State of Wonder by Anne Patchett
it seems to be VERY high in demand!
At my local library there are 21 copies and I am number 71! Another D.R.E.A.M. member is #94!!!!
We'll aim for November!
Synopsis:
In State of Wonder, pharmaceutical researcher Dr. Marina Singh sets off into the Amazon jungle to find the remains and effects of a colleague who recently died under somewhat mysterious circumstances. But first she must locate Dr. Anneck Swenson, a renowned gynecologist who has spent years looking at the reproductive habits of a local tribe where women can conceive well into their middle ages and beyond. Eccentric and notoriously tough, Swenson is paid to find the key to this longstanding childbearing ability by the same company for which Dr. Singh works. Yet that isn’t their only connection: both have an overlapping professional past that Dr. Singh has long tried to forget. In finding her former mentor, Dr. Singh must face her own disappointments and regrets, along with the jungle’s unforgiving humidity and insects, making State of Wonder a multi-layered atmospheric novel that is hard to put down. Indeed, Patchett solidifies her well-deserved place as one of today’s master storytellers. Emotional, vivid, and a work of literature that will surely resonate with readers in the weeks and months to come, State of Wonder truly is a thing of beauty and mystery, much like the Amazon jungle itself. --Jessica Schein
Sunday, August 14, 2011
SEPTEMBER BOOK CLUB PICK: Freedom
I am going to try to start announcing picks earlier. Depending on where you live, it may take longer to receive a book once you place a hold. In that spirit, I'll try to post choces 6 weeks before we talk about them, and ones that I can tell are in demand, I'll try to give a 3 month lead. -Emily
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen Published 2010
SYNOPSIS:
Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul, Minnesota—the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the avant-garde of the Baby Boomers. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbor who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to actually do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter's dreams. Together with Walter—environmental lawyer, commuter cyclist, total family man—she was doing her small part to build a better world.
But now, in the new millennium, the Berglunds have become a mystery. Why is Walter working away from home so much? What has happened to their teenage son? Why has Patty, the bright star of Barrier Street, become "a very different kind of neighbor," coming unhinged before the street's attentive eyes? And what exactly is eccentric rocker Richard Katz—Walter's college best friend and rival—still doing in the picture?
As the story explores the nature of love, it also tackles our tenuous relationship with nature. When Walter fights to preserve a habitat for an endangered bird, the troubled history between Patty, Richard and himself threatens to topple the deal, along with everything he believes about truth and illusion.
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen Published 2010
SYNOPSIS:
Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul, Minnesota—the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the avant-garde of the Baby Boomers. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbor who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to actually do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter's dreams. Together with Walter—environmental lawyer, commuter cyclist, total family man—she was doing her small part to build a better world.
But now, in the new millennium, the Berglunds have become a mystery. Why is Walter working away from home so much? What has happened to their teenage son? Why has Patty, the bright star of Barrier Street, become "a very different kind of neighbor," coming unhinged before the street's attentive eyes? And what exactly is eccentric rocker Richard Katz—Walter's college best friend and rival—still doing in the picture?
As the story explores the nature of love, it also tackles our tenuous relationship with nature. When Walter fights to preserve a habitat for an endangered bird, the troubled history between Patty, Richard and himself threatens to topple the deal, along with everything he believes about truth and illusion.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
August's Book Club Pick: To Be Sung Underwater
6 out of 5--- YES--it was that good.
I cannot remember the last time I sobbed so hard at the last chapter of a book. I wanted so desperately to make a certain character go back in time and make ONE different choice to change two people's lives. In fact, it's ridiculous how much I still want to do that after finishing the book 6 hours ago. I've even gone back and read the last two chapters again just looking for answers to be different.
This book was amazing and sad and perhaps the best love story I have ever read--- well, best I guess because it's romantic, but maybe I should say saddest. I loved it, loved it. But wishing I could change the course of events. Feeling melancholy today!
SYNOPSIS:
Forty-four-year-old Judith has the veneer of a happy life, but there are cracks. Her job on a TV drama isn’t completely satisfying. She regrets the way her daughter is growing up, and her seemingly loving husband is having a dalliance with a co-worker.
Amid all this turmoil, she experiences what she calls a “swerve” in life, and she begins thinking of her first love, Willy Blunt, a young carpenter she fell in love with when she was 17.
Judith begins to question her life, her choices and everything she has done since she was with Willy. She’s so richly drawn, so quirkily compelling, that we’re immediately invested in her. In one of the novel’s strangest turns, she rents a storage unit and begins to turn it into a refuge, a kind of home away from home that might feed her yearning. She even takes on a secret identity, changing her name to the puckish Edie Winks. One day, pining for her past, she tracks Willy down and makes a pilgrimage back to what she considers the life she should have led.McNeal moves effortlessly through time to tell the twin tales of Judith’s past and present, making you feel the radiant importance of 17-year old Judith’s summer with Willy, when her parents’ marriage split.
Their courtship is sweet and authentic, and we get to experience it from first blush to last kiss. It’s hard not to fall in love with Willy yourself, because he’s a guy who expects the best from people and has a code of honor so strong that it seems shatterproof. McNeal takes his time drawing Willy out with lovely scenes of picnics and surprises. The only person not completely happy is Judith’s father, who fears his daughter will be boxed in too soon, the way he was. But as Judith settles into this blissful life, something happens that changes the trajectory of their lives — and their love.
Fast forward 22 years. The failed dreams of her father, the ruined marriage of her parents, her own restless yearning for a time when everything seemed perfect — they all take a toll. Judith’s search for Willy is really a search for the kind of love that “picks you up in Akron, Ohio, and sets you down in Rio de Janeiro.”
And then, just as you’ve given your heart to this story, McNeal breaks it with an ending that makes you feel cheated: a tacked-on shock that’s a shame, because everything that comes before is so ravishing.
Still, McNeal captures the flush of first love and the endurance of real devotion, even as he probes deeper questions: Who are we with the ones we love, and who are we without them? “For you, I was a chapter,” Willy tells Judith. “For me, you were the book.”
I cannot remember the last time I sobbed so hard at the last chapter of a book. I wanted so desperately to make a certain character go back in time and make ONE different choice to change two people's lives. In fact, it's ridiculous how much I still want to do that after finishing the book 6 hours ago. I've even gone back and read the last two chapters again just looking for answers to be different.
This book was amazing and sad and perhaps the best love story I have ever read--- well, best I guess because it's romantic, but maybe I should say saddest. I loved it, loved it. But wishing I could change the course of events. Feeling melancholy today!
SYNOPSIS:
Forty-four-year-old Judith has the veneer of a happy life, but there are cracks. Her job on a TV drama isn’t completely satisfying. She regrets the way her daughter is growing up, and her seemingly loving husband is having a dalliance with a co-worker.
Amid all this turmoil, she experiences what she calls a “swerve” in life, and she begins thinking of her first love, Willy Blunt, a young carpenter she fell in love with when she was 17.
Judith begins to question her life, her choices and everything she has done since she was with Willy. She’s so richly drawn, so quirkily compelling, that we’re immediately invested in her. In one of the novel’s strangest turns, she rents a storage unit and begins to turn it into a refuge, a kind of home away from home that might feed her yearning. She even takes on a secret identity, changing her name to the puckish Edie Winks. One day, pining for her past, she tracks Willy down and makes a pilgrimage back to what she considers the life she should have led.McNeal moves effortlessly through time to tell the twin tales of Judith’s past and present, making you feel the radiant importance of 17-year old Judith’s summer with Willy, when her parents’ marriage split.
Their courtship is sweet and authentic, and we get to experience it from first blush to last kiss. It’s hard not to fall in love with Willy yourself, because he’s a guy who expects the best from people and has a code of honor so strong that it seems shatterproof. McNeal takes his time drawing Willy out with lovely scenes of picnics and surprises. The only person not completely happy is Judith’s father, who fears his daughter will be boxed in too soon, the way he was. But as Judith settles into this blissful life, something happens that changes the trajectory of their lives — and their love.
Fast forward 22 years. The failed dreams of her father, the ruined marriage of her parents, her own restless yearning for a time when everything seemed perfect — they all take a toll. Judith’s search for Willy is really a search for the kind of love that “picks you up in Akron, Ohio, and sets you down in Rio de Janeiro.”
And then, just as you’ve given your heart to this story, McNeal breaks it with an ending that makes you feel cheated: a tacked-on shock that’s a shame, because everything that comes before is so ravishing.
Still, McNeal captures the flush of first love and the endurance of real devotion, even as he probes deeper questions: Who are we with the ones we love, and who are we without them? “For you, I was a chapter,” Willy tells Judith. “For me, you were the book.”
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Join the chat group!
Make sure you join our group so you can do the Book Club Chats!
http://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/170578896345072
http://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/170578896345072
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
What Alice Forgot
July BOOK CLUB PICK:
Synopsis:
Alice is twenty-nine. She is whimsical, optimistic and adores sleep, chocolate, her ramshackle new house and her wonderful husband Nick. What's more, she's looking forward to the birth of the 'Sultana' - her first baby.
But now Alice has slipped and hit her head in her step-aerobics class and everyone's telling her she's misplaced the last ten years of her life.
In fact, it would seem that Alice is actually thirty-nine and now she loves schedules, expensive lingerie, caffeine and manicures. She has three children and the honeymoon is well and truly over for her and Nick. In fact, he looks at her like she's his worst enemy. What's more, her beloved sister Elisabeth isn't speaking to her either. And who is this 'Gina'everyone is so carefully trying not to mention?
Alice isn't sure that she likes life ten years on. Every photo is another memory she doesn't have and nothing makes sense. Just how much can happen in a decade? Has she really lost her lovely husband for ever?
But now Alice has slipped and hit her head in her step-aerobics class and everyone's telling her she's misplaced the last ten years of her life.
In fact, it would seem that Alice is actually thirty-nine and now she loves schedules, expensive lingerie, caffeine and manicures. She has three children and the honeymoon is well and truly over for her and Nick. In fact, he looks at her like she's his worst enemy. What's more, her beloved sister Elisabeth isn't speaking to her either. And who is this 'Gina'everyone is so carefully trying not to mention?
Alice isn't sure that she likes life ten years on. Every photo is another memory she doesn't have and nothing makes sense. Just how much can happen in a decade? Has she really lost her lovely husband for ever?
Online chat on the book will be August 4th at 9:30pm
Please post your AIM screenname below!
UPDATE: July 14: Have read 346 pages in less than 12 hours and I have 2 kids! This book is addicting!
UPDATE: REVIEW July 24
Amazing book---wonderful--page-turner. Go get it!
Book Club chat will take place Aug. 4 at 9:30pm EST on instant messenger. Please RSVP here:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.228215543872738.73948.117195448308082#!/event.php?eid=224273370939450
Friday, June 17, 2011
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
I feel the need to add this disclaimer each time: This is NOT an official book club pick, but I'll be posting on whatever I am reading at the moment.
10 pages in and liking it so far!!
UPDATE July 13: Okay-- I got 34 pages in and I DO like it, but I just can't do another "eat whole foods" book right now. My mind needs an escape. I do plan to come back to it, though, especially since my family just joined a CSA.
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