Tag Archives: Book Club

2009 List – A Bit of This and a Bit of That

My book club met last night to select books for our 2009 reading list. We pick books for the entire year so it’s an event that we always look forward to. It does provide a bit of stress though when you can’t come up with THE perfect book or you decide on a great book only to find out that most of the group has read it.

After pitching our selections, we ended up with twenty-four books so we had to narrow it down a bit and we did that by taking a vote. Here are the final thirteen (thirteen because we figured that was close enough). They haven’t been assigned to a month yet but when they are, I will list them here, which you will be able to access by clicking on the button in my sidebar. That was my first attempt at a button too. Needs some work but not too bad!

Okay… enough yammering, here’s the list:

1. The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
2. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
3. Prayers for Bobby by Leroy Aarons
4. Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo
5. Finn by John Clinch (my pick)
6. The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff (also my pick…I was lucky!)
7. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
8. Netherland by Joseph O’neill
9. Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
10. A Mercy by Toni Morrison
11. Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama
12. Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
13. In The Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

It’s an interesting mix isn’t it? I am REALLY excited about this list. I’ll be posting all the reviews as we read and discuss them. Out of this list, what stands out? Anything that piques your interest?

The Week Ahead: January 19-25, 2009

I’ve got a busy week ahead of me. Some of it fun. Let’s see if I can keep this short:

Monday, January 19, 2009 – No school or work today due to the MLK holiday. Right now I have a picnic lunch planned since it was too windy to do it yesterday. However, the kids may want to see a movie instead. Either way, at some point I will be on the couch reading 🙂 Of course it won’t be during 24. I have to focus on Jack Bauer and all his running, yelling glory.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009 – The BIG day. My work is having an Inauguration Breakfast this morning. The menu includes a waffle bar with all the fixin’s. We’ll nosh and watch the event in HD. I won’t be able to watch all of it because today is also the first day that my photography class meets. In the evening, we have a Music Man rehearsal and I will be taking notes for production week which is four days away.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009 – Work and meetings. In the evening, more rehearsal but I don’t have to attend this one so I will wait in the car with a book. I’ll be starting The Bone People tonight for my book club.

Thursday, January 22, 2009 – Work and my photography class. Tonight is my book club’s big book selection meeting for 2009. We choose the books that we will read for the rest of the year. Yikes! I want to pitch at least two books but I keep changing my mind. I think one of them will be The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti. There’s been some interest in The Gargoyle as the second but I’m not sure. Ideas? Once we decide, I will post the list.

Friday, January 23, 2009 – Nothing going on today. It will be a good day to catch-up on work stuff and any reading I need to wrap-up later this evening.

The Weekend – On Saturday my daughter and I are going to a Mommy and Me Stampin’ Up workshop. On Sunday, we are in the theatre and production week begins. This is a tough week. There are some late nights and my daughter, who is not in this show, will miss me dearly as she will only see me in the mornings until the show wraps after Superbowl weekend. My son is still recovering from his surgery so I hope he holds out okay.

What do you have planned this week?