Feature Friday (long post)

Hello Ladies!

2.5 hours from a sunny weekend. What are you all up to? What are you reading? I finished Edgar Sawtelle last night. I must confess to some "skimming" of the last 100 pages. It was a long one. Looking forward to your reviews.

I guess we should start thinking about a June meeting. Where did the month go...seriously. Candice, still up for hosting?

So for Feature Friday I had a hard time coming up with a new book! How odd. I skimmed the New York Times Best Seller List and didn't come up with much. Not interested in Hard Cover...though our Chuck Palahniuk's Pygmy sits at #3.

The Paperback Fiction List is as follows:

1. VISION IN WHITE, by Nora Roberts (not a huge fan)
2. THE SHACK, by William P. Young (read it)
3. THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY, by Mary Ann Shaffer (read it)
4. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith (Jane Austen bores me to death...but what is this about "Zombies"??)
5. CITY OF THIEVES, by David Benioff (a gripping, cinematic World War II adventure and an intimate coming-of-age story with an utterly contemporary feel for how boys become men - I think I've had my fill of coming of age from Edgar Sawtelle. Not knocking Edgar...but I need something else right now)

PAPERBACK NONFICTION
Top 5 at a Glance
1. THREE CUPS OF TEA, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (Reading in a couple months)
2. AUDITION, by Barbara Walters (WHO CARES!?)
3. LONE SURVIVOR, by Marcus Luttrell with Patrick Robinson (Navy Seal Afghanistan story - note to self BD might enjoy this)
4. IN DEFENSE OF FOOD, by Michael Pollan (Pollan proposes a new answer to the question of what we should eat that comes down to seven simple but liberating words: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." -- Oh so this book is Rocket Science. No thanks.)
5. EAT, PRAY, LOVE, by Elizabeth Gilbert (Read it)

So I turned to the Globe and Mail Best Seller List to see what us Canucks are reading...
Paperback Fiction
1 Angels and Demons, Dan Brown (read it -- going to see the Big Screen adaptation tonight)
2 The Book Of Negroes, Lawrence Hill (Candice highly recommends!!! On my list)
3 Sail, James Patterson and Howard Roughan (some mass market paperback high suspense and drama...could be a pretty good beach read)
4 Phantom Prey, John Sandford (sounds like a horror movie, in print)
5 The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (read it)

Paperback Non Fiction
1 Three Cups Of Tea, Greg Mortenson (reading in a couple months)
2 Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali
3 Dreams From My Father, Barack Obama (Obama? Really? Canadians are reading 'Bama stories but not Americans?)
4 Audition: A Memoir, Barbara Walters (REALLY? People care?)
5 The Audacity Of Hope, Barack Obama (We LOVE Obama I guess)

So I found my Feature. Infidel by Ayann Hirsi Ali. It had caught my attention during a peek through Coles last week. Not surprisingly, it's one of Heather's Picks. Should I invite Heather to join our club? I think she'd get along great.

In this profoundly affecting memoir from the internationally renowned author of The Caged Virgin, Ayaan Hirsi Ali tells her astonishing life story, from her traditional Muslim childhood in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya, to her intellectual awakening and activism in the Netherlands, and her current life under armed guard in the West...to read more click here

Twi-hards

I picked up Twilight again at lunch and read two paragraphs before throwing it across my office. I just don't get the hype. It is highly unusual for me not to finish a book, but I can't waste any more time on it. I listed it on our bulletin board at work

FREE TWILIGHT BOOKin office 1098

7 minutes later a girl came a knockin'. 7 MINUTES! She said "Why are you giving it away?!" All wide-eyed, incredulous. I'm like, freak girl, tell me you are not taking it and have already read the enourmous piece of drivel once. Yes, she had. She intends to read it...again ...and again. Sheesh.

Happy Long Weekend

Hey Ladies,
Fun book club at the Diner last week! We missed Jasmine...I think the consensus on A Wolf at the Table was that there was a direct relationship between liking the book and beleiving the author. Those that were genuinely afraid for that little boy liked it, and those that thought it was a "tall tale" didn't think it was so great. Definitley an interesting read by a new and different author and for that, I liked it a lot!

Two books were recommended to me by an avid reader friend (who's top 10 list is very similar to mine), they are The Power of One and Tandia. The Power of One is not a self-help like it sounds. Here is the review from Chapters...

"This powerful book will inspire hope and lift the soul. The Power of One from author Bryce Courtenay follows a boy named Peekay as he copes with the harsh realities of racism, war and lies in South Africa. Born to an Englishwoman, nurtured by a black woman and tormented persistently throughout his youth, he vows to survive and become the welterweight champion of the world. However, his journey is filled with modern prejudice and tribal superstitions. He learns of the power of words and communication and its ability to transform lives and communities. As he learns to sustain himself through the mystical and spiritual world he appreciates, he manages to see through the cruelty of the world."

Followed by Tandia...
"When Tandia was a teenager, the South African police raped her. Half Indian and half African, she grew up to hate white men, using her mind and beauty as weapons for terrorism. The tables turn when she meets Peekay, a white man with a past as strange as her own. In a land that forbids mixed relationships, their love results in explosive consequences. Bryce Courtenay’s Tandia is the sequel to the international best-seller The Power of One."

So my reading list is currently like this...
Finish Edgar Sawtelle
Finish Twilight
The Power of One
Tandia
The Virgin's Lover
The Disappeared

All before Bright Shiny Morning!? Hmmm, better get power reading this weekend!!!
Get out and enjoy the sunshine!!

Have save travels out East Shorts!

7:00 Diner Deluxe on Friday, May 8!

We are on at 7:00 on Friday May 8! The only disclaimer is the 18% gratuity for large groups, but whatev, we are usually a generous bunch.

I am looking forward to the tales of inlaw woes, wedding plans, foreign lands, nerdy husband hobbies, and other such topics of interest...oh yeah...and A Wolf at the Table!

Diner Deluxe is 804 Edmonton Trail NE. Not far from Casa de Dunham. If you are early park at my place and walk on over with me! Click here to check out the menu. I don't know about you but I'm thinking trout sandwich. Brian issued a "cook more vegetarian" challenge to me and I am facing it head on with 10 straight days of meatless cuisine. Blogging about it too. I am a blogging foo. It's on this old blog here if you want to see what I'm cookin' up.

Till Friday!
C

Feature Friday!! The Disappeared

Hello Ladies!
Spring has arrived! What are you all up to this weekend? I am throwing open the windows and starting some spring cleaning. After a long winter our old house just smells...old. I also have about 100 windows to clean. Spring clean up the yard. Dust off the patio chairs and sink into Edgar Sawtelle in the +17 sunshine. I made the mistake of clicking on the link on the side bar - the Reading Group Guide. This book goes where I never expected it would. It totally revealed the story line so I do NOT recommend reading it unless you like that kinda thing.

I've got Edgar Sawtelle going in the evening at home and Twilight going at my desk at lunch...okay and I read a bit when I'm supposed to be working too. I was going to dive into another Phillipa Gregory (The Virgin's Lover) as soon as I was done, but this book, The Disappeared, has caught my attention. I LOVE historical fiction and I LOVE a love story. This book blends the two. Maybe I'll save it for a pick for next year, if I can wait that long. BD thinks that we should only pick books for Book Club that we have already read. What do you gals think of that format? The month where everyone is reading your book, you would have to read another one of your choosing.

Either way...here's Heather from Chapter's review of The Disappeared.


A Beautiful Blending of Truth and Fiction
I have often noted in my reviews that I love great historical fiction. The stories can cover a brief moment or grand sweep of time. It is simply that beautiful blending of truth and fiction that always seems to strike a chord. The Disappeared by Kim Echlin is one such story. The book centers on a single love story, the intense romance between Anne and Serey and is set against one of the most tormented moments in human history: Cambodia under the reign of Pol Pot.

Anne is a high school senior when she falls in love with the slightly older and exotically charismatic Serey who is in exile from his beautiful Cambodia. Their romance begins in a small café in Old Montreal, moves through intense exploration and love making. But Serey cannot stay with his new life. Compelled to discover the fate of his parents and friends, Serey knows he must pull himself from the passion he feels and return to his home. He promises he will be in touch, and, at the right moment, they will reunite forever. But once gone, Anne never hears from Serey despite endless letters and efforts to reach him.

Years later, unable to bring closure to her feelings, Anne goes to Cambodia to search out the man she knows is the love of her life. Woven beautifully into her story of love rediscovered -- in language which is both poetic and heartbreaking -- are the unspeakable horrors wrought by the now retreated Khmer Rouge.

As Anne works to understand the man who becomes the father of her child, and all that is Cambodia, we come to learn how easy it is to allow distance and the burdens of truth to insulate us from bearing witness to war and its aftermath. But as Anne herself says, “If we live long enough, we have to tell, or turn to stone inside.”

From its first page, The Disappeared takes us into the land of kings and temples, fought over for generations. It reveals the forces that act on love everywhere: family, politics, forgetting. This is a story that will embrace you from the first page and stay with you like a good wine.