Next meeting: April 6!

Huge thanks to Kelley for getting the NPBC ball rolling again and letting us meet at her house yesterday to finally discuss Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. Basically, we all loved it.

(And a huge thanks to Kelley for making food!)

Our next book will be: A Year on Ladybug Farm by Donna Ball.

We will discuss it on Friday, April 6. Meeting place TBD (but probably Kelley's house again). If we do decide to meet at her house again, I'm suggesting a potluck or takeout or something so Kelley can relax.

Sorry I was MIA for a while. Having puppies in our house and Christmas knocked me off track. Looking forward to the book and our next meeting!

Happy reading!
~Kerrie

September Meeting!

Hello! I can't believe it's mid-September already! Did we have summer?

Let's plan our next meeting to discuss On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. Click on the Google Spreadsheet HERE. Please put a check next to the days that will work for you. I included Thursday evenings this time since a few of you liked having that as an option last time.

Also, I really enjoyed meeting at Panera last time, as I think most everyone else did. It was quiet enough to talk, but not too quiet that WE had to be quiet, it was inexpensive and the food was ready quickly. So, let's meet at Panera again at the Landing in Renton this time.

Get directions HERE

Okay, let's pick a date! See you soon!
~Kerrie

PS: Take a look at the suggested titles on the right side of the page. I think a few people were interested in The Art of Racing in the Rain. Any other books to add to this list? Let's get some more on there and I will reinstate the voting option next week. Thanks!

Next Meeting

Hi everyone! There were quite a few of us at the movie last week. And, I think, most of us agreed the film was pretty good. Since there were a lot of us there, we went ahead and chose the next book (recommended as a light, good read by a new member who has read it), and decided to meet toward the end of September. That way, we can just get started reading it since most of us have busy summers.

The book: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford.

From the author's Web site:

In the opening pages of Jamie Ford’s stunning debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Henry Lee comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle’s Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has made an incredible discovery: the belongings of Japanese families, left when they were rounded up and sent to internment camps during World War II. As Henry looks on, the owner opens a Japanese parasol.

This simple act takes old Henry Lee back to the 1940s, at the height of the war, when young Henry’s world is a jumble of confusion and excitement, and to his father, who is obsessed with the war in China and having Henry grow up American. While “scholarshipping” at the exclusive Rainier Elementary, where the white kids ignore him, Henry meets Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese American student. Amid the chaos of blackouts, curfews, and FBI raids, Henry and Keiko forge a bond of friendship–and innocent love–that transcends the long-standing prejudices of their Old World ancestors. And after Keiko and her family are swept up in the evacuations to the internment camps, she and Henry are left only with the hope that the war will end, and that their promise to each other will be kept.

Forty years later, Henry Lee is certain that the parasol belonged to Keiko. In the hotel’s dark dusty basement he begins looking for signs of the Okabe family’s belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot begin to measure. Now a widower, Henry is still trying to find his voice–words that might explain the actions of his father; words that might bridge the gap between him and his modern, Chinese American son; words that might help him confront the choices he made many years ago.

Set during one of the most conflicted and volatile times in American history, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is an extraordinary story of commitment and enduring hope. In Henry and Keiko, Jamie Ford has created an unforgettable duo whose story teaches us of the power of forgiveness and the human heart.

Please Sign Up for NPBC Meeting and Movie

Trying to coordinate a time for book club and a movie is tough! Below is a link to a spreadsheet with a few dates listed on it. Please go to the spreadsheet, type your name in the name column and then put an X under the dates you are available to meet. Hopefully, this will help a little. Thanks!

Click here for Google spreadsheet

Postponed Till May

I think there is like one person who can attend the NPBC meeting on April 29th and one person does not a club make (unless it's a club about being alone, I suppose). Let's postpone till mid-May. More info to come!

Oops!

So the 22nd is Good Friday. It's the start of Easter weekend. A holiday.

Let's reschedule for the 29th. More details to come.

The Plan for April

Just checking in to share the plan for April's book, Water for Elephants. The film comes out on April 22.

The plan is to meet on April 22 for dinner, then see the film afterward. But I won't know till we get closer to the date what the times for the showings will be or, of course, what theaters it will be playing at.

So stay tuned!

~Happy reading!
Kerrie

February's Meeting: Next Book and New Stuff

Pizza, salad, gourmet popcorn, cookies, brownies and lots of laughter...oh, and we talked about books, too, at the NPBC February meeting.

Actually, nobody had finished reading it. But I'm glad we met anyway! We discussed the club and tossed around some ideas for 2011. Every year, we make adjustments to NPBC to try to make it better. Here's what we came up with:

-Always skip November-January. We never actually meet during these months anyway; we always cancel because everyone is just too busy. So, we are making that official.

-Mix up holding meetings at members' houses and at restaurants.

-See the movie. Some of the books we read end up in the theater. Why not go see it as a group?

-Continue with a book every other month.

-Choose books for the entire year up front.

These are all good things! In the next few days, I will post a big list of books. We will vote on them in order to determine our NPBC 2011 Book List. That way we will know what we're reading far in advance!

APRIL'S BOOK
We actually took it upon ourselves to choose April's book at the meeting. We felt we needed to get things moving.

WATER FOR ELEPHANTS by Sarah Gruen.

We will read the book and then see the movie in theaters April 22! I'm thinking maybe we even meet on April 22 and see the film on the same day. What do you think?

2011 BOOK LIST
This is your chance to throw out ideas for the books we will vote on! Please leave them in the comments! (I heard some of you were having difficulty commenting because it asks you for a "profile." You should be able to choose "Anonymous," but also if you have a Google account, you should be able to enter that information, as well. If you can't comment for some reason, just e-mail me.)

So You Haven't Read the Book for Feb...

Me neither. But I am going to. I just ordered a used copy from Amazon. It was only $4. I originally checked it out from the library, but never read it. The $4 will probably be cheaper than the late fees I am accumulating.

Kelley graciously has offered for us to have book club at her house. She lives in Renton near 405, so it should be a nice central-ish location.

For food, I would like to make some sort of main dish -- lasagna or maybe something inspired by the book (not sure as I haven't read it yet, but we shall see). Ideas?

If you can bring wine or an appetizer, please put it in the comments below. That way, I'll know what we're missing.

Okay. I've got two days to get my library copy back to the library before my new-old copy gets here. Maybe I'll read a little bit while my son takes a nap.

I also need to get an idea of how many people are coming, so please respond to the poll at right. Thanks!

~Happy reading!
Kerrie

February It Is!

Next meeting: Friday, February 4 at 7 p.m. discussing Alias Grace.

Where should we meet? Any thoughts?

Whoops!

I've been completely out of it. The holidays did me in this year. So I sort of let time get away from me. But, now, it's 2011! A fresh new year!

Right now, we should've all finished reading Alias Grace.

Yup.

So, how many of you are done?

Not me. But no matter. If you all were able to read it, let's meet this month. If not and you want to wait till February to meet, then so be it.

Okay. Let's vote! (Vote through Friday, Jan. 7 - 11:59 p.m.)

Alias Grace: Where Are You?

Hello! It feels like the holidays have already started and it's not even Halloween yet.

A few of you have mentioned you won't be able to make the next meeting and many of you have told me you haven't started the book yet (me neither!). What does everyone think of postponing the next meeting until January?

Meantime, we can just meet for brunch or something in December for fun. We can discuss future books for the club or suggestions for the club or whatever.

What do you all think? Leave a comment so we can all see what you are thinking. :)

Future Book Suggestion: Room

I just read an interesting Q and A conducted by Jennifer Weiner (In Her Shoes, Good in Bed) with Emma Donoghue about her new book, Room, which sounds really good. Here's the Q and A. Synopsis below from Amazon:

"In many ways, Jack is a typical 5-year-old. He likes to read books, watch TV, and play games with his Ma. But Jack is different in a big way--he has lived his entire life in a single room, sharing the tiny space with only his mother and an unnerving nighttime visitor known as Old Nick. For Jack, Room is the only world he knows, but for Ma, it is a prison in which she has tried to craft a normal life for her son. When their insular world suddenly expands beyond the confines of their four walls, the consequences are piercing and extraordinary. Despite its profoundly disturbing premise, Emma Donoghue's Room is rife with moments of hope and beauty, and the dogged determination to live, even in the most desolate circumstances. A stunning and original novel of survival in captivity, readers who enter Room will leave staggered, as though, like Jack, they are seeing the world for the very first time." --Lynette Mong

The reviews are really, really good. Here's the Amazon page.

Friday's Meeting

So sorry! I forgot to post a poll, so I just went ahead and picked a place based on your suggestions.

Let's meet at the 520 Grill on Main Street in Bellevue at 7 p.m. Please let me know if you can make it by clicking on the poll at right or by e-mailing me kerrie (at) sanitydepartment (dot) com. I will make reservations tomorrow afternoon.

We will be discussing, "The Help," and I will bring discussion questions.

See you then!
Kerrie

Sept. 10 is Almost Here!

We are meeting in Bellevue on Sept. 10 to discuss The Help. But we don't have a place picked out yet. Suggestions?

Hope you are all enjoying the end of summer (not that it ever started).

~Happy reading!
Kerrie

November's Book

Thanks for voting! And, for once, we didn't have a tie!
November's book is Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood.

~Happy reading!
Kerrie

A Book for November

I used Random.org to choose five books from our Suggested Titles list. Here are the five. Vote (on the right side of the page) by Wednesday at NOON and we'll have our November book!

Alias Grace
Intrigued by contemporary reports of a sensational murder trial in 1843 Canada, Atwood has drawn a compelling portrait of what might have been. Her protagonist, the real life Grace Marks, is an enigma. Convicted at age 16 of the murder of her employer, Thomas Kinnear, and his housekeeper and lover, Nancy Montgomery, Grace escaped the gallows when her sentence was commuted to life in prison, but she also spent some years in an insane asylum after an emotional breakdown. Because she gave three different accounts of the killings, and because she was accused of being the sole perpetrator by the man who was hanged for the crime, Grace's life and mind are fertile territory for Atwood. Adapting her style to the period she describes, she has written a typical Victorian novel, leisurely in exposition, copiously detailed and crowded with subtly drawn characters who speak the embroidered, pietistic language of the time. She has created a probing psychological portrait of a working-class woman victimized by society because of her poverty, and victimized again by the judicial and prison systems. The narrative gains texture and tension from the dynamic between Grace and an interlocutor, earnest young bachelor Dr. Simon Jordan, who is investigating the causes of lunacy with plans to establish his own, more enlightened institution. Jordan is hoping to awaken Grace's suppressed memories of the day of the murder, but Grace, though uneducated, is far wilier than Jordan, whom she tells only what she wishes to confess. He, on the other hand, is handicapped by his compassion, which makes him the victim of the wiles of other women, too?his passionate, desperate landlady, and the virginal but predatory daughter of the prison governor. These encounters give Atwood the chance to describe the war between the sexes with her usual wit. Although the narrative holds several big surprises, the central question?Was Grace dupe and victim or seductress and instigator of the bloody crime??is left tantalizingly ambiguous. Major ad/promo; author tour.

The Red Tent
The red tent is the place where women gathered during their cycles of birthing, menses, and even illness. Like the conversations and mysteries held within this feminine tent, this sweeping piece of fiction offers an insider's look at the daily life of a biblical sorority of mothers and wives and their one and only daughter, Dinah. Told in the voice of Jacob's daughter Dinah (who only received a glimpse of recognition in the Book of Genesis), we are privy to the fascinating feminine characters who bled within the red tent. In a confiding and poetic voice, Dinah whispers stories of her four mothers, Rachel, Leah, Zilpah, and Bilhah--all wives to Jacob, and each one embodying unique feminine traits. As she reveals these sensual and emotionally charged stories we learn of birthing miracles, slaves, artisans, household gods, and sisterhood secrets. Eventually Dinah delves into her own saga of betrayals, grief, and a call to midwifery.

Marley and Me
Labrador retrievers are generally considered even-tempered, calm and reliable;and then there's Marley, the subject of this delightful tribute to one Lab who doesn't fit the mold. Grogan, a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and his wife, Jenny, were newly married and living in West Palm Beach when they decided that owning a dog would give them a foretaste of the parenthood they anticipated. Marley was a sweet, affectionate puppy who grew into a lovably naughty, hyperactive dog. With a light touch, the author details how Marley was kicked out of obedience school after humiliating his instructor (whom Grogan calls Miss Dominatrix) and swallowed an 18-karat solid gold necklace (Grogan describes his gross but hilarious "recovery operation"). With the arrival of children in the family, Marley became so incorrigible that Jenny, stressed out by a new baby, ordered her husband to get rid of him; she eventually recovered her equilibrium and relented. Grogan's chronicle of the adventures parents and children (eventually three) enjoyed with the overly energetic but endearing dog is delivered with great humor. Dog lovers will love this account of Grogan's much loved canine.

People of the Book
Reading Geraldine Brooks's remarkable debut novel, Year of Wonders, or more recently March, which won the Pulitzer Prize, it would be easy to forget that she grew up in Australia and worked as a journalist. Now in her dazzling new novel, People of the Book, Brooks allows both her native land and current events to play a larger role while still continuing to mine the historical material that speaks so ardently to her imagination. Late one night in the city of Sydney, Hanna Heath, a rare book conservator, gets a phone call. The Sarajevo Haggadah, which disappeared during the siege in 1992, has been found, and Hanna has been invited by the U.N. to report on its condition. Missing documents and art works (as Dan Brown and Lev Grossman, among others, have demonstrated) are endlessly appealing, and from this inviting premise Brooks spins her story in two directions. In the present, we follow the resolutely independent Hanna through her thrilling first encounter with the beautifully illustrated codex and her discovery of the tiny signs-a white hair, an insect wing, missing clasps, a drop of salt, a wine stain-that will help her to discover its provenance. Along with the book she also meets its savior, a Muslim librarian named Karaman. Their romance offers both predictable pleasures and genuine surprises, as does the other main relationship in Hanna's life: her fraught connection with her mother. In the other strand of the narrative we learn, moving backward through time, how the codex came to be lost and found, and made. From the opening section, set in Sarajevo in 1940, to the final section, set in Seville in 1480, these narratives show Brooks writing at her very best. With equal authority she depicts the struggles of a young girl to escape the Nazis, a duel of wits between an inquisitor and a rabbi living in the Venice ghetto, and a girl's passionate relationship with her mistress in a harem. Like the illustrations in the Haggadah, each of these sections transports the reader to a fully realized, vividly peopled world. And each gives a glimpse of both the long history of anti-Semitism and of the struggle of women toward the independence that Hanna, despite her mother's lectures, tends to take for granted. Brooks is too good a novelist to belabor her political messages, but her depiction of the Haggadah bringing together Jews, Christians and Muslims could not be more timely. Her gift for storytelling, happily, is timeless.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
It’s difficult to tell if critics’ reactions to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies should be characterized as praise or astonishment. Some reviewers treated the book as a delightful gimmick. Others found that, beneath the surface, the book actually constituted an interesting way of looking at Austen’s novel. Zombies answer certain puzzling questions: Why were those troops stationed near Hertfordshire? Why did Charlotte Lucas actually marry Mr. Collins? (She had recently been bitten by zombies and wanted a husband who could be counted on to behead her—of course!) But critics also pointed out that this parody shows that Austen’s novel has remained so powerful over time that even the undead can’t spoil it.

Book Suggestions

Hi everyone! Maybe I had too much of my peach margarita, but I forgot to ask you all to send in new suggestions for November's book. We still have some left over, but it's always good to get more.

Please leave a comment if you have a book suggestion!

Happy reading!
~Kerrie

Vote: Meeting Place

Since we met in Bellevue last time, this time we'll meet in Renton. The three choices:
La Hacienda on S. 3rd Street
or
Papaya at the Landing
or
The Red House on Burnett

You can vote in the poll on the right side of the page through Tuesday. Thanks!

PS: If you are having trouble voting, just e-mail me your vote. (Not sure what's up with Blogger.)

Where Should We Meet?

Hope everyone is enjoying our heat wave! Just about a week till our next meeting...

Where should we meet? Leave a comment with your suggestion. If I don't get any, I'll just choose a place. K?

Happy reading!
~Ker