Books & Music Book Club Read for November 2010? Suggestions here (please read post #1)

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jburgh

jburgh

BV ~ Ferragamo ~ TODs
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Aug 17, 2007
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#1
Dear avid readers and members who want to participate in the PF book club:

I am jburgh, the mod for BV, Choo, Tods and Ferragamo. I'll be working together with CobaltBlu and Tracy. I look forward to getting to know you and sharing our love for books.

If you've never been in my forums, I usually explain the purpose of a thread in post #1, as well as mentioning the guidelines.

This is going to be our first attempt to use a format for this, so please understand that is it a learning experience for everyone. I think it will be a lot of fun to have something we can think about deeply, in between our shallow purse obsessions. :nuts:

For the first book we are going to limit it to something that is not too long, perhaps 250-300 pages or thereabout. With the holidays coming up, we want something that will not take up all your time. Also, this is a dry run, so a short book will work best.

This is how it will work...

This thread will be open to suggestions for a short book until October 22nd. At that time, this thread will be closed and unstickied.

A second sticky thread will be opened for a Poll, and the top five most popular choices will be offered for you to vote on as THE book for November.
The poll will close, and the winner will be announced on the 31st.

During November and December we will be reading and discussing the book. There will be one general thread, and 3 study question threads. Also, December will be another opportunity for us to choose the next book for Jan/Feb.

If you have any questions, please PM one of the mods here. Aren't you excited, I am!!! :yahoo:

Okay now.... suggest away!
 
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#2
My suggestion is: A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel.

Here is the link to the amazon.com page: http://www.amazon.com/Girl-Named-Zippy-Growing-Mooreland/dp/0767915054/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

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#5
#8
Thank you for doing this jburgh. I have many titles in my head but now that I'm put on the spot to choose one I can't think.:wacko:
My ideal life would be one where I don't have to work and have enough money to just sit and read ( and eat:nuts:) Alas, I seem to get less reading time as the years go by.
 
#9
it's not very long and it's a fun, light read - one I think A LOT of us could identify with!! I recommended this a while back and asked Megs to move this to this forum, but it's still in the General Discussion forum

http://forum.purseblog.com/the-glass-slipper/shoe-addicts-anonymous-by-beth-harbison-145328.html


Product Description

Four different women. One common shoe size. And a shared lust for fabulous footwear.

Helene Zaharis’s politician husband keeps her on a tight leash and cancels her credit cards as a way of controlling her. Lorna Rafferty is up to her eyeballs in debt and can’t stop her addiction to eBay. Sandra Vanderslice, battling agoraphobia, pays her shoe bills by working as a phone-sex operator. And Jocelyn Bowen is a nanny for the family from hell (who barely knows a sole from a heel but who will do anything to get out of the house.)

On Tuesday nights, these women meet to trade shoes and, in the process, form friendships that will help them each triumph over their problems---from secret pasts to blackmail, bankruptcy, and dating. Funny, emotional, and powerful, Shoe Addicts Anonymous is a perfect read for any woman who has ever struggled to find the perfect fit.
 
#10
Guernsey Literary and Potatoe Peel Pie Society, by Burroughs and Schaffer

A humorist and bibliophile receives a letter from a stranger asking for recommendationson the books of Charles Lamb. Set in England after the second World War, this book examines love, inspiration survival and good books. It made me laugh and cry.
Written as a series of letters, this book is 305 pgs long,but it is a very fast read.

Even if this book isn't chosen - I implore you to read it. It's just that good.

http://www.randomhouse.com/rhpg/guernsey/
 
#11
slayer said:
Thank you for doing this jburgh. I have many titles in my head but now that I'm put on the spot to choose one I can't think.:wacko:
My ideal life would be one where I don't have to work and have enough money to just sit and read ( and eat:nuts:) Alas, I seem to get less reading time as the years go by.
Click to expand...

You have some time. :graucho:

I noticed that I am having a little difficulty reading, so I went and had my eyes examined yesterday and now, with a new prescription, I'll be ready to read, read, read!
 
#12
my recommendation is "The Glass Castle: A Memoir" by Jeannette Walls. I could not put it down and wish it would have been a longer book! So much to discuss in this one...it's very thought-provoking. Funny, sad, outrageous...it's one of the best memoirs/books I've ever read.

http://www.amazon.com/Glass-Castle-Memoir-Alex-Awards/dp/0743247531


From Amazon.com:
Jeannette Walls's father always called her "Mountain Goat" and there's perhaps no more apt nickname for a girl who navigated a sheer and towering cliff of childhood both daily and stoically. In The Glass Castle, Walls chronicles her upbringing at the hands of eccentric, nomadic parents--Rose Mary, her frustrated-artist mother, and Rex, her brilliant, alcoholic father. To call the elder Walls's childrearing style laissez faire would be putting it mildly. As Rose Mary and Rex, motivated by whims and paranoia, uprooted their kids time and again, the youngsters (Walls, her brother and two sisters) were left largely to their own devices. But while Rex and Rose Mary firmly believed children learned best from their own mistakes, they themselves never seemed to do so, repeating the same disastrous patterns that eventually landed them on the streets. Walls describes in fascinating detail what it was to be a child in this family, from the embarrassing (wearing shoes held together with safety pins; using markers to color her skin in an effort to camouflage holes in her pants) to the horrific (being told, after a creepy uncle pleasured himself in close proximity, that sexual assault is a crime of perception; and being pimped by her father at a bar). Though Walls has well earned the right to complain, at no point does she play the victim. In fact, Walls' removed, nonjudgmental stance is initially startling, since many of the circumstances she describes could be categorized as abusive (and unquestioningly neglectful). But on the contrary, Walls respects her parents' knack for making hardships feel like adventures, and her love for them--despite their overwhelming self-absorption--resonates from cover to cover. --Brangien Davis
 
#14
I've read "The Glass Castle: A Memoir" and it's excellent! Hard to put down! :biggrin:

My suggestion:

Firebird by Mark Doty

"Childhood's work is to see what lies beneath," Mark Doty writes in his memoir, Firebird. And adulthood's work, he suggests, is to make sense of what the child-self once saw. Doty, a poet, does this remarkably well, capturing the peculiar talismans of youth--"little cars of fragrant plastic whose wheels turn on wire axles that can be popped loose and examined; hard candies; sweet, chalky wafers strung together into wristlets and necklaces"--as well as a child's experience of sin:
I am standing paralyzed by what I've done, there's a rush and roar from the direction of the living room, my father rising from the couch, he's coming down the hall, I'm afraid he's going to spank me, I remember the last time, the humiliation of it, him pulling my pants down on the porch and whaling me, his red face filled up with blood and rage, striking at me because what have I done? Now I've done something plain and sharply lit like the big shards of glass on the floor...
​
It's clear from the start that the author's home life was not happy. His father's job with the Army Corps of Engineers kept the family crisscrossing the country; his older sister got pregnant at 17--"these girls knew what they were doing, these girls married to get out"--and ended up, eventually, in prison; and his mother, a frustrated artist, sank eventually into depression and alcoholism. As if growing up in this family during the 1950s and '60s weren't difficult enough, Doty's homosexuality provided additional anguish. A confrontation over his long hair led to a humiliating scene at a barbershop where Doty's father had dragged him and ended up with his attempted suicide at the age of 14. There are plenty more heart-wrenching episodes like this, and at times you might wonder why you'd want to put yourself through the ordeal of reading about them. Doty himself seems aware of this. "Why tell a story like this, who wants to read it?" he demands near the end of the book, then responds, "Even sad stories are company. And perhaps that's why you might read such a chronicle, to look into a companionable darkness that isn't yours." That may be one reason for reading Firebird; the other, undoubtedly, is Mark Doty's precise and lyrical prose, his acute perception, and his compassionate heart."

http://www.amazon.com/Firebird-Memo...=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287074783&sr=1-3
 
#15
Suggestion:

SILK by Alessando Baricco

Baricco, the author of two prize-winning novels, spins an enchanting novella as delicate as the silk that fills the story. In the 1860s, Herve Joncour makes four difficult journeys from France to Japan to obtain eggs for breeding silkworms. Japan is closed to the world, but he manages to negotiate with a local baron to obtain the eggs. While there, he notices a young woman who does not have oriental eyes. Though they never address each other, they conduct a secret affair. The story, told exquisitely and very well translated, conveys the richness, delicacy, and mystery of the book's sought-after fabric.

http://www.amazon.com/Silk-Alessand...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1287076780&sr=8-1
 
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