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In this issue: Book Clubs and a summer reading report.
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We've had some interesting summer reads so far in our book groups. Here's what we thought of the books last month:
- West With the Night by Beryl Markham was a big hit. We were all blown away by what a fantastic writer Markham was. She could paint a picture with a minimum of perfect words. It felt like she was telling us stories over drinks. West With the Night is a complete pleasure to read!
- Twelve Caesars:The Dramatic Lives of the Emperors of Rome by Matthew Dennison, on the other hand, is dreadful beyond words. Dennison managed to take interesting subjects and turn it into a book that is a convoluted, salacious mess.
- Avenue of Mysteries by John Irving was 'thumbs up' with all but a couple members of our group. We think Irving is a masterful writer and a first class story teller. Could have been shorter, but an excellent book overall.
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"Second Tuesday" |
Come to a Book Group.
Our groups are fun and easy. It's even okay if you don't finish the book. Pick a genre: fiction, non-fiction or travel; bring a light pupu or beverage, and enjoy!
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Our Travel and Adventure group: August 16 @6:30pm
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| The Oregon Trail |
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The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey
, by Rinker Buck is our next book. This bestseller has been hailed as a quintessential American story. This is an epic account of traveling the 2,000-mile length of the Oregon Trail the old-fashioned way in a covered wagon with a team of mules that has captivated readers, critics, and booksellers from coast to coast. Simultaneously a majestic journey across the West, a significant work of history, and a moving personal saga, Buck's chronicle is a laugh-out-loud masterpiece that so ensnares the emotions it becomes a tear-jerker at its close, and will leave you daydreaming and hungry to see this land.
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"Just the Facts": our non-fiction group: August 23 @6:00pm
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Empire of Cotton |
Empire of Cotton: A Global History
, by Sven Beckert is our next book. The empire of cotton was, from the beginning, a fulcrum of constant global struggle between slaves and planters, merchants and statesmen, workers and factory owners. Sven Beckert makes clear how these forces ushered in the world of modern capitalism, including the vast wealth and disturbing inequalities that are with us today. In a remarkably brief period, European entrepreneurs and powerful politicians recast the world's most significant manufacturing industry, combining imperial expansion and slave labor with new machines and wage workers to make and remake global capitalism. The result is a book as unsettling as it is enlightening: a book that brilliantly weaves together the story of cotton with how the present global world came to exist.
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"Second Tuesday"- Our fiction group: September 13 @6:30pm
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| The Sympathizer |
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Pulitzer Prize winner,
The Sympathizer by Viet Than Nguyen is next for our fiction group.
It is a sweeping epic of love and betrayal. The narrator, a communist double agent, is a man of two minds, a half-French, half-Vietnamese army captain who arranges to come to America after the Fall of Saigon, and while building a new life with other Vietnamese refugees in Los Angeles is secretly reporting back to his communist superiors in Vietnam. "The Sympathizer" is a blistering exploration of identity and America, a gripping espionage novel, and a powerful story of love and friendship.".
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 Here is what is on President Obama's summer reading list. A very good list, in my opinion (this is Joy).
"London Bookstores Go Rogue as No Wi-Fi Zones"; "We're celebrating human curation over algorithmic rhythms." From the New York Times.
School has started, so to all those great teachers out there: thanks for all you do! Here are "The 11 Best Teachers from Literature" from Brightly.
For a quiz this week, from The Telegraph, "10 questions only well-read people will be able to answer". I got 9 of 10 correct.
Aloha and a hui hou,
Brenda and Joy, owners
Noble, cat
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