October meeting and book choice
Hello, everyone!
We have to choose a book for October 20th, so here are the options. Please click on this link below and it will bring you to a poll so you can vote for your first, second, and third choices. Descriptions of each book are below the link here on this page.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1eFquNCwypoLQQPhyKrgjbSv3mPrgN77Uji318BGxMVw/viewform?usp=send_form
BOOKS:
A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby (available as a movie)
For disgraced TV presenter Martin Sharp the answer's pretty simple: he has, in his own words, 'pissed his life away'. And on New Year's Eve he's going to end it all . . . but not, as it happens, alone. Because first single-mum Maureen, then eighteen-year-old Jess and lastly American rock-god JJ turn up and crash Martin's private party. They've stolen his idea - but brought their own reasons. Yet it's hard to jump when you've got an audience queuing impatiently behind you. A few heated words and some slices if cold pizza later and these four strangers are suddenly allies. But is their unlikely friendship a good enough reason to carry on living?
Review from a reader: Four different people find themselves on the same roof on New Year's Eve, but they have one thing in common–they're all there to jump to their deaths. A scandal-plagued talk-show host, a single mom of a disabled young man, a troubled teen, and an aging American musician soon unite in a common cause, to find out why Jess (the teen) can't get her ex-boyfriend to return her calls. Down the stairs they go, and thoughts of suicide gradually subside. It all sounds so high concept, but each strand of the plot draws readers into Hornby's web. The novel is so simply written that its depths don't come to full view until well into the reading. Each character takes a turn telling the story in a distinctive voice. Tough questions are asked–why do you want to kill yourself, and why didn't you do it? Are adults any smarter than adolescents? What defines friends and family? Characters are alternately sympathetic and utterly despicable, talk-show-host Martin, particularly. The narrators are occasionally unreliable, with the truth coming from the observers instead. Obviously, a book about suicide is a dark read, but this one is darkly humorous–as Hornby usually is. Teens will identify with or loathe Jess and musician J. J., but they will also find themselves in the shoes of Maureen and Martin. This somewhat philosophical work will appeal to Hornby's fans but has plenty to attract new audiences as well.
Return to Killybegs by Sorj Chalandon
Return to Killybegs is a novel about a traitor to Belfast's Catholic community emerging from the white heat of a prolonged war during the 1970s and 1980s in Northern Ireland. This powerful work, lauded by critics, shortlisted for the Prix Goncourt and awarded the Grand Prix de Roman de l'Academie Francaise, deals with a subject that touches a nerve for most Irish people, and fascinates the world: the all-too-human circumstances of betrayal and survival during the Troubles. It is an extraordinary and affecting read.
The Girl on Paper by Guillaume Musso
Just a few months ago, Tom Boyd was a multi-million-selling author living in LA, in love with a world-famous pianist. But after a very public break-up he's shut himself away, suffering from total writer's block, with only drink and drugs for company. One night, a beautiful, naked stranger appears in Tom's house. She claims to be Billie, a character from his novels, who has fallen into the real world because of a printer's error in his latest book. Crazy as her story sounds; Tom comes to see that this must be the real Billie. And she wants to strike a deal with him: if he writes his next novel she can go back to the world of fiction; in return she will help him win back his beloved Aurore. What does he have to lose?
The Host by Stephenie Meyer (author of the Twilight series - available as a movie)
Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away. The earth has been invaded by a species that takes over the minds of their human hosts while leaving their bodies intact, and most of humanity has succumbed. Wanderer, the invading ‘soul’ who has been given Melanie’s body, knew about the challenges of living inside a human: the overwhelming emotions, the too-vivid memories. But there was one difficulty Wanderer didn’t expect: the former tenant of her body refusing to relinquish possession of her mind. Melanie fills Wanderer’s thoughts with visions of the man Melanie loves - Jared, a human who still lives in hiding. Unable to separate herself from her body’s desires, Wanderer yearns for a man she’s never met. As outside forces make Wanderer and Melanie unwilling allies, they set off to search for the man they both love.
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (available as a movie)
Death himself narrates the World War II-era story of Liesel Meminger from the time she is taken, at age nine, to live in Molching, Germany, with a foster family in a working-class neighborhood of tough kids, acid-tongued mothers, and loving fathers who earn their living by the work of their hands. The child arrives having just stolen her first book–although she has not yet learned how to read–and her foster father uses it, The Gravediggers Handbook, to lull her to sleep when shes roused by regular nightmares about her younger brothers death. Across the ensuing years of the late 1930s and into the 1940s, Liesel collects more stolen books as well as a peculiar set of friends: the boy Rudy, the Jewish refugee Max, the mayors reclusive wife (who has a whole library from which she allows Liesel to steal), and especially her foster parents. Zusak not only creates a mesmerizing and original story but also writes with poetic syntax, causing readers to deliberate over phrases and lines, even as the action impels them forward. Death is not a sentimental storyteller, but he does attend to an array of satisfying details, giving Liesels story all the nuances of chance, folly, and fulfilled expectation that it deserves. An extraordinary narrative
We have to choose a book for October 20th, so here are the options. Please click on this link below and it will bring you to a poll so you can vote for your first, second, and third choices. Descriptions of each book are below the link here on this page.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1eFquNCwypoLQQPhyKrgjbSv3mPrgN77Uji318BGxMVw/viewform?usp=send_form
BOOKS:
A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby (available as a movie)
For disgraced TV presenter Martin Sharp the answer's pretty simple: he has, in his own words, 'pissed his life away'. And on New Year's Eve he's going to end it all . . . but not, as it happens, alone. Because first single-mum Maureen, then eighteen-year-old Jess and lastly American rock-god JJ turn up and crash Martin's private party. They've stolen his idea - but brought their own reasons. Yet it's hard to jump when you've got an audience queuing impatiently behind you. A few heated words and some slices if cold pizza later and these four strangers are suddenly allies. But is their unlikely friendship a good enough reason to carry on living?
Review from a reader: Four different people find themselves on the same roof on New Year's Eve, but they have one thing in common–they're all there to jump to their deaths. A scandal-plagued talk-show host, a single mom of a disabled young man, a troubled teen, and an aging American musician soon unite in a common cause, to find out why Jess (the teen) can't get her ex-boyfriend to return her calls. Down the stairs they go, and thoughts of suicide gradually subside. It all sounds so high concept, but each strand of the plot draws readers into Hornby's web. The novel is so simply written that its depths don't come to full view until well into the reading. Each character takes a turn telling the story in a distinctive voice. Tough questions are asked–why do you want to kill yourself, and why didn't you do it? Are adults any smarter than adolescents? What defines friends and family? Characters are alternately sympathetic and utterly despicable, talk-show-host Martin, particularly. The narrators are occasionally unreliable, with the truth coming from the observers instead. Obviously, a book about suicide is a dark read, but this one is darkly humorous–as Hornby usually is. Teens will identify with or loathe Jess and musician J. J., but they will also find themselves in the shoes of Maureen and Martin. This somewhat philosophical work will appeal to Hornby's fans but has plenty to attract new audiences as well.
Return to Killybegs by Sorj Chalandon
Return to Killybegs is a novel about a traitor to Belfast's Catholic community emerging from the white heat of a prolonged war during the 1970s and 1980s in Northern Ireland. This powerful work, lauded by critics, shortlisted for the Prix Goncourt and awarded the Grand Prix de Roman de l'Academie Francaise, deals with a subject that touches a nerve for most Irish people, and fascinates the world: the all-too-human circumstances of betrayal and survival during the Troubles. It is an extraordinary and affecting read.
The Girl on Paper by Guillaume Musso
Just a few months ago, Tom Boyd was a multi-million-selling author living in LA, in love with a world-famous pianist. But after a very public break-up he's shut himself away, suffering from total writer's block, with only drink and drugs for company. One night, a beautiful, naked stranger appears in Tom's house. She claims to be Billie, a character from his novels, who has fallen into the real world because of a printer's error in his latest book. Crazy as her story sounds; Tom comes to see that this must be the real Billie. And she wants to strike a deal with him: if he writes his next novel she can go back to the world of fiction; in return she will help him win back his beloved Aurore. What does he have to lose?
The Host by Stephenie Meyer (author of the Twilight series - available as a movie)
Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away. The earth has been invaded by a species that takes over the minds of their human hosts while leaving their bodies intact, and most of humanity has succumbed. Wanderer, the invading ‘soul’ who has been given Melanie’s body, knew about the challenges of living inside a human: the overwhelming emotions, the too-vivid memories. But there was one difficulty Wanderer didn’t expect: the former tenant of her body refusing to relinquish possession of her mind. Melanie fills Wanderer’s thoughts with visions of the man Melanie loves - Jared, a human who still lives in hiding. Unable to separate herself from her body’s desires, Wanderer yearns for a man she’s never met. As outside forces make Wanderer and Melanie unwilling allies, they set off to search for the man they both love.
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (available as a movie)
Death himself narrates the World War II-era story of Liesel Meminger from the time she is taken, at age nine, to live in Molching, Germany, with a foster family in a working-class neighborhood of tough kids, acid-tongued mothers, and loving fathers who earn their living by the work of their hands. The child arrives having just stolen her first book–although she has not yet learned how to read–and her foster father uses it, The Gravediggers Handbook, to lull her to sleep when shes roused by regular nightmares about her younger brothers death. Across the ensuing years of the late 1930s and into the 1940s, Liesel collects more stolen books as well as a peculiar set of friends: the boy Rudy, the Jewish refugee Max, the mayors reclusive wife (who has a whole library from which she allows Liesel to steal), and especially her foster parents. Zusak not only creates a mesmerizing and original story but also writes with poetic syntax, causing readers to deliberate over phrases and lines, even as the action impels them forward. Death is not a sentimental storyteller, but he does attend to an array of satisfying details, giving Liesels story all the nuances of chance, folly, and fulfilled expectation that it deserves. An extraordinary narrative
Comments