Sommières Book and Serie Club

Our October meeting was a bit of a bust. Only 3 members came to Isabelle's, but like I've always said, you only need two readers to have a book club, right? :)  Sorry for the last-minute date change. I'm sure that had a deleterious effect. Our November meeting is the 16th. Since we have just 3 weeks to read this time, I selected the shortest book that many of us expressed interest in reading. This was a suggestion from Annette a couple months ago, and it has 239 pages. All the others we've voted on, that have been popular, were more than 400 pages long. During our November meeting, we will decide what book to read for January. December there is no meeting, but all are welcome to the Café et Conversation holiday party. 'THE READER" by Bernhard Schlink   Description: For 15-year-old Michael Berg, a chance meeting with an older woman leads to far more than he ever imagined. The woman in question is Hanna, and before long they embark on a passionate, clan...

8 voters expressed their wishes for our October book (not everyone participated, obviously, but enough did) and the following book had the most 1st choice votes by a pretty clear margin: A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby LINK ON AMAZON: http://amzn.to/1ynVQFY  We need a host for our October meeting, so if you are interested in hosting, please email me. Here are the stats that came out of our voting process: TOTAL VOTES A Long Way Down = 8 The Book Thief = 7 (should be 6, we had a double voter) The Host = 5 The Girl on Paper = 3 Return to Killybegs = 1 Here's the raw data if anyone's interested (someone didn't follow the instructions and voted twice for the same book, but oh well): Timestamp Please select your FIRST CHOICE Please select your SECOND CHOICE Please select your THIRD CHOICE 9/22/2014 8:15:06 The Book Thief The Book Thief A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby 9/22/2014 8:39:45 A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby The Girl on Paper by Guillaume Musso The Hos...

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...

Thanks to Susan for hosting our August club meeting. The vineyards and the weather were lovely! And we welcomed new member, Lucy. The book for September was suggested by Susan. It's called Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain. [Note: this book does not appear to be available in French.] DESCRIPTION: In 1914 Vera Brittain was 20, and as war was declared she was preparing to study at Oxford. Four years later her life - and the life of her whole generation - had changed in a way that would have been unimaginable in the tranquil pre-war era. TESTAMENT OF YOUTH, one of the most famous autobiographies of the First World War, is Brittain's account of how she survived those agonising years; how she lost the man she loved; how she nursed the wounded and how she emerged into an altered world. A passionate record of a lost generation, it made Vera Brittain one of the best-loved writers of her time, and has lost none of its power to shock, move and enthral readers since...

Here's the book that got the most votes. It was a close call! WHY WE TOOK THE CAR DESCRIPTION : Mike doesn't get why people think he's boring. Sure, he doesn't have many friends. (OK, zero friends.) And everyone laughs at him when he reads his essays out loud in class. And he's never invited to parties. But one day Tschick, the odd new boy at school, shows up at Mike's house out of the blue. He dares him to go on a road trip with him. No parents, no map, no destination. Will they get hopelessly lost in the middle of nowhere? Probably. Will they meet crazy people and get into serious trouble? Definitely. But will they ever be called boring again? Not a chance.

Hello, everyone. We have a 3 suggestions for books to read for August. July is WILD by Cheryl Strayed, already mentioned here on the site. For anyone wanting to suggest books, I refer you to the guidelines for suggestions HERE . Annette has suggested three books from German authors. The first was Swarm by Frank Schätzing; however, it has over 1,000 pages and since we've had trouble getting readers to complete 350 page books in time for the meetings, I asked her to find others that were shorter. Here are the 2 she suggested (in her words): "The first one, WHY WE TOOK THE CAR , is one of the great bestsellers for many month. I've read it and love it but I'm afraid there is no kindle version in English ." [ it actually is available in English and Kindle! ] DESCRIPTION : Mike doesn't get why people think he's boring. Sure, he doesn't have many friends. (OK, zero friends.) And everyone laughs at him when he reads his essays out loud in class. An...

Hello, book clubbers. The book for our July meeting is WILD: A JOURNEY FROM LOST TO FOUND by Cheryl Strayed. I don't know the location yet. I'll send out an email when I do! Here are your links and the description: DESCRIPTIONS ENGLISH : At twenty-six, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother's rapid death from cancer, her family disbanded and her marriage crumbled. With nothing to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to walk eleven-hundred miles of the west coast of America - from the Mojave Desert, through California and Oregon, and into Washington state - and to do it alone. She had no experience of long-distance hiking and the journey was nothing more than a line on a map. But it held a promise - a promise of piecing together a life that lay in ruins at her feet. Strayed's account captures the agonies - both mental and physical - of her incredible journey; how it maddened and terrif...