{Reading Schedule Fall 2010 - June 2011}

Here it is.  Now you can plan ahead and make sure you've got your mitts on all these delicious reads with plenty of time to finish by book club! (And even if you don't, we want you to join us anyway!)

SEPTEMBER

Our September book will be The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  Book Club will be Thursday, September 16 @ 7:00.  Location announced in RS!

OCTOBER

Kristin Lavransdattar, The Wreath, by Sigird Undset.  What, you may ask, is this book?  I can tell you this, some of my most trusted reading friends have highly recommended this book.  I can also tell you this is the first book in a trilogy (The Wreath, The Wife, and The Cross) that follows Kristin’s life from girlhood through the end.  This book gives a complete and descriptive account of life in 14th century Norway.  It covers the religion, government, culture, social customs, clothing, food, celebrations, and Undset's writing allows the reader to be right there, seeing it all unfold. Make sure you get the translation by Tina Nunnally, (Penguin Classics has the entire trilogy, and the covers are beautiful) because other translations have taken sections out.

NOVEMBER

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

DECEMBER

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

A return to something classic and familiar.  December is such a busy month for most of us, I figured how about we read something short, moving, uplifting, and seasonal?  After all, Christmas comes but once a year! 

JANUARY 2011

Spiritual Lightening, M. Catherine Thomas

Let's start 2011 off right with some spiritual food -- just the foundation we'll need as we plow ahead trying to meet all our goals for the year!  Challenges are a necessary part of mortality. But as author M. Catherine Thomas points out, the suffering that accompanies challenges can be lessened and our joy increased through a more informed faith. Her concepts of "spiritual lightening" suggests that spiritual principles and powers can both enlighten minds and lighten burdens.

Practical as well as refreshingly insightful, this book illuminates many of those principles. Working from a base of solid gospel scholarship and personal experience, the author discusses such topics as the difference between self-confidence and confidence in God, overcoming spiritual discouragement, women and the priesthood, separating fear from love in parenting, and healing through repentance. This thought-provoking book points the way to deeper understanding, personal peace, and joy in the Lord Jesus Christ.

FEBRUARY

Pride and Prejudice or Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen

                       Pride and Prejudice                                  Northanger Abbey

Something romantic to get us in the mood for Valentine's day!  Pride and Prejudice won our poll last year for the Austen novel most in our club wanted to read.  However, I can tell you that Northanger Abbey is just as wonderful rarely gets the attention it deserves.  If you're like me and have read Pride and Prejudice a dozen times, then it's time to try Northanger Abbey on for size.  Or, if you're a sucker for Mr. Darcy and just can't get enough (believe me, I completely understand) then dive into Austen's most popular novel, Pride and Prejudice.  Both have a strong heroine who won't disappoint, a fortune at stake, a good dose of scandal, and a dashing and an eligible bachelor whose heart will be forever won be one lucky lady.  Either way, you'll love the language, the customs, and the romance. And it would be splendid to discuss the two together. 

MARCH

Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt

Imagine coming upon a fountain of youth in a forest. To live forever--isn't that everyone's ideal? For the Tuck family, eternal life is a reality, but their reaction to their fate is surprising. Award winner Natalie Babbitt (Knee-Knock Rise, The Search for Delicious) outdoes herself in this sensitive, moving adventure in which 10-year-old Winnie Foster is kidnapped, finds herself helping a murderer out of jail, and is eventually offered the ultimate gift--but doesn't know whether to accept it. Babbitt asks profound questions about the meaning of life and death, and leaves the reader with a greater appreciation for the perfect cycle of nature. Intense and powerful, exciting and poignant, Tuck Everlasting will last forever--in the reader's imagination. An ALA Notable Book.

APRIL

Mount Vernon Love Story, Mary Higgins Clark

Mount Vernon Love Story was the first novel written by Mary Higgins Clark, the bestselling author of twenty-two novels that have made her America's Queen of Suspense.
The role of leader came naturally to George Washington, the man revered as "the father of his Country." But when it came to the social aspects of life in the mid-18th century, he was both awkward and insecure. It was only through the love of a woman that he found the happiness that gave real meaning to his life.
In matters of the heart, Washington initially stumbles when he falls in love with Sally Wilcox, his best friend's young bride. But Sally is understanding, and sets out to teach George the art of social graces. When he finds himself attracted to Martha Custis -- a young widow with two children -- he summons the courage to ask her to marry him.
As depicted by Clark, their marriage was not without conflict. Their love was strong, and it endured long months of separation and the many dangers that Washington's role as leader of the Army entailed. At the end of his long career, when he and Martha return to Mount Vernon, the fire of their love burns just as brightly as when he took her there as his new bride.
Charming, insightful, and immensely entertaining in its unique presentation of one of America's legendary figures, Mount Vernon Love Story brings alive the man behind the legend, a man of flesh, blood, and passion.

MAY

To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee

Lawyer Atticus Finch defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic, Puliter Prize-winning novel—a, a black man charged with the rape of a white woman. Through the eyes of Atticus's children, Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with rich humor and unanswering honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s.

JUNE 

Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury

World-renowned fantasist Ray Bradbury has on several occasions stepped outside the arenas of horror, fantasy & science fiction. An unabashed romantic, his first novel in 1957 was basically a love letter to his childhood. (For those who want to undertake an even more evocative look at the dark side of youth, five years later the author would write the chilling classic Something Wicked This Way Comes.) Dandelion Wine takes us into the summer of 1928, & to all the wondrous & magical events in the life of a 12-year-old Midwestern boy named Douglas Spaulding. This tender, openly affectionate story of a young man's voyage of discovery is certainly more mainstream than exotic. No walking dead or spaceships to Mars here. Yet those who wish to experience the unique magic of early Bradbury as a prose stylist should find Dandelion Wine most refreshing.--Stanley Wiater 

*Thanks to goodreads.com for book images and synopses.

{FALL in LOVE with BOOKS -- AND BE A HOSTESS!}

Hey reading ladies!  After a wonderful summer of heat, sunshine, swimming, vacations, and lots of time with family, I know I'm feeling the need to slow down, get back into a routine, and cool off! Summer still may be gracing us with its extremely hot presence, but it we just can't help to anticipate cool (and gusty) winds, pumpkins, curling up with a cup of hot cocoa, a crackling fireplace,  and of course, a really good book!  Ready to FALL in love with some great reads?  Me too!

Now, another item of business is where we will hold Book Club.  Ladies, we need more volunteers to host us!  Instead of having the hostess also prepare refreshments, unless you want to, we can have sign-ups for others to bring the refreshments -- take some of the load off our most hospitable hostesses.  We don't want to resort to having our fun, cozy book clubs in the RS room.  We'd like to keep them in a home, true book club style.  So please, volunteer to host book club now and then!  We need your help!  We can't meet without you!  Book Club is always the 3rd Thursday of the month.  

Don't forget to leave comments suggesting other books you'd like to read in book club.  I'm formulating a list for the rest of the year (and maybe into 2011, we'll see.)  I will take all suggestions and try to keep a good variety going.  We'd like this blog to be your go-to for all your book club questions and info!  Feel free to contact me with any other questions or suggestions.

Happy reading!