St. Martins is publishing the book and Ed will be doing book tours for this. We were lucky enough to have Ed read a section of his new book. Ed definitely made the reading GREAT! He gets into the characters and what they would sound like. Cindy also talked about the movie that she is in, Children Of Invention that is playing at many festivals. You can check out childrenofinvention.com to see more about it.
Ed and Cindy were REALLY nice! It was great having them at book club. It would be cool if Ed came back to book club after we read his second book :) During our talk with Ed we asked him what he likes to read and what he would recommend. He said that we should read Drown, short stories by Junot Diaz. Diaz won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2008 for his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Here is the link to Drown http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1573226068
After Ed and Cindy left we talked about Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult and Food Matters by Mark Bittman. Most everyone liked Change of Heart. Christopher and I were the only ones against it (Christopher didn't read it though!). I thought that it was just like all of her other books. The same themes were there and it was like she did a find and replace with a previous novel. I did think that it was a fast and easy to read. Her books are really formulaic. It was funny because Rhonda had bought the wrong book at first and she got that book out and read the back of it and it had all of the same themes again! We did talk about the death penalty and what our stance was on it. Rambo thinks that people who get parking tickets should be sentenced to death :). We all thought that Food Matters was about stuff that we already knew and should be doing. I really don't remember what else we discussed in regards to this book.
If I got anyone sick I do apologize! Our next meeting will be on Tuesday May 19th at 7pm at Rhonda's house. We hope that our missing members will be able to attend!
If you want to check out the blog it is rhondasbookclub.blogspot.com
-Heather
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Book club this Sunday April 26th at 3pm
Hi all,
I just wanted to send out a reminder that we are having book club this Sunday. It will be at Rhonda's house at 3pm. We will be discussing Food Matters and Change of Heart (if anyone read Ghost In Love we can talk about that book too).
We even have Ed Lin joining us and he is the author of This Is A Bust (a previous book club read)!
It would be much appreciated if everyone can bring a dish to share. If you don't know what to bring you can give Rhonda a jingle!
We hope to see everyone there!
-Heather
I just wanted to send out a reminder that we are having book club this Sunday. It will be at Rhonda's house at 3pm. We will be discussing Food Matters and Change of Heart (if anyone read Ghost In Love we can talk about that book too).
We even have Ed Lin joining us and he is the author of This Is A Bust (a previous book club read)!
It would be much appreciated if everyone can bring a dish to share. If you don't know what to bring you can give Rhonda a jingle!
We hope to see everyone there!
-Heather
Friday, March 6, 2009
Food Matters & Next Book Club
I just got the book "Food Matters" and I saw that it is very much like a cookbook (72 recipes are in the book). I was thinking that for our next book club we should all pick something to make from the book and bring it...just an idea. Hopefully, the Aedo family will be able to make the next book club!
-Heather
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Book Club Recap 2/24/09
Attendees: Rhonda, Alec, Callah (welcome to the book club!), Christopher, Denise, Keo, & Heather
The book that we were discussing was Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
We actually didn't talk much about the book, but that isn't too surprising:) Alec brought over a copy of the pilot of his show called "The Swag Bag." We all watched it and thought that it was GREAT! We really hope that it gets picked up and that he will let all of us be in the audience to get some swag!
Denise showed us a picture of herself in Japan with a statue of the dog that would wait for his master at the train station (this was in the book at some point).
Rhonda and I mentioned that the author said that he will be writing a trilogy and his next book will be about the grandfather who starts the Sawtelle dog business.
We all agreed that the book was a very good read, but I think that we were all too interested in talking about other things so we didn't discuss the book much. Denise did make a good effort at trying to focus our discussions on the book!
We decided that our next book club will meet in April and on a weekend. We hope that some of our members will be able to make this meeting since it won't be during the week. Once Rhonda has a date she will post it.
The next book that we will be reading is Food Matters by Mark Bittman (click on the link to the left for more information on the book). If you have extra time and would like to read another book we had a couple of suggestions. Jodi Picoult's new novel. Valesca can you please tell us which book this is? She gave it rave reviews, but since some of us are skeptical of Jodi Picoult's books being very similar to the rest of them there is also The Ghost In Love by Jonathan Carroll. Christopher and I read this book and it was a good read. The book is a little quirky and for more info you can go to http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Love-Novel-Jonathan-Carroll/dp/0374161860 .
We look forward to seeing everyone at the next book club (Nathan should make an appearance and he will almost be one!).
-Heather
Monday, February 9, 2009
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Tuesday February 24th is our Next Meeting
Just wanted to send out a reminder that our next meeting is in a couple of weeks. It is at Rhonda's house like usual. We hope that everyone can make it!
I will try and send out a reminder the day before.
-Heather
Monday, January 26, 2009
David Wroblewski on Oprah webcast tonight
Hi all,
I just wanted to let everyone know that Oprah is having a live webcast with David Wroblewski tonight at 6 PST to talk about the book Edgar Sawtelle. I thought that it might be interesting to watch if you read the book. I think that it may also give us more things to talk about when we next meet...whenever that might be.
www.oprah.com
-Heather
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