A Decade of Book Club Reading

Thanks to Gillian, here is a list of the books we've read over (almost) ten years.

2002/2003

Oct - Sula, Toni Morrison
Nov - Clara Callan, Richard B Wright
Jan - The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
Feb - The Map That Changed The World, Simon Winchester
Mar -The Russlander, Sandra Birdsell
Apr - Any book written by Anita Desai
May - Charlotte Gray, Sebastian Faulks
Jun - Any Known Blood, Lawrence Hill


2003/2004

Oct - Unless, Carol Shields
Nov - Year of Wonders, Geraldine Brooks
Jan - Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood
Feb - Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd
Mar - Stanley Park, Timothy Taylor
Apr - A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
May - Five Quarters of the Orange, Joanne Harris
Jun - The Girl with the Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier

2004/2005

Oct - Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi
Nov - Crow Lake, Mary Lawson
Jan - East of Eden, John Steinbeck
Feb - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, Mark Haddon
Mar - Missing Sarah, Maggie de Vries
Apr - Amanda Bright@home, Danielle Crittenden
May - A Complicated Kindness, Miriam Toews
Jun - The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini

2005/2006

Oct- Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Abrom
Nov - The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
Jan - The Rebel Angels (or other book by author) Robertson Davies
Feb - Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Dai Sijie
Mar - Atonement, Ian McEwan
Apr - The Last Days of Dogtown, Anita Diamant
May/Jun - One of Malcolm Gladwell's: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking,
The Tipping Point: How little things can make a big difference, or Freakonomics, by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner

2006/2007

Oct - Bel Canto, Ann Patchett
Dec - A Star Called Henry, Roddy Doyle
Jan - Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Feb - Sweetness in the Belly, Camilla Gibb
Mar - Cancelled
Apr - (2) The Birthhouse, Ami McKay, and Digging to America, Anne Tyler
May - The Consolations of Philosophy or How Proust can Change Your Life, Alain de Botton
Jun - Eleanor Rigby, Douglas Coupland

2007/2008

Oct - Turn of the Screw, James Henry
Nov - Secret River, Kate Grenville
Jan - Enduring Love, Ian McEwan
Feb - Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, Vincent Lam
Mar - Cancelled
Apr - Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Lisa See
May - Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Jun - Memory Keeper's Daughter, Kim Edwards

2008/2009

Oct - My Sister's Keeper, Jodi Picoult
Nov - The Lollipop Shoes, Joanne Harris
Jan - Love in the time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Feb - Cancelled
Mar - Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
Apr - Mister Pip, Lloyd Jones
May - Late Nights on Air, Elizabeth Hay
Jun - Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris

2009/2010

Oct - Blindness, Jose Saramago
Nov - The Accidental, Ali Smith
Jan - The Palace Walk, Naguib Mahfouz
Feb - Cancelled
Mar - Cancelled
Apr - The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer
May - The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas
Jun - Exit Lines, Joan Barfoot

2010/2011

Oct - Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen
Nov - If On a Winter's Night a Traveler, Italo Calvino
Jan - Last Night in Twisted River, John Irving
Feb - My Stroke of Insight, Jill Bolte Taylor

Still coming:

Infidel or Nomad, Ayaan Hirsi Ali (recommend Infidel)
Lady Chatterly's Lover, DH Lawrence
Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
Bishop's Man, Linden MacIntryre

February book

Hey, everyone . . . February's book is My Stroke of Insight, by Jill Bolte Taylor. There is a whole website for the book: http://www.mystrokeofinsight.com/

Looking at the website, I just realized I've seen the author on Oprah.

Back with more soon . . .

Last Night in Twisted River: discussion questions

From LitLovers.com:

1. Like a number of Irving's novels, this one is concerned with a father and son. What is the relationship between Danny and his father Dominic? And how would you describe each of the characters?

2. One of the central ideas of this book is the precarious— even random—nature of life. How does Irving explore that theme throughout the novel? What are some of the inexplicable coincidences and accidents? Did the bizarre occurrences enrich the story for you..or irritate you?

3. Irving can be an ingeniously funny writer. Point out some of the many humorous parts in Twister River.

4. Why does Danny become an author? What does he try to accomplish with his writing? Talk about the ways this book reflects on the art of fiction. Consider these two quotations from the book:

Fiction is "both autobiographical and not autobiographical at the same time."

"All writers must know how to distance themselves, to detach themselves from this and that emotional moment."

How might these remarks apply to Danny...or to John Irving himself?

5. As father and son move from New Hampshire to Boston to Iowa, Vermont and Toronto, the book takes us back and forth in time—often out of sequence. Were you able to patch together a chronological timeline? Think about why Irving might be playing with time sequence—what affect does it have on the plot...or theme...?

6. Ketchum is Dominic's best friend: "Everything about Ketchum was hardened and sharp-edged, like a whittled-down stick—and, as Danny had observed, 'wicked tough.' " What do you think of Ketchum?

7. Do you find Constable Carl's chase believable or not? If you've seen Les Miserables, can you see a comparison between Carl and Inspector Javert?

8. Have you read other Irving novels? If so, how does this one stack up against the others? Are there similarities?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off with attribution. Thanks.)

John Irving Interview with the CBC

http://www.cbc.ca/mrl3/8752/asithappens/aihstreaming_20100215_03.wma

copy this link into your web browser to hear an interesting interview with John Irving on CBC's As It Happens.

January: Last Night in Twisted River

Oh, my! We're meeting on Last Night in Twisted River, by John Irving, on Monday, January 17th. For some reason, I thought we were meeting later in the month, so now I really have to get some reading done, because I'm only on page 38, and it's one long book! And, alas, I have to put aside the Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood, which I'm really into at the moment! So many books, so little time.

Anyway, here's a link to what the author has to say about his book (I still haven't had the time to figure out how to actually make a link work--sorry!--but you can cut and paste into your web browser): http://www.john-irving.com/Last_Night_In_Twisted_River.asp

Off to look for some reader notes on the novel . . .