April 24, 2016 Meeting at Carol's Log House

Created by Ann S.

At the end of a dead-end dirt road in Thornton is a log cabin set back from the road. The River Run book group met there on Sunday to discuss Madness, Medicine and Murder.  Once again we were a small happy group.  Our hostess Carol, invited us into a wonderful warm sunny home where we enjoyed hors d'oeuvres, wine, a great soup provided by Kathy - and the smell of flowers from Claire’s garden. 

The book for discussion was Destiny of the Republic, interesting but not one that led to varied opinions. However, we strongly disagreed with the author’s statement that Chester Arthur enacted the Civil Service Act changing government appointments from being gifts to being positions won by merit. Ambassadorships today are still handed out as gifts – for instance Caroline Kennedy’s current appointment.  Does her background as a lawyer and sitting on various boards qualify her as ambassador to Japan? (Does she speak Japanese?)

Our prior knowledge re President Garfield could be described as limited and some interesting info re Alexander Graham Bell was new.  So, we now know…the original task of the Secret Service was to stop forgery; and security for U.S. Presidents did not come until after McKinley’s assassination in 1901; and it was 80 years after Garfield’s death before the country ratified the 25^th amendment re transfer of power to the vice president.

Thanks Carol – it was great to see the log cabin again!

May Meeting:             Sunday, May 22 (29^th being Memorial Day)

Place:                          Judy has volunteered to host

Book:                          The Last Policeman by Ben Winters

June Meeting:             Sunday, June 19  - Vote to change date was taken/accepted.

                                    (6 of us will be in Iceland on 25th.  The 19^th is Father’s day.)

Book:                          “Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman”  by Kate Larson.

                                    (Kathy mentioned e-book available on Amazon for 99 cents)

Place:                          To be determined.

Celia's Book Suggestion for July, 2016

At our May meeting, we will vote on Celia's suggestions.  They are:

Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda
Secret Daughter, a first novel by Shilpi Somaya Gowda, explores powerfully and poignantly the emotional terrain of motherhood, loss, identity, and love through the experiences of two families—one Indian, one American—and the child that binds them together. A masterful work set partially in the Mumbai slums so vividly portrayed in the hit film Slumdog Millionaire, Secret Daughter recalls the acclaimed novels of Kim Edwards and Thrity Umrigar, yet sparkles with the freshness of a truly exciting new literary voice.  Available from Amazon for $ .01 plus $3.99 postage.

 

A Place of Execution by Val McDermid

On a freezing day in December 1963, Alison Carter vanishes from her rural village, an insular community that distrusts the outside world. For the young George Bennett, a newly promoted inspector, it is the beginning of his most difficult and harrowing case--a suspected murder with no body, an investigation with more dead ends and closed faces than he'd have found in the anonymity of the inner city, and an outcome that reverberates through the years.
Decades later Bennett finally tells his story to journalist Catherine Heathcote, but just when the book is poised for publication, he unaccountably tries to pull the plug. He has new information that he refuses to divulge, new information which threatens the very foundations of his existence. Catherine is forced to reinvestigate the past, with results that turn the world upside down.
A Greek tragedy in modern England, Val McDermid's A Place of Execution is a taut psychological thriller that explores, exposes, and explodes the border between reality and illusion in a multi-layered narrative that turns expectation on its head and reminds us that what we know is what we do not know.
A Place of Execution is winner of the 2000 Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a 2001 Edgar Award Nominee for Best Novel. Made into a Masterpiece Movie.  Available from Amazon for $ .01 plus $3.99 postage.

Me before You

Synopsis

They had nothing in common until love gave them everything to lose.

Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life—steady boyfriend, close family—who has never been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex–Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after an accident. Will has always lived a huge life—big deals, extreme sports, worldwide travel—and now he’s pretty sure he cannot live the way he is.

 

Will is acerbic, moody, bossy—but Lou refuses to treat him with kid gloves, and soon his happiness means more to her than she expected. When she learns that Will has shocking plans of his own, she sets out to show him that life is still worth living.

 

A Love Story for this generation, Me Before You brings to life two people who couldn’t have less in common—a heartbreakingly romantic novel that asks, What do you do when making the person you love happy also means breaking your own heart? (From the publisher.

 

The Art in the Rain of Racing

The novel follows the story of Denny Swift, a race car driver and customer representative in a high-end Seattle auto dealership, and his dog Enzo, who believes in the Mongolian legend that a dog who is prepared will be reincarnated in his next life as a human. Enzo sets out to prepare, with The Seattle Times calling his journey "a struggle to hone his humanness, to make sense of the good, the bad and the unthinkable."[2]

 

Enzo spends most of his days watching and learning from television, gleaning what he can about his owner's greatest passion, race car driving — and relating it to life. Enzo eventually plays a key role in Denny's child-custody battle with his in-laws, and distills his observations of the human condition in the mantra "that which you manifest is before you." Enzo helps Denny throughout his life, through his ups and downs.

 

                                   

Fates and Furies

Fates and Furies is a 2015 novel by American author Lauren Groff.[1] It is Groff's third novel and fourth book. The book takes place in New York, and is essentially about how the different people in a relationship can have disparate views on the relationship. It has drawn many comparisons to the novel Gone Girl, based on its themes, structure, and the dominance of the female in the key relationship of the plot.[2] It is narrated first by the husband, Lancelot (Lotto), and subsequently by the wife, Mathilde. The novel was widely and highly praised by critics, with only a few occasional negative remarks focusing on moments of implausibility in the novel's second half.[3][4][5][6] It was perhaps the most talked about English-language novel of 2015, and was on more critics' end-of-year lists than any other.[2]

 

 

 

 

 

Carol's Book Suggestions for our June 2016 Meeting

BOUND FOR THE PROMISED LAND: HARRIET TUBMAN PORTRAIT OF AN AMERICAL HERO

Author: Kate Clifford Lawson, 2004. 440 pages

Harriet Tubman is one of the giants of American history—a fearless visionary who led scores of her fellow slaves to freedom and battled courageously behind enemy lines during the Civil War. And yet in the nine decades since her death, next to nothing has been written about this extraordinary woman aside from juvenile biographies. The truth about Harriet Tubman has become lost inside a legend woven of racial and gender stereotypes. Now at last, in this long-overdue biography, historian Kate Clifford Larson gives Harriet Tubman the powerful, intimate, meticulously detailed life she deserves.

Drawing from a trove of new documents and sources as well extensive genealogical research, Larson reveals Tubman as a complex woman— brilliant, shrewd, deeply religious, and passionate in her pursuit of freedom. The descendant of the vibrant, matrilineal Asanti people of the West African Gold Coast, Tubman was born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of Maryland but refused to spend her life in bondage. While still a young woman she embarked on a perilous journey of self-liberation—and then, having won her own freedom, she returned again and again to liberate family and friends, tapping into the Underground Railroad.

Yet despite her success, her celebrity, her close ties with Northern politicians and abolitionists, Tubman suffered crushing physical pain and emotional setbacks. Stripping away myths and misconceptions, Larson presents stunning new details about Tubman’s accomplishments, personal life, and influence, including her relationship with Frederick Douglass, her involvement with John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, and revelations about a young woman who may have been Tubman’s daughter. Here too are Tubman’s twilight years after the war, when she worked for women’s rights and in support of her fellow blacks, and when racist politicians and suffragists marginalized her contribution.

Harriet Tubman, her life and her work, remain an inspiration to all who value freedom. Now, thanks to Larson’s breathtaking biography, we can finally appreciate Tubman as a complete human being—an American hero, yes, but also a woman who loved, suffered, and sacrificed. Bound for the Promised Land is a magnificent work of biography, history, and truth telling.

GAINING GROUND; A STORY OF FARMERS MARKETS, LOCAL FOOD & SOLVING THE FAMILY FARM.

Author: Forrest Pritchard 2013 320 pages nonfiction
One fateful day in 1996, after discovering that five freight cars' worth of glittering corn have reaped a tiny profit of $18.16, young Forrest Pritchard vows to save his family's farm. What ensues--through hilarious encounters with all manner of livestock and colorful local characters--is a crash course in sustainable agriculture. Pritchard's biggest ally is his renegade father, who initially questions his son's career choice and rejects organic foods for sugary mainstream fare. But just when the farm starts to turn heads at local farmers' markets, his father's health takes a turn for the worse. With poetry and humor, this inspiring memoir tugs on the heartstrings and feeds the soul long after the last page is turned.

GEEK LOVE by Katherine Dunn 368 pages, 2002 fiction

Geek Love is the story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater- and paterfamilias set out–with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes–to breed their own exhibit of human oddities. There’s Arturo the Aquaboy, who has flippers for limbs and a megalomaniac ambition worthy of Genghis Khan . . . Iphy and Elly, the lissome Siamese twins . . . albino hunchback Oly, and the outwardly normal Chick, whose mysterious gifts make him the family’s most precious–and dangerous–asset.

As the Binewskis take their act across the backwaters of the U.S., inspiring fanatical devotion and murderous revulsion; as its members conduct their own Machiavellian version of sibling rivalry, Geek Love throws its sulfurous light on our notions of the freakish and the normal, the beautiful and the ugly, the holy and the obscene. Family values will never be the same.

SAME KIND OF DIFFERENT AS ME: A MODERN-DAY SLAVE, AN INTERNATIONAL ART DEALER; AND THE UNLIKELY WOMAN WHO BOUND THEM TOGETHER. author: Ron Hall 2008. 245 PAGES nonfiction

A dangerous, homeless drifter who grew up picking cotton in virtual slavery. An upscale art dealer accustomed to the world of Armani and Chanel. A gutsy woman with a stubborn dream. A story so incredible no novelist would dare dream it.

It begins outside a burning plantation hut in Louisiana . . . and an East Texas honky-tonk . . . and, without a doubt, in the heart of God. It unfolds in a Hollywood hacienda . . . an upscale New York gallery . . . a downtown dumpster . . . a Texas ranch.

Gritty with pain and betrayal and brutality, this true story also shines with an unexpected, life-changing love.

ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY author David Sedaris, 2001, 272 pages short personal stories

Sedaris is Garrison Keillor's evil twin: like the Minnesota humorist, Sedaris (Naked) focuses on the icy patches that mar life's sidewalk, though the ice in his work is much more slippery and the falls much more spectacularly funny than in Keillor's. Many of the 27 short essays collected here (which appeared originally in the New Yorker, Esquire and elsewhere) deal with his father, Lou, to whom the book is dedicated. Lou is a micromanager who tries to get his uninterested children to form a jazz combo and, when that fails, insists on boosting David's career as a performance artist by heckling him from the audience. Sedaris suggests that his father's punishment for being overly involved in his kids' artistic lives is David's brother Paul, otherwise known as "The Rooster," a half-literate miscreant whose language is outrageously profane. Sedaris also writes here about the time he spent in France and the difficulty of learning another language. After several extended stays in a little Norman village and in Paris, Sedaris had progressed, he observes, "from speaking like an evil baby to speaking like a hillbilly. 'Is thems the thoughts of cows?' I'd ask the butcher, pointing to the calves' brains displayed in the front window." But in English, Sedaris is nothing if not nimble: in one essay he goes from his cat's cremation to his mother's in a way that

ANIMAL VEGETABLE MIRACLE author: Barbara Kingsolver, 2008 400 pages nonfiction

Author Barbara Kingsolver and her family abandoned the industrial-food pipeline to live a rural life—vowing that, for one year, they’d only buy food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is an enthralling narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat.