The Book Lovers
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The Book Lovers |
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The All Saints'
Book Lovers meet six times per year on Sunday afternoons in the
church library. We convene at 12:15 over light munchies and
usually finish by 2 pm. Because other groups use the library, we can't
stick to a strict schedule, but the date is always published well in
advance in the church bulletin. Interested bibliophiles are
welcome to contact Susan Barkan at sabarkan@earthlink.net
(650) 967-8119 for an update. Susan is also happy to provide
you with a brief summary of each book. |
  Keplers/Amazon Keplers/Amazon |
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 Tears at Kepler's or Amazon
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The books are
nearly always current novels of high readability, and many deal with
ethical or moral questions. Ours is not an especially scholarly
approach; we aim for the middle ground between Danielle Steele
and Joyce Carol Oates. We usually begin by having each member state an
opinion or make an observation. No one responds until everyone has had
a change to speak. By then, there are enough ideas on the table to keep
us going for at least an hour. All of us have opinions and enjoy
sharing them. Mainly we have fun! Come and see! Next Title: Sunday
12:15p, Library
March 16Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Al i (353 pages). A riveting autobiography of a woman, one generation removed from desert nomads in Somalia and indoctrinated in the tenets of Islamic fundamentalism, who embarks on an intellectual and spiritual journey to Europe and eventually to the United States. This book challenges our traditional notions of what Islam is and how it will influence our world. We will meet on Sunday, March 16, at 12:15 in the Library. Future titles may include Kim Edwards, The Memory Keepers Daughter. (Paperback, 432 pages) A woman gives birth to twins, one normal, one with Down's syndrome. Her husband tells her that the Down's syndrome child was stillborn, but he actually instructs the nurse to place the baby in an institution. Instead, the nurse decides to raise the infant as her own. The story follows the parallel lives of the twins. (Paperback, 432 pages) Karen Armstrong,The Spiral Staircase: My Climb out of Darkness .(Paperback, 336 pages). Author of biographies of Muhammad and the Buddha, as well as The Battle for God (a study of fundamentalism), and A History of God, Armstrong describes the years after she decided to leave the life of a nun and join the secular world. "In revisiting her spiral climb out of her dark night of the soul, Armstrong gives readers a stunningly poignant account about the nature of spiritual growth. Upon leaving the convent, Armstrong grapples with the grief of her abandoned path and the uncertainty of her place in the world." |
  Keplers/Amazon Keplers/Amazon   Keplers/Amazon Keplers/Amazon  Kepler's or Amazon |
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  Shop at Amazon.com to benefit All Saints' by clicking on the logo above. Books, music, videos, toys, electronics, software, games, kitchen & housewares, tools, camera & photo products, cell phones, computers, baby products, and magazine subscriptions. Free shipping on orders over $25!  Kepler's or Amazon |
Among the books read in 2002 are
Susan Howatch's Absolute Truths Keplers/Amazon, Lalita Tademy's Cane River Keplers/Amazon,
Philip Roth's The Human Stain
Keplers/Amazon, and Ha Jin's Waiting Keplers/Amazon; in 2003
the group read Patchett's Bel Canto Keplers/Amazon,
Kingsolver's Prodigal
Summer Keplers/Amazon,
McEwan's Atonement Keplers/Amazon and
Brown's The daVinci Code Keplers/Amazon. More recently: Jodi Picoult, Keeping Faith, Paperback: 448 pages. An eight-year-old girl named Faith, in the wake of her parents' messy divorce and mother's depression begins hearing voices, manifests the stigmata, and cures illnesses. If you have time, read also Ron Hansen’s Mariette in Ecstasy (192 pages) about a 17-year-old nun during the early 1900’s whose beauty, extreme piety, and manifestations of the stigmata (real or self-inflicted?) cause conflict in the convent. (Mariette is available, used, from Amazon for one cent plus $3.95 shipping). He’s young (46), his political experience is limited to two terms in the Illinois state senate and two in the U.S. Senate. His father was from Ghana, his mother from Kansas. He spent his early childhood in Indonesia and his teens in Hawaii. He has written two books, and he’s running for President. Learn about Barak Obama’s “thoughts on reclaiming the American dream” as we discuss The Audacity of Hope Leif Enger's Peace Like a River. A young man, presumably doomed to death or life imprisonment for a murder committed in defense of his family, escapes from jail. His father, who has seemingly supernatural healing powers, and his two siblings set off on a cross-country journey to find him. The book describes their many adventures and makes us ponder the possibility of present-day miracles. "Bo Caldwell's memoir-like first novel In the Distant Land of My Father begins in 1930s Shanghai, a city where enterprising foreign entrepreneurs can quickly become millionaires and just as quickly lose everything as victims of the volatile political climate. Six-year-old narrator Anna Schoene tells the tale of her father, whose life-long obsession with the city's opportunities gains him great riches, though it ultimately costs him his family and almost his life." Our discussion was enhanced by the presence of the author. Though a work of fiction, Mary Doria Russell's A Thread of Grace is based on solid research into the efforts of hundreds of ordinary Italians who worked to save their Jewish friends and neighbors, as well as scores of refugees, from the invading Nazis. The many vignettes and characters are anchored by three towering figures: an Italian pilot with a guilty conscience for bombing a hospital during Italy's war with Abyssinia, a German doctor who caused the deaths of thousands in a concentration camp, and a heroic Italian priest. We will discuss this riveting novel on June 11 at 12:15 in the Library. Buy from Amazon, or visit Kepler's and mention All Saints'. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman, a nonfiction account of a Hmong child afflicted with epilepsy and the efforts of the medical community in Modesto to treat her condition--a classic example of cultural confrontation. When the Hmong tribespeople incurred the wrath of their neighbors by supporting U.S. intervention in Indochina, they were promised asylum in the United States. Anne Fadiman's The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down describes a conflict between the family of an epileptic child born into the Hmong community in Merced and the well-meaning health care providers who try to treat her. Scrupulously fair to both sides, the author invites us to consider the effects of cultural confrontation. Buy from Amazon, or visit Kepler's and mention All Saints'. Almost thirty years ago, the down-to-earth advice and lively writing of Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled kept it on top of the best-seller list for many weeks. It's time to revisit this classic text on problem solving, spirituality, and relationships. Buy The Road Less Traveled at Kepler's or Amazon. To call Middlesex Kepler's / Amazon a novel about a hermaphrodite is like calling Hamlet a play about a depressed adolescent: both generalizations leave out a whole lot. Jeffrey Eugenides' novel traces the fortunes of three generations of a Greek family from the massacre that forces them to flee their village in Turkey to their settlement in Detroit. Somewhat reminiscent of My Big Fat Greek Wedding in its eccentric characters and humor, it is also a coming-of-age novel of great warmth and sensitivity. The Dream of Scipio Keplers/Amazon. 475 AD: Roman Gaul is overrun by Visigoths and Burgundians. 1337-1348: the Hundred Years War, the Black Death, and rival papacies plunge Europe into chaos. 1939: the Nazi juggernaut begins. Iain Pears' The Dream of Scipio describes the painful choices faced by people of good will when civilization as they know it is in danger of collapse. Are we at the dawn of the 21st century is a similar quandary? In a departure from his books about the lure of Alaska and Everest, Jon Krakauer, in Under the Banner of Heaven Keplers/Amazon, turns his journalistic insights to a moral wilderness: breakaway Mormon polygamist groups. The author's inspiration was a brutal double murder committed, the perpetrators claimed, because of a direct revelation from God. Yann Martel's Life of Pi Keplers/Amazon A teenager from India, Piscine Molitor Patel ("Pi" for short) sees no reason why he can't be a Muslim, a Christian, and a Hindu at the same time. His three beliefs stand him in good stead when he finds himself adrift in a lifeboat, his only companions a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan, and a 450-lb Bengal tiger. Highly original, at times comic, always deeply moving, this whimsical fable poses some provocative questions about the nature of truth, faith, and survival. "Am I my brother's keeper?" To what extent does a person's individual survival supercede his loyalty to another? Cain's ancient question resonates today in Touching the Void Keplers/Amazon, by Joe Simpson, a gripping non-fiction account of a climbing accident in the glaciers of Peru. Azar Nafisi taught English literature at the University of Tehran until she was fired for refusing to wear the veil. For two years she encouraged seven of her most committed female students to meet weekly in her home to discuss classics of Western literature that the government had banned. Reading Reading Lolita in Tehran describes their forbidden meetings and the insights they shared. We will discuss this book on January, 16th at 12:15pm in the library. Buy Reading Lolita in Tehran at Kepler's or Amazon. Afghanistan before the Russians and before the Taliban is the setting for Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, the story of an upper-class boy and his best friend, the son of the family servant. Similar in theme to Atonement, this novel explores the far-reaching consequences of an act of betrayal and cowardice that haunts the protagonist long after he and his father have moved to America and that prompts him to return, years later, in search of redemption. We will discuss this book on March 13. Buy The Kite Runner at Kepler's or Amazon. Alexander McCall Smith's novels about the indomitable Precious Ramotswe and her ladies' detective agency in Botswana have won the hearts of thousands of readers. As a prelude to a series of books set in Africa, we discuss Tears of the Giraffe, Morality for Beautiful Girls. In Tears, Precious agrees to search for clues about the disappearance of an young American commune dweller ten years previously. Morality finds Precious managing her fiance's auto repair business as well as investigating a murder plot against a government official. Buy Tears at Kepler's or Amazon. In Saturday, Booker Prize Winner Ian McEwan (Amsterdam, Atonement) takes us into one day in the life of a contented and successful neurosurgeon and shows how a chance encounter with a young tough has shattering consequences for himself and his family. Set during the period of controversy about Britain's joining the US in invading Iraq, the novel invites speculation about values and moral choices. Date to be announced, but probably in late February or early March. Buy Saturday at Amazon, or visit Kepler's. Reviewers praise Ron Hansen’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford for its meticulous research into court documents, memoirs, and contemorary newspaper accounts as well as its vivid portraits of the characters and realistic view of the Old West. Many call it “Shakespearean” in theme and language. Eric Metaxas, Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery, 280 pages. (Not yet available in paperback but no longer "hot" and thus available in libraries. Also used from Amazon) This book was the inspiration for the film of the same title, but it goes into much greater detail about this remarkable man and the many causes he espoused. One critic says it "reads like fiction and brilliantly captures the shocking accomplishment of the man who fundamentally changed humanity's attitude toward the suffering of others." |
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