The Alliance and August's Pick

So I was super slow at getting the book for May read. I just finished it and I loved it! It was an exciting read and I had a hard time putting it down. I couldn't believe it was only Gerald Lund's second novel. I am a little embarassed to admit this but I've never read "The Work and the Glory" series and this book got me excited to read more of his works. It was fun to read an action/adventure novel written by an LDS author. I love how he did things like "the Major swore and then said..." instead of including the swear word. It made me smile a little. Anyway, here's my cast picks if this ever was turned into a movie. I actually find it a little hard to believe no one has pursued this as a possible movie yet. I think it would be a great one. It was hard to sit and thing of people who would do a good job in these roles. This was the best I could come up with and the only ones I could think of. It was hard to think of someone for Cliff and a few of the other bigger characters. Here's what I picked:

Ben Affleck: Travis

This guy from Mission Impossible 2 (can't remember his name): Clayne

Christopher Walken: The Major (for some reason he always creeps me out in whatever role he's in)

Leonardo DiCaprio: Eric

Jennifer Love Hewett: Nicole What do you think? Who would you have picked?

Now for August's Pick: Austenland by Shannon Hale

Here's an excerpt from her website:

"Jane Hayes is a seemingly normal young New Yorker, but she has a secret. Her obsession with Mr. Darcy, as played by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, is ruining her love life: no real man can compare. But when a wealthy relative bequeaths her a trip to an English resort catering to Austen-crazed women, Jane’s fantasies of meeting the perfect Regency-era gentleman suddenly become realer than she ever could have imagined. Decked out in empire-waist gowns, Jane struggles to master Regency etiquette and flirts with gardeners and gentlemen—or maybe even, she suspects, with the actors who are playing them. It’s all a game, Jane knows. And yet the longer she stays, the more her insecurities seem to fall away, and the more she wonders: Is she about to kick the Austen obsession for good, or could all her dreams actually culminate in a Mr. Darcy of her own?"


You can get it used and new from Amazon starting at $2.47


If any of you have already read this let me know and I'll pick a different one.

Hello? Is anybody here?!

June: The Girl Who Could Fly by Victoria Forester

Stephenie Meyer loved this book and I love Stephenie Meyer so...voilà!

“It’s the oddest/sweetest mix of Little House on the Prairie and X-Men. I was smiling the whole time (except for the part where I cried). I gave it to my mom, and I’m reading it to my kids—it’s absolutely multigenerational. Prepare to have your heart warmed.” —Stephenie Meyer, The Twilight Saga

$11.53 new on Amazon and $8.99+ used.

I'm so bummed I never found a copy of The Alliance. I love that book!

May: The Alliance by Gerald N. Lund

Nancy asked me to post her book choice since she is without internet for a while longer."It's 18 years after the nuclear holocaust and the end of civilization, as we know it. Survivors are being relocated to a new society known as the Alliance. It seems like a dream come true for many of the new citizens. Crime, as well as harmful emotions, such as anger and prejudice have been eliminated, because the Alliance has computerized control over it's citizens from a computer chip that has been implanted in everyone. Eric Lloyd discovers the Alliance's corrupt power structure and vows to destroy it. But can one person change the world?"

This book is available on Amazon but it's listed for $17 for a paperback copy! I found a few other sites where it's available for less just by googling it. Deseret Book and Seagull Book are a good place to look if you want a hardcover for around $18. The book has been around for a long time so hopefully it's available at the library. If it proves very difficult to find for cheap (although it's worth the $18) I know she has another pick - which is the one I was thinking about for June!

Nancy would like to pose a bit of a challenge with this book as well...As we read, she thought it'd be fun to come up with a list of actors we think should play these characters if this book were made into a movie!

Have fun and happy reading!

Mango Thoughts

I'm almost a month late finishing this but I had hardly any time to read last month. I flew through this book this week trying to get it finished before Goodbye, Mr. Chips arrives in my mailbox, and I really think that this book is probably most beneficial when it can be enjoyed slowly. I think I'm going to start over and read one chapter a day so I can really think about how much is being said with so few words.

Like Joanna, I really enjoyed the author's writing style - so eloquent and concise. The bike part cracked me up. What I can't stop thinking about, however, is the chapter titled "Those Who Don't." It's only a paragraph long and yet it hit me hard. It said so much about how we feel about neighborhoods and cultures that are different than our own. I couldn't help but think back on my drive through inner Philly, where I was the minority and where frankly, I was a little scared. Now I wonder about each of those faces that had made me so nervous. What do their neighbors call them? What are they known for?

I was so sad when that stupid boy found Esperanza (to put it in G-rated terms) but love how the book ended.

Completely unrelated: Can you guys believe we've been doing this book club for over two years now?! I just noticed that. My, time flies!

Mango Street Thoughts

Thanks for the new book. I think I saw this one on another book recommendation list so I'm excited about it! On to March's book. After I got through reading it again, I'm pretty sure they should not have let junior high school students read it (or maybe I was in 9th grade). There were parts that I'm sure went over my head at that point so I'm sure it wasn't too big of a deal. Anyway, I still liked it but not as much as I had remembered liking it. There were parts that made me laugh out loud (like when they all went by on the bike and a large woman commented that they had a large load there and her friend made the same comment back to her). I also really like Cisneros' style of writing. She made everything so simple and detailed at the same time. Her writing form is truly an art form. I also did like the stories she told. It was amazing that you could learn so much from one short chapter. We recently moved to a smaller town in Utah County. I love our house but it's kind of in a more run down part of town. I almost felt the same way Esperanza felt when she was describing Mango Street and so it was nice to relate to that. Anyway, there's my thoughts. I'm curious about yours...

April: Goodbye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton

So I've chosen the book for April. I'm sorry it's a little slow in coming... The book I chose is Goodbye, Mr. Chips. It was recommended by my mom and sounded like a good, short read. (That's the kind I gravitate to these days.) I hope you'll all enjoy it! Find it on Amazon here.

Mayflower Review

This is slow in coming, but I wanted to post how much I enjoyed this book. I love history books which is why I majored (although I graduated yet) in history. I havent studied early American history for so long, but I thought this book did a good job of telling the story of what happened to those early settlers. I particularly enjoyed learning a little more about Squanto's role and life story. Im sure glad I was born now when I dont have to struggle to grow all my own crops, or worry about getting the wall around the fort done before the next feared Indian attack! But I am glad for their sacrifice and contributions to this country. The reason why I love to study history is because it gives so much insight into why a group of people are the way they are. Studying the pilgrims gave a lot of insight into why our culture is the way it is today.

The House on Mango Street

Since I'm stuck at home recovering from an emergency appendectomy, I've had a lot of time to think about my book choice. With it being the first day of the month I'd figure it's the perfect time to post my choice. The book I've picked is "House on Mango Street". This book takes me back to junior high. I think I first read it in 7th grade (is that right Nancy?). Anyway, I remember loving it then and I'm looking forward to reading it again. I think I've mentioned before that I love memoirs and this one in particular. You can get it from Amazon starting at $.03. Enjoy!

Marley

Thanks, Joanna, for getting the discussion rolling. I'm not a dog person either but I figured that this book would make me laugh and cry and I love books that move me in some way. My main sentiment at first when I read about Marley's destruction, particularly to the house, was, "I'd KILL that dog!" I mean seriously, I can't even imagine dog boogers all over my walls and lampshades. But then I stepped away from that and realized the endless amounts of laughter and entertainment Marley must have provided the Grogans. My favorite parts of this book - my laugh-out loud moments - were when John described kissing Marley while thinking it was his wife...and then taking him the next day to get fixed, and sledding down the hill with Marley laying on top of him. I cried when I read about Marley dragging himself from to tree after tree in his old age looking for just the right place to pee.

I was grateful that their next dog was more calm, touched by the memories Marley left behind and inspired by the things he taught his owners: live each day with "unbridled exuberance and joy," seize the moment, follow your heart, appreciate the simple things, be optimistic in the face of adversity and unwavering loyalty. Those kinds of lessons are true gifts whenever and however they come.

My Thoughts on Marley

I'm assuming everyone has finished the book so I thought I'd get the ball rolling on everyone's thoughts. When I first heard about the book I immediately thought about the movie and I was a little hesitant because it wasn't a movie I was too interested in seeing. I then remembered seeing Grogan on the Today Show a few years ago and liking his story and was interested in reading the book. After remembering that I was excited to read the book and had a hard time putting it down whenever I picked it up. At first I wasn't sure I'd like it because I'm not too much of a dog person but I realized in the end that it wasn't really a book about his dog. Instead he used his dog to tell his memoirs. I love reading memoirs and so I loved this book. I loved how he made Marley into a person too. It was fun when he would speak for Marley and how he showed Marley's personality throughout the book. One part I really liked was at the end of the book where he made a list of things that Marley taught him. I can't remember the specifics (and I don't have the book anymore) but I know it was a good list. It was fun to watch Marley grow with the family and to see what they were all learning and growing through together. I think that Grogan and his wife matured along with Marley. They all started out young and carefree and grew older and wiser together through different life experiences. So there's my jumbled thoughts. What did you think?

"The Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War" by Nathaniel Philbrick

Sorry I've been slow to post February's book, I've been a little sidetracked I guess.

I love history and am always drawn to non-fiction more than fiction. With that in mind, I'm hoping this isn't a terrible pick for everyone else. I thought it looked interesting...






From The Washington Post: Few periods in American history are as clouded in mythology and romantic fantasy as the Pilgrim settlement of New England. The Mayflower, Plymouth Rock, the first Thanksgiving, Miles Standish, John Alden and Priscilla ("Speak for yourself, John") Mullins -- this is the stuff of legend, and we have thrilled to it for generations. Among many other things, it is what Nathaniel Philbrick calls "a restorative myth of national origins," one that encourages us in the conviction that we are a nation uniquely blessed by God and that we have reached a level of righteousness unattained by any other country.
It is a comforting mythology, but it has little basis in fact. The voyage of the Mayflower was a painful and fatal (one crew member died) transatlantic passage by people who knew nothing about the sea and had "almost no relevant experience when it came to carving a settlement out of the American wilderness." Wherever they first set foot on the American continent, it wasn't Plymouth, and it certainly wasn't Plymouth Rock. The first Thanksgiving (in 1621) was indeed attended by Indians as well as Pilgrims, but they didn't sit at the tidy table depicted in Victorian popular art; they "stood, squatted, or sat on the ground as they clustered around outdoor fires, where the deer and birds turned on wooden spits and where pottages -- stews into which varieties of meats and vegetables were thrown -- simmered invitingly." As for Priscilla Mullins, John Alden and Miles Standish, that tale is nothing more than a product of the imagination of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
These cherished myths, in other words, bear approximately as much resemblance to reality as does, say, the story of George Washington and the cherry tree. In Mayflower, his study of the Pilgrim settlement, Philbrick dispatches them in a few paragraphs. It takes considerably longer, and requires vastly more detail, for him to get closer to the truth about relations between the Pilgrims and the Indians. Popular mythology tends to focus on Massasoit, the chief of the Pokanokets who allied his tribe with the English settlers, and Squanto, the English-speaking Indian who formed a close, mutually rewarding friendship with William Bradford, governor of Plymouth Plantation for three decades. Some of what that mythology tells us is indeed true, but as Philbrick is at pains to demonstrate, the full truth is vastly more complicated.




Buy the book on Amazon starting at $0.76 used.

Reading in '09

Hey everybody!

It's a new year for reading and I can't wait! I'm going to try to beat my page total for last year although we'll see...Ron groans now every time I start a new book. I still have a few books to catch up on from last year and I can't wait to see what you all choose for this year. I was wondering if we could maybe set a deadline for ourselves for posting the book for the coming month - like maybe on a certain day of the month - so we all have time to get it?! (I hope you don't mind Tricia, I took the liberty of assigning the first few months of the year.) Also, we need to figure out how we want to discuss the books we read. I really want to know what you all thought. Post your ideas!

P.S. I'm almost done with Marley & Me and wanted to apologize for the language! I guess that's the risk you take choosing a book you've never read before. Too bad it's so darn funny!

January: Marley and Me by John Grogan

I've been a slacker the last couple of months with this book club so I'm going to do better this year. The Left Behind series has been holding me hostage! I'm also going to take the initiative and pick a book for January - hope you don't mind! If any of you have already read this leave a comment. I've got several other choices!