We had a lively first meeting in January with another new member to the group and lots of great books being discussed. We are varied in our tastes, that’s for sure! Added to the books read, one of our members had her newest book just published: Marsha S’s Under Attack (Kidnapped from Ukraine, bk 1).
January Book Club Review:
The Thursday Night book club started the New year discussing James McBride’s book, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. This book received mixed reviews during group discussion.
The book starts with the discovery of a body in a well in the contemporary town of Pottsville Pa. (This storyline is not completed until the last few chapters of the book).
The reader is then taken back to the 1930’s where we are introduced to a multitude of characters who inhabit Chicken Hill a “suburb” of Pottstown. Each individual has a separate story with their own issues, struggles and feelings. Yet, each “short” story, with lots of tangents and back stories, is integrated to the main story line which is about a mixed -race community and how the people interact with each other and unite together in common purpose when it is needed. There is no main protagonist and no central story line. Despite race, religion and class there is a community.
McBride’s uses a blend of literary and historical fiction (Pottstown, Chicken Hill and Pennhurst Asylum are not fictional places) and humour to address black/white racism and antisemitism. His purpose through the book is to “humanize” the complications of discussing race in America, the task of understanding other people, and offering the suggestion that it is possible to jump over the differences that separate us. This is a message novel – “every act of being is a chance to improve the world”.
Too many characters, too many sub plots, too slow moving or an accurate illustration of a diverse community with unique individuals who chose how to let themselves be known and seen by others in a common cause?
A Shocking and disturbing read! This was the overall consensus of Thursday book club members who read Killers of The Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann. The Osage Nation of Oklahoma, was the wealthiest per capita in the 1920’s until they were killed off one by one. Little was done to investigate and solve the crimes. The group drew many parallels with other horrific events in indigenous history. Lighter r
eads ahead!
During this afternoon’s super-interesting meeting, Marion Weir brought a photo from our same book group from May 2007! Two of the members are still in the group, Marion herself and Jean Farquharson.
Marsha presented Scarcity Brain, and highly recommends it.
Four of us were able to attend the book discussion group over lunch yesterday, but we were able to talk about a dozen or so books. Marian brought her copy of Significant Lives, which was self-published by our club a number of years ago. She was on the committee to produce it and told us many interesting anecdotes.
Leslie took notes with her beautiful script:
And our notes done the old fashioned way!
Many of our participants were gone over the summer but three of us still managed to get together to talk about books. Unlike most book groups where the talk focuses on a single book, our group is made up of such avid readers that we often end up discussing half a dozen books or more. Zoom gatherings work because we can pull book images and reviews up on powerpoint to aid in the lively discussion. We are omnivorous in tastes and in a single meeting the discussion can go from memoirs, local history, historical fiction, nature, science fiction, fantasy and everything in between.
