Monday, October 19, 2009

Synopses for 2010 Poll #2

As it turns out, we've both received more suggestions, and, I sheepishly discovered some that I'd missed (sorry folks, let me know if I've missed more!!), warranting, a second poll for 2010. Yippee!! Be sure and vote for the books you like at the polls: http://bookclub.meetup.com/797/polls/ and don't forget to scroll on down for the books in poll 1 :-). Happy reading!

1- The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno

Copied from: http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9781933354101-0

In the twilight of a mysterious childhood full of wonder, Billy Argo, boy detective, is brokenhearted to find that his younger sister and crime-solving partner, Caroline, has committed suicide. Ten years later, Billy, age thirty, returns from an extended stay at St. Vitus's Hospital for the Mentally Ill to discover the world full of unimaginable strangeness: office buildings vanish without reason, small animals turn up without their heads, and cruel villains ride city buses to complete their evil schemes.

Lost within this unwelcoming place, Billy finds the companionship of two lonely, extraordinary children, Effie and Gus Mumford — one a science fair genius, the other a charming, silent bully. With a nearly forgotten bravery, Billy treads from the unendurable boredom of a telemarketing job, stumbles into the awkward beauty of a desperate pickpocket named Penny Maple, and confronts the nearly impossible solution to the mystery of his sister's death. Along a path laden with hidden clues and codes that dare the reader to help Billy decipher the mysteries he encounters, the boy detective may learn the greatest secret of all: the necessity of the unknown.

2-Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout

Copied from: http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9781400062089-0

Publisher Comments:In a voice more powerful and compassionate than ever before, New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Strout binds together thirteen rich, luminous narratives into a book with the heft of a novel, through the presence of one larger-than-life, unforgettable character: Olive Kitteridge.

At the edge of the continent, Crosby, Maine, may seem like nowhere, but seen through this brilliant writer's eyes, it's in essence the whole world, and the lives that are lived there are filled with all of the grand human drama — desire, despair, jealousy, hope, and love.

At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town and in the world at large, but she doesn't always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance: a former student who has lost the will to live: Olive's own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.

As the townspeople grapple with their problems, mild and dire, Olive is brought to a deeper understanding of herself and her life — sometimes painfully, but always with ruthless honesty. Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition — its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires.

3- In the Pond by Ha Jin

Copied from: http://www.powells.com/biblio/7-9780375709111-3

National Book Award-winner Ha Jin's arresting debut novel , In the Pond, is a darkly funny portrait of an amateur calligrapher who wields his delicate artist's brush as a weapon against the powerful party bureaucrats who rule his provincial Chinese town.

Shao Bin is a downtrodden worker at the Harvest Fertilizer Plant by day and an aspiring artist by night. Passed over on the list to receive a decent apartment for his young family, while those in favor with the party's leaders are selected ahead of him, Shao Bin chafes at his powerlessness. When he attempts to expose his corrupt superiors by circulating satirical cartoons, he provokes an escalating series of merciless counterattacks that send ripples beyond his small community. Artfully crafted and suffused with earthy wit, In the Pond is a moving tale about humble lives caught up in larger social forces.

4-Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi

Copied from: http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-9780765317711-1

The space-faring Yherajk have come to Earth to meet us and to begin humanity’s first interstellar friendship. There’s just one problem: They’re hideously ugly and they smell like rotting fish.

So getting humanity’s trust is a challenge. The Yherajk need someone who can help them close the deal.

Enter Thomas Stein, who knows something about closing deals. He’s one of Hollywood’s hottest young agents. But although Stein may have just concluded the biggest deal of his career, it’s quite another thing to negotiate for an entire alien race. To earn his percentage this time, he’s going to need all the smarts, skills, and wits he can muster.

5-Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

Copied from: http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780446601979-1

Publisher Comments:
Multiple award winner Octavia E. Butler's astonishing novels have made her a powerful, acclaimed voice in women's fiction, African-American literature, and modern science fiction. Parable of the Sower is her stunning portrait of an all-too-believable near future, a twenty-first century of horror — and hope.

GOD IS CHANGE

Lauren Olamina is an empath, crippled by the pain of others. Cloistered inside a neighborhood enclave in a U.S. where the distance between the haves and the have-nots has widened to a gaping chasm, she lives a protected life. But one night, violence explodes, and the walls of her neighborhood are smashed, annihilating Lauren's family and friends — all she loves and knows.

Now the empath must face the world outside. Leading a tiny band of desperate followers through a thousand miles of Hell, she is a prophet bearing nothing but the promises of new life and a new faith...Earthseed.

America, 2025....From the ruins will arise a new prophet, a new path, a new day...

6-The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie

Copied from: http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780679640516-7

Publisher Comments:
A tall, yellow-haired, young European traveler calling himself "Mogor dell'Amore," the Mughal of Love, arrives at the court of the Emperor Akbar, lord of the great Mughal empire, with a tale to tell that begins to obsess the imperial capital, a tale about a mysterious woman, a great beauty believed to possess powers of enchantment and sorcery, and her impossible journey to the far-off city of Florence.

The Enchantress of Florence is the story of a woman attempting to command her own destiny in a man's world. It is the story of two cities, unknown to each other, at the height of their powers — the hedonistic Mughal capital, in which the brilliant Akbar the Great wrestles daily with questions of belief, desire, and the treachery of his sons, and the equally sensual city of Florence during the High Renaissance, where Niccolo Machiavelli takes a starring role as he learns, the hard way, about the true brutality of power.

Vivid, gripping, irreverent, bawdy, profoundly moving, and completely absorbing, The Enchantress of Florence is a dazzling book full of wonders by one of the world's most important living writers.


Sunday, October 18, 2009

Synopses of Books for Poll # 1

Okay, it's time to start all over with new titles and mostly new authors for the new year. Be sure and head to the Meetup poll page: http://bookclub.meetup.com/797/polls/209562/ to vote for any and all titles in which these summaries have sparked an interest. All are copied from the publisher's comments off Powell unless otherwise indicated. If I'm missing titles you've suggested, send them my way and we'll make a second poll to add to this one :-)

1-In the Woods by Tana French

Copied from: http://www.tanafrench.com/pagesus/readmore.htm

As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children, gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled shoes, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.

Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox – his partner and closest friend – find themselves investigating a case with chilling links to that long-ago disappearance. Now, with only snippets of buried memories to guide him, Rob has the chance to unravel both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past.

2- Shanghai Girls by Lisa See

Copied from: http://www.powells.com/biblio/9781400067114

In 1937, Shanghai is the Paris of Asia, a city of great wealth and glamor, the home of millionaires and beggars, gangsters and gamblers, patriots and revolutionaries, artists and warlords. Thanks to the financial security and material comforts provided by their father's prosperous rickshaw business, twenty-one-year-old Pearl Chin and her younger sister, May, are having the time of their lives.

Though both sisters wave off authority and tradition, they couldn't be more different: Pearl is a Dragon sign, strong and stubborn, while May is a true Sheep, adorable and placid. Both are beautiful, modern, and carefree . . . until the day their father tells them that he has gambled away their wealth and that in order to repay his debts he must sell the girls as wives to suitors who have traveled from California to find Chinese brides.

As Japanese bombs fall on their beloved city, Pearl and May set out on the journey of a lifetime, one that will take them through the Chinese countryside, in and out of the clutch of brutal soldiers, and across the Pacific to the shores of America. In Los Angeles they begin a fresh chapter, trying to find love with the strangers they have married, brushing against the seduction of Hollywood, and striving to embrace American life even as they fight against discrimination, brave Communist witch hunts, and find themselves hemmed in by Chinatown's old ways and rules.

At its heart, Shanghai Girls is a story of sisters: Pearl and May are inseparable best friends who share hopes, dreams, and a deep connection, but like sisters everywhere they also harbor petty jealousies and rivalries. They love each other, but each knows exactly where to drive the knife to hurt the other the most. Along the way they face terrible sacrifices, make impossible choices, and confront a devastating, life-changing secret, but through it all the two heroines of this astounding new novel hold fast to who they are — Shanghai girls.


3
- Death with Interruptions by José Saramago

Copied from: http://powells.com/biblio/18-9780151012749-0

On the first day of the new year, no one dies. This of course causes consternation among politicians, religious leaders, morticians, and doctors. Among the general public, on the other hand, there is initially celebration& — flags are hung out on balconies, people dance in the streets. They have achieved the great goal of humanity: eternal life. Then reality hits home — families are left to care for the permanently dying, life-insurance policies become meaningless, and funeral parlors are reduced to arranging burials for pet dogs, cats, hamsters, and parrots.

Death sits in her chilly apartment, where she lives alone with scythe and filing cabinets, and contemplates her experiment: What if no one ever died again? What if she, death with a small d, became human and were to fall in love?

4-Guns, Germs and Steel: a Short history of Everybody for the Last 13000 Years by Jared M. Diamond

Copied from: http://www.powells.com/biblio/66-9780099302780-0

Publisher Comments:
A study of how Europe and the Near East became the cradles of modern society, eventually giving rise to capitalism and science, the dominant forces in today's world - and why, until more recent times, Africa, Australasia and the Americas lagged behind in both technological sophistication and political and military power. 32 illus.
Synopsis:
This work abandons the conventional distinctions between history and science. Diamond focuses on what ancient people were endowed with in the way of land, animals and plants, and on the confrontations between less and more advanced people to see how this led to today's inequalities.

5- A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by David Eggers

copied from http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780375725784-19

The literary sensation of the year, a book that redefines both family and narrative for the twenty-first century. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is the moving memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his eight-year-old brother. Here is an exhilarating debut that manages to be simultaneously hilarious and wildly inventive as well as a deeply heartfelt story of the love that holds a family together.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is an instant classic that will be read in paperback for decades to come. The Vintage edition includes a new appendix by the author.

This looks far less depressing than our prior Eggers selection, "What is the What", although not so much in the topic, as the promise of hilarity, which, as some may remember, was somewhat lacking in our former read :-)

6- The Teahouse Fire by Ellis Avery

Copied from: http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781594482731-3

The story of two women whose lives intersect in late nineteenth century Japan, The Teahouse Fire is also a portrait of one of the most fascinating places and times in all of history-Japan as it opens its doors to the West. Told through the enchanting and unforgettable voice of Aurelia, an American orphan adopted by proprietors of a tea ceremony school, this is "a magisterial novel that is equal parts love story, imaginative history and bildungsroman, a story as alluring as it is powerful" (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

7-Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Copied from: http://www.powells.com/s?header=Search+Form&kw=+Oryx+and+Crake+by+Margaret+Atwood

The narrator of Atwood's riveting novel calls himself Snowman. When the story opens, he is sleeping in a tree, wearing an old bedsheet, mourning the loss of his beloved Oryx and his best friend Crake, and slowly starving to death. He searches for supplies in a wasteland where insects proliferate and pigoons and wolvogs ravage the pleeblands, where ordinary people once lived, and the Compounds that sheltered the extraordinary. As he tries to piece together what has taken place, the narrative shifts to decades earlier. How did everything fall apart so quickly? Why is he left with nothing but his haunting memories? Alone except for the green-eyed Children of Crake, who think of him as a kind of monster, he explores the answers to these questions in the double journey he takes - into his own past, and back to Crake's high-tech bubble-dome, where the Paradice Project unfolded and the world came to grief.

With breathtaking command of her shocking material, and with her customary sharp wit and dark humour, Atwood projects us into an outlandish yet wholly believable realm populated by characters who will continue to inhabit our dreams long after the last chapter. This is Margaret Atwood at the absolute peak of her powers.

8-Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture by Ellen Ruppel Shell

Copied from: http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781594202155-0
An Atlantic correspondent uncovers the true cost-in economic, political, and psychic terms-of our penchant for making and buying things as cheaply as possible

From the shuttered factories of the rust belt to the look-alike strip malls of the sun belt-and almost everywhere in between-America has been transformed by its relentless fixation on low price. This pervasive yet little examined obsession is arguably the most powerful and devastating market force of our time-the engine of globalization, outsourcing, planned obsolescence, and economic instability in an increasingly unsettled world.

Low price is so alluring that we may have forgotten how thoroughly we once distrusted it. Ellen Ruppel Shell traces the birth of the bargain as we know it from the Industrial Revolution to the assembly line and beyond, homing in on a number of colorful characters, such as Gene Verkauf (his name is Yiddish for to sell), founder of E. J. Korvette, the discount chain that helped wean customers off traditional notions of value. The rise of the chain store in post-Depression America led to the extolling of convenience over quality, and big-box retailers completed the reeducation of the American consumer by making them prize low price in the way they once prized durability and craftsmanship.

The effects of this insidious perceptual shift are vast: a blighted landscape, escalating debt (both personal and national), stagnating incomes, fraying communities, and a host of other socioeconomic ills. That's a long list of charges, and it runs counter to orthodox economics which argues that low price powers productivity by stimulating a brisk free market. But Shell marshals evidence from a wide range of fields-history, sociology, marketing, psychology, even economics itself-to upend the conventional wisdom. Cheap also unveils the fascinating and unsettling illogic that underpins our bargain-hunting reflex and explains how our deep-rooted need for bargains colors every aspect of our psyches and social lives. In this myth-shattering, closely reasoned, and exhaustively reported investigation, Shell exposes the astronomically high cost of cheap

9- Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis

Copied from: http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780679781493-1


Set in L.A. in the early 1980s, this bestselling and coolly mesmerizing novel established its young author as the E Scott Fitzgerald for a generation so irretrievably lost that its motto might be "Disappear here."

Clay comes home for Christmas vacation from his Eastern college and re-enters a landscape of limitless privilege and absolute moral entropy, where everyone drives Porches, dines at Spago, and snorts mountains of cocaine. He tries to renew feelings for his girlfriend, Blair, and for his best friend from high school, Julian, who is careering into hustling and heroin. Clay's holiday turns into a dizzying spiral of desperation that takes him through the relentless parties in glitzy mansions, seedy bars, and underground rock clubs and also into the seamy world of L.A. after dark.

10-Dune by Frank Herbert

Publisher's comments copied from: http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780441172719-0
Publisher Comments:
Set on the desert planet Arakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Muad'Dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family — and would bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream. A blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction.
Synopsis:
Paul Atreides moves with his family to the planet Dune and is forced into exile when his father's government is overthrown. The first book in the series.

11- Fool on the Hill by Matt Ruff

Copied from:http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780802135353-0

It is a literary event when a genuinely new fictional voice comes along. When that voice achieves its newness not through a certain formal facility but through the freshness of its vision, there is truly something to celebrate. Matt Ruff was only twenty-two when Fool on the Hill was first published, but with his novel he gave us a story that won over readers of every persuasion. Not your usual first effort, Fool on the Hill is a full-blown epic of life and death, good and evil, magic and love.

Think of the imaginative daring of Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale. The zany popism of Tom Robbins's Another Roadside Attraction. The gnomish fantasies of J.R.R. Tolkien. Think of these and you begin to get some idea of one of the most remarkable first novels to come along in years.

In the world of Fool on the Hill dogs and cats can talk, a subculture of sprites lives in the shadows and underfoot (if you're the sensitive type, or drunk enough, you might see them cavorting across the lawn), and the Bohemians, a group of Harley- and horseback-riding students dedicated to all things unconventional, hold all-night revels for the glory of their cause.

Then there is Stephen Titus George, the novel's youthful hero, who somehow finds himself the main player in a story that began well over a century ago. George is a mild-mannered flier of kites, a sometimes writer of bestselling fiction, and would-be knight looking for a maiden. George will find his girl and the century-old story will provide the proverbial dragon whose slaying will sanctify their love. But it will not be a sword that fells the foe but the transforming power of the imagination.

12- Villette by Charlotte Bronte

Copied from: http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-9780486455570-1

Publisher Comments:
This powerfully moving psychological study was acclaimed by George Eliot as "a still more wonderful book than Jane Eyre," and by Virginia Woolf as "Brontë's finest novel." Its remarkably modern heroine abandons her native England for the freedom and independence -- and insecurity -- of life as a schoolteacher in Belgium.
Synopsis:
Acclaimed by Virginia Woolf as "Bronte's finest novel," this moving psychological study features a remarkably modern heroine who abandons her native England for a new life as a schoolteacher in Belgium.


Books tackled thus far

Okay guys, I'm revamping our blog site a little, to hopefully make it more reader friendly (especially as some of those old synopses we're still using are waaay down at the bottom of the old format). Will try to keep this updated so folks can see where we've been and where we've left to go. But, if not, you can always access this info from the meetup site by looking at all past meetups.

(12/5/09) Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky

Copied from: http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9781400096275.html

(11/4/09) Persuasion - Jane Austin

Copied from: http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780141907819,00.html

(10/6/09) The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone

Copied from: http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,0_9780451171351,00.htm

(9/8/09) American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

Copied (in bits) from: http://curtissittenfeld.com/

(8/13/09)The Black Swan by Thomas Mann

Copied from:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Black-Swan/Thomas-Mann/e/9780520070080

(7/20/09) Blind Woman, Sweeping Willow by Haruki Murakami
Copied from: http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=9781400096084

(6/22/09) Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Copied from: http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780061139376-0

(6/1/09)The Historian by Elisabeth Kostova

Excerpts copied from: http://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm?book_number=1589

(5/12/09)The Geographer's Library by Jon Fasman

Excerpts copied from: http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?isbn=1594200386

(3/9/09) In the Heart of the Sea:The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex By Nathaniel Philbrick
Copied from: http://www.nathanielphilbrick.com/heartofthesea/

(2/9/09) The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Copied from: http://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm?book_number=1964

(1/19/09) Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

Copied from: http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-0316921173-2

(12/8/08) We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates
Copied from http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=9780452282827


(11/17/08) The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

Copied from: http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9781594489587-0


(10/27/08) The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud

Copied from: http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=030726419x

(10/6/08) American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Publishers comments copied from: http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=0380789035

(9/22/08) Then We Came to the End: A Novel by Joshua Ferris

Copied from: http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780316016384-0

(9/8/08) Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Copied from: http://www.powells.com/biblio?show=HARDCOVER:USED:9781400043392:10.50#synopses_and_reviews

(8/18/08) Three Cups of Tea: by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

Copied from: http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=9780143038252

(7/28/08)
Man's search for Meaning: Victor Frankl's
http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=9780671023379

(7/14/08) The Secret Life of Bees: Sue Monk Kidd

Copied from http://www.suemonkkidd.com/SecretLifeOfBees/


(6/23/08)The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
Copied from: http://www.powells.com/biblio?show=HARDCOVER:NEW:9780393060348:23.95#synopses_and_reviews


(6/2/08) A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Excerpt from: http://contemporarylit.about.com/od/fiction/fr/1000suns.htm


(5/12/08)The People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia

Comments provided by: http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-1932416218-0

(4/23/08) Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Copied from: http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=62-0670034711-0

(3/31/08) Survival of the Sickest by Dr. Sharon Moalem, Jonathan Prince

Comments from: http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780060889654/Survival_of_the_Sickest/index.aspx

(3/10/08)
What is the What by Dave Eggers
Comments found at: http://www.powells.com/biblio?show=HARDCOVER:NEW:9781932416640:26.00#synopses_and_reviews

(2/18/08)Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Comments found at: http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=2-9781400034680-0


(1/24/08) The Gods Themselves by
Isaac Asimov
Comments provided by: http://www.powells.com/biblio?PID=27900&cgi=product&isbn=0553288105

(1/10/08) Undaunted Courage, Stephen Ambrose
No synopses, this was a split second decision :-)

(12/6/07) On Beauty, Zadie Smith:
This is an NPR interview with the author that provides an excerpt and a brief summary:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4961669

(11/15/07) Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Summary available at: http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780312422158-0

(10/25/07)
The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Kim Edwards
Publisher Comments: (copied from http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780143037149-3)

(10/4/07)
1776, David McCullough

(Back of book) Publisher Comments:
In this stirring book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence — when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper.
Based on extensive research in both American and British archives, 1776 is a powerful drama written with extraordinary narrative vitality. It is the story of Americans in the ranks, men of every shape, size, and color, farmers, schoolteachers, shoemakers, no-accounts, and mere boys turned soldiers. And it is the story of the King's men, the British commander, William Howe, and his highly disciplined redcoats who looked on their rebel foes with contempt and fought with a valor too little known.

(9/6/07) Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen :
Summary provided by http://www.saragruen.com/water.html. Check out the site!!

(Aug 15, 2007)
Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
Detailed summary provided at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Confederacy_of_Dunces

Monday, July 23, 2007

Lisa's initial rambling's

Welcome All!
With Lauren and Cathy's inspiration, am continuing the brilliant legacy of blogging our way to Bookclub success. Will be using this site, in conjunction with the Meetup page to provide input and list the suggestions of our noble crew.

To start, for clarity sake, I have misguided and misled you...sorta :-). We, the Cambridge crew (hm, I like that) will be running as our own entity, free to chose the books, times and places we please in embarking upon our literary adventures. Our noble Czar's wisdom (kudos to Cathy!!) allows for folks to both stick to a neighborhood, but venture out if the book being read that week doesn't strike their fancy. The more neighborhoods we reel in, the more selections per month to chose from. Brilliant, I say, just brilliant!

I think the suggestion for meeting every three weeks is a great one. My thoughts had been that we post the book as well as the dates well in advance so folks can plan their schedules and their reading material appropriately. Besides, if a book doesn't strike ones fancy, there's a new one right around the corner to get started on. This would certainly mean we'd be out of synch with the other neighborhoods (currently Brookline, hoping for more), but might also allow for folks to get in on a club meeting the week before or after if schedule conflicts exist for said meeting.

You have noticed the poll that exists for the Brookline group out of the list they generated at their meetup. Kristin has already provided me with a bunch more suggestions (Right on! Keep them coming!! I'll get them up here), and am not ashamed or too proud to beg for more. Would love for you guys to decide how you wish the books for our group to be chosen. My thoughts had been to offer reading on pretty much everything suggested, in order of suggestion to keep the reading material coming.
Other option would be posting a poll of the suggestions that will allow folks to indicate their interest, and make sure we have at least 3 votes per book to have it included. Would allow (and depend upon) your involvement which always makes us organizational folks much happier and more confident in suggesting our next moves.
And finally, folks can always just post their comments about said book on the blog where the list will be kept, or inform me of their interest etc. Might be harder to tally interest based on individual responses, but I'm game for trying anything.

Add to the book decisions, location decisions. Smile Thai was a great environment for discussion...not too noisy, well lit, all that red paint to make us hungry :-). However, if folks wish to use their meetups as a means to explore resturants in the area, I'd love to try it. Suggestions are always welcome, as the nature of Cambridge has changed since it was my stomping grounds, and we may occasionally hit some duds, but I'm all for exploring and checking new places out.

One can always email me from the website with suggestions, comments, questions. Feedback is welcome and appreciated.

Will get the calender up and running this week, so check back in.