The Book Club

Book No. 14

2012-03-21T16:15:00.002+10:00

Good evening Clubbers,

We hope that you have enjoyed our last reads and are ready to comment and begin fervent discussion on past and present reads with your fellow literature loving lumberjacks. For now though let's introduce Book No. 14...

The Life Of Pi by Yann Martel

Winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize for Fiction Pi Patel is an unusual boy. The son of a zookeeper, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior, a fervent love of stories, and practices not only his native Hinduism, but also Christianity and Islam. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes. The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional-but is it more true? "Life of Pi" is at once a realistic, rousing adventure and a meta-tale of survival that explores the redemptive power of storytelling and the transformative nature of fiction. It's a story, as one character puts it, to make you believe in God.

Happy, happy reading!

it's nearly time

2012-03-10T13:23:00.003+10:00

... to announce the second read for 2012. In a few short days we will be announcing The Book Club's 14th read. A classic? A modern classic? One that fits an alternative genre?

Stay tuned to find out!

We will also be updating our reading list in the next short while, as there have been plenty of suggestions sent in by our current members. If you have any more - keep them coming! And if you'd like to invite anyone to join, please send us an email

{ thebookclub.est09@gmail.com }

so we can keep them updated and perhaps send them their first read free!

Lastly, while you're pottering around The Book Club page please leave a comment for Love In The Time Of Cholera - let's generate some discussion!

Book No.13

2012-01-14T09:18:00.004+10:00

Welcome back to The Book Club!

After a bit of a fizzier in 2011, we're ready to make 2012 a year full to the brim of great reads, to nourish the mind and of course the imagination!

The first book off the shelf this year is ::

Love In The Time Of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Gabriel García Márquez's Love in the Time of Cholera is a brilliantly crafted, beautifully written story of love and the love-sick. Spurned as a young man, Florentino Ariza has a half century of waiting to fill before a chance to redeclare his love for Fermina Daze comes, when her husband is killed retrieving a parrot from a mango tree. Funny, poignant and heartfelt - enduring and unrequited love have rarely been more movingly expressed.

Sink your teeth into this one my literature loving fiends. Be sure to comment and keep your fellow bookworms enthralled with your insights, views and or next reading suggestions!

Book No. 12

2011-06-08T21:59:00.010+10:00

It is June, and finally, we're pleased to announce our second read of 2011 and our twelfth book in the history of The Book Club... the all-time classic ::

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

'Shoot all the bluejays you want,

if you can hit 'em,

but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'

Atticus Finch gives this advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of this classic novel - a black man charged with attacking a white girl. Through the eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Lee explores the issues of race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s with compassion and humour. She also creates one of the great heroes if literature in their father, whose lone struggle for justice pricks the conscience of a town steeped in prejudice and hypocrisy.

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE

"No one ever forgets this book"

Independent

Moral Illumination :: Quote Of The Week

2011-02-11T14:11:00.001+10:00

“The greatest gift is a passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you the knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination.” - Elizabeth Hardwick

No Advantage :: Quote Of The Week

2011-02-04T14:05:00.003+10:00

“The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.” - Mark Twain

A charming echo :: Quote Of The Week

2011-01-28T13:52:00.004+10:00

“The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones but in the echoes of our hearts.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Quote Of The Week

2011-01-21T10:20:00.004+10:00

“From every book invisible threads reach out to other books; and the mind comes to use and control those threads the whole panorama of the world’s life, past and present, becomes constantly more varied and interesting, while at the same time the mind’s own powers of reflection and judgment are exercised and strengthened.” - Helen E. Haines

{I think we're onto a good thing...}

Happy reading!

Book No. 11

2011-01-14T15:41:00.003+10:00

The Time Traveler's Wife is the love story of Henry and Clare DeTamble, a young married couple living in Chicago. Their lives together are complicated by a mystifying and exasperating genetic condition that causes Henry to involuntarily time travel. While Clare is left wondering if the man she always knew she would marry is safe from harm, Henry is taken on journies that are unpredictable, and alternately harrowing and amusing. While Henry strains to live as normal a life as he can, pursuing goals that will be familiar to most — a steady job, love, good friends, children of his own — Clare has always known that their love was pre-destined, having already met Henry as a young girl when he would timetravel from their present to her past before they met.

Their bizarre life and the challenges they face are the same burdens that ultimately we all must deal with the inability to have control over their lives. However, what Henry's affliction does provide them is a glimpse to their final hours and to the novel's breathtaking ending. The TimeTraveler's Wife is a story about adoration, separation, and ultimately about how time defines so much in our lives.

Happy New Year & Book No. 11

2011-01-12T12:01:00.010+10:00

Happy New Year clubbers!

Trusting that you've all had a safe and happy holiday season, it's time for a much needed update! Because everyone is so busy individually, let alone with a book club we're going to aim to read four books this year and potentially have the same amount of Book Club meetings - virtual or in person.

We'd LOVE to see more commenting on the blog and more members. Invite your friends, family, colleagues - anyone. The great incentive we applied last year still stands, and that is that every new member gets a copy of the current read sent to them for free.

Last year Casey and Teresa benefited from this generous incentive, so we implore you to rope in your hombrés and take full advantage!

The invitation to suggest new books to the book club reading list is also open. So please email thebookclub.est09@gmail.com or tweet us here with your titles.

Our Book No. 11, number one read for this year is the enchanting novel

The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenger.

We also plan to share many interesting, bookish facts and current happenings within the literary world.

So stay tuned, and expand your minds!

Book No. 10

2010-10-06T17:27:00.005+10:00

A teenage girl confronts the crises of growing up -- some typical, some unusual -- in this drama. Josie is the 17-year-old daughter of Christina Alibrandi, a single mother and member of a large extended family of Sicilian immigrants living in Sydney, Australia.

While Josie loves her mother, she's grown weary of her strict family, especially her grandmother Nonna Katia. The fact that her relatives still have issues with Christina raising her child out of wedlock hasn't made Josie's life any easier.

A good student, Josie has earned a scholarship at a top private school, where she has to deal with Carly, a racist who often taunts Josie for her Sicilian heritage. Josie is also suffering from the tribulations of teenage romance, as she finds herself attracted to both clean-cut John and working class Jacob.

Meanwhile, the house is abuzz over a visit from Michael, who Josie soon learns is Christina's old flame -- and her father. Looking for Alibrandi was based on a novel for young people by Melina Marchetta, which was a major best-seller in Australia. Marchetta also wrote the screenplay for this film adaptation.

Clubber Number Nine

2010-07-29T21:12:00.005+10:00

This month we've welcomed two new members to The Book Club -- Casey Castro and Teresa, both from Australia. We love new members, and in staying true to our word (a new incentive) these two lovely ladies have and/or are recieving the current 'read' -

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates.

And so a big welcome goes out to you!

Know of anyone else who'd like to join us 'literature loving lumberjacks?

Shoot me us an email at thebookclub.est09@gmail.com OR follow us on twitter.

Of all TIME

2010-07-01T11:39:00.005+10:00

As posted by TIME magazine, we present you with what TIME critics, Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo, consider to be the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to now.

Some of them are on the current Book Club list (these are highlighted), and we implore you to suggest more if you have one you're dying to share with us literature-loving lumberjacks.

{We've also included a link to out Book Club listed books to the BookDepository, where the prices are fabulous and it's free-shipping WORLDWIDE!}

Read on!

1984 by George Orwell

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell

A Death in the Family by James Agee

A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh

A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul

A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren

American Pastoral by Philip Roth

An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume

At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O’Brien

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Call It Sleep by Henry Roth

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather

Deliverance by James Dickey

Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone

Falconer by John Cheever

Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

Herzog by Saul Bellow

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

I, Claudius by Robert Graves

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Light in August by William Faulkner

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Loving by Henry Green

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

Money by Martin Amis

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Naked Lunch by William Burroughs

Native Son by Richard Wright

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion

Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth

Possession by A.S. Byatt

Rabbit, Run by John Updike

Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow

Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow

The Assistant by Bernard Malamud

The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West

The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen

The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Heart is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead

The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

The Recognitions by William Gaddis

The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles

The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

The Sportswriter by Richard Ford

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John le Carre

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

Ubik by Philip K. Dick

Under the Net by Iris Murdoch

Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry

Watchmen by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

White Noise by Don DeLillo

White Teeth by Zadie Smith

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

A New Incentive

2010-06-23T23:55:00.003+10:00

Because we'd really like our Book Club to take off (we mean jetset into the stratosphere) and for all our current members to entice their willing friends ever so nicely to join us, we've come up with a new incentive.

drum roll please...

For every new member that joins The Book Club (from now on) will receive the current book free, sent to them ASAP - just because we want you to love the written word as much as us.

Tell your friends. Hurry!

Book No. 9 - June 2010

2010-06-15T12:14:00.002+10:00

Hailed as a masterpiece from the moment of its first publication, "Revolutionary Road" is the story of Frank and April Wheeler, a bright, beautiful, and talented couple whose empty suburban life is held together by the dream that greatness is only just round the corner.

With heartbreaking compassion and clarity, Richard Yates shows how Frank and April mortgage their hopes and ideals, betraying in the end not only each other, but their own best selves.

Book No. 8 - May 2010

2010-05-11T21:12:00.005+10:00

Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away. The earth has been invaded by a species that takes over the minds of their human hosts, 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 she did not expect that Melanie would refuse to relinquish possession of her mind.

Melanie fills Wanderer's thoughts with vision of the man she 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.

Book No. 7 - April 2010

2010-04-09T23:06:00.003+10:00

With a sharp eye for comic detail and a wicked ear for the absurdities of life, Dawn French shows just how and RAF girl from the West Country with dreams of becoming a ballerina/air hostess/bridesmaid/thief rose to become of the best-loved actresses of our time.
Here she reveals the people, experiences and obsessions that have influenced her and, for the first time, shares her experience of losing her beloved dad and later finding a tip-topmost chap in Lenny Henry.

From hailing the virtues of grandmas, David Cassidy and stealing, to describing the highs and lows of family and friendship, Dear Fatty reveals the surprising life behind the smile.

Book No.6 - January 2010

2010-01-27T23:22:00.003+10:00

'You are here for the rest of your life. Do you understand? You are not leaving Iran. You are here until you die.'

Betty Mahmoody and her husband, Dr Sayyed Bozorg Mahmoody ('Moody'), came to Iran from the USA to meet Moody's family. With them was their four-year-old daughter, Mahtob. Appalled by the squalor of their living conditions, horrified by what she saw of a country where women are merely chattels and Westerners are despised, Betty soon became desperate to return to the States. But Moody, and his often vicious family, had other plans. Mother and daughter became prisoners of an alien culture, hostages of an increasing tyrannical and violent man.

Eventually, Betty was given the name of a man who would plan their perilous route out of Iran, a journey that few women or children had ever made. Their nightmare attempt to return home began in a bewildering snowstorm...

an interactive monument

2010-01-27T17:12:00.003+10:00

For all those Anne Frank enthusiasts here is a website you should visit. Her legacy still lives on.

http://www.annefranktree.com

feeling the pulse?

2010-01-21T15:10:00.005+10:00

The Bestseller's List, as of this very second.

Hardcover Fiction

Top Five at a glance

1. The Help - Kathryn Stockett

2. The Lost Symbol - Dan Brown

3. Noah's Compass - Anne Tyler

4. Impact - Douglas Preston

5. I, Alex Cross - James Patterson

Paperback Trade Fiction
Top Five at a glance
1. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
2. A Reliable Wife - Robert Goolrick
3. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Steig Larsson
4. Push - Sapphire
5. Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout

Paperback Mass-Market Fiction

Top Five at a glance

1. The Devil's Punchbowl - Greg Iles

2. Dear John - Nicholas Sparks

3. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

4. Plum Spooky - Janet Evanovich

5. Street Game - Christine Feehan

Paperback Non-Fiction
Top Five at a glance
1. The Blind Side - Michael Lewis
2. Three Cups Of Tea - Greg Mortenson and David Oliver
3. Eat, Pray, Love - ELizabeth Gilbert
4. Are you there, vodka? It's me, Chelsea - Chelsea Handler
5. I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell - Tucker Max

Children's Books

Top Five at a glance

1. Lego Star Wars - Simon Beechcroft

2. Waddle! - written and illustrated by Rufus Butler Seder

3. Skippyjon Jones, Lost In Spice - written and illustrated by Judy Schachner

4. Gallop! - written and illustrated by Rufus Butler Seder

5. The Lion And The Mouse - Jerry Pinkney

Graphic Books
Top Five at a glance
1. The Book Of Genesis: Illustrated - R. Crumb
2. The Stand: American Nightmares - Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Mike Perkins
3. Batman: Battle For The Cowl - Tony Daniel
4. Dark Tower: Treachery - Peter David and Robin Furth
5. Wolverine: Old Man Logan - Mark Millar and Steve McNiven

Are we on the pulse? Any suggestions, opinions or reviews?

book no. 5 - january 2010

2010-01-20T13:42:00.004+10:00

'12th June, 1942: I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support.'

In Amsterdam, in the summer of 1942, the Nazis forced teenager Anne Frank and her family into hiding. For over two years, they, another family and a German dentist lived in a 'secret annexe', fearing discovery. All that time, Anne kept a diary.

An intimate record of tension and struggle, adolescence and confinement, anger and heartbreak, this is the definitive edition of the diary of Anne Frank.

book no. 4 - september 2009

2010-01-20T13:17:00.003+10:00

an angel at my table is the second book of Janet Frame's three-volume autobiography, first published in the 1980s and described by Michael Holroyd as 'one of the greatest autobiographies written this century'. It follows her life as a student and years of incarceration in mental hospitals.

In 1984, it won the Non-fiction Prize of the New Zealand Book Awards.

Janet Frame was born in Dunedin in 1924. She was the author of eleven novels, five collections of stories, a volume of poetry and a children's book. She was a Burns Scholar and Sargeson Fellow, and won the New Zealand Scholarship in Letters and the Hubert Church Award for Prose. She was made a CBE in 1983 for services to literature, awarded and honorary doctorate of literature from Otago University in 1978, and one from Waikato University in 1992. She recieved New Zealand's highest civil honour 1990 when she was made a Member of the Order of New Zealand. Janet Frame died in January 2004.

book no.3 - august 2009

2010-01-20T13:05:00.003+10:00

Oliver Twist was born in a workhouse and lives there until the day he pleads for more gruel. Cast out into a harsh world, Oliver is taught to survive in London by Fagin and his gang of thieves. But can wits alone overcome poverty on the dangerous city streets?

book no.2 - june 2009

2010-01-20T12:51:00.002+10:00

Eighteen-year-old Ram has just got twelve questions correct on a TV quiz show to win a cool one billion rupees.

Q: So why is he sitting in a prison cell?

A: Because the producers have arrested him for cheating.

Q: How can a street-kid from a Mumbai slum know who Shakespeare was if he has never been to school?

Read this book and find out.

Following the order of the twelve questions on the show, Ram tells us which amazing episode in his life taught him the answer to the question. From orphanages to brothels, gangsters to beggar-masters, and into the homes of Bollywood's rich and famous, Slumdog Millionaire brims with the comedy, tragedy, joy and pathos of modern India.

book no.1 - may 2009

2010-01-20T12:40:00.001+10:00

As a young boy growing up in pre-Soviet Afghanistan, Amir befriends his servant's son, Hassan. Occupying polar ends of Kabul's social hierarchy, the two boys nevertheless play together and defend each other against neighbourhood bullies. However, during Kabul's annual kite-fighting tournament in the winter of 1975, Amir takes advantage of Hassan's guileless devotion and commits as terrible act of betrayal against him.

THE KITE RUNNER takes listeners on a psychological and spiritual journey with Amir as he becomes a man forced to face the far-reaching, tragic consequences of his disloyalty. Set amidst a culture and a country that existed before the Soviets, before the Taliban, before al Qaeda, and before the U.S invasion, "The Kite Runner" is an enthralling and totally absorbing story about fathers and sons, sin and atonement, injustice and the human yearning for redemption.