Come to the Beechtree Book Club! We are members and former members of the Skyline Relief Society, and we would love for you to join us. We read from a variety of genres, and we meet on the first Thursday of every month (except during the summer) at 8 p.m. Holly is sending this beginning-of-the-school-year email for me to all the members of our Relief Society, and if you would like follow-up Beechtree emails, please let Marah Cluff know.
Our current reading schedule:
Oct. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins. This is the third and final book in the Hunger Game series, which we started in March. If you haven't read the first two books, there's still time--it's quick reading. Or just come to see if you would like to read these books! We will meet this Thursday, Oct. 7, at 8 p.m. at Ruthann Eucker's home. Alyssa Eucker will lead our discussion.
Nov. Lemon Tart: A Culinary Mystery by Josi Kilpack. It includes recipes, so we'll have to see if anyone wants to make one for our discussion. Only one copy at the library with a list of 12 holds, so I'll try to help get a copy around to interested readers. It is also available at Deseret Book (Josi is LDS). If you have a copy you can share, let us know! Here is the product review from Amazon.com:
Award- winning author Josi S. Kilpack introduces a new series of culinary cozies that is sure to tantalize mystery lovers. In this debut volume, cooking aficionado turned amateur detective Sadie Hoffmiller tries to solve the murder of her beautiful young neighbor a single mother who was mysteriously lured from her home while a lemon tart was baking in her oven. At the heart of Sadie s search is the woman s missing two year-old child. Whoever took the child must be the murderer, but Sadie is certain that the police are looking at all the wrong suspects including her! For an added treat, original mouth- watering recipes for Sadie s Lemon Tart, Homemade Alfredo Sauce, Carrot Cookies, Brownies, and Granny s Gingerbread Bundt Cake are sprinkled throughout the book.
Dec. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. Many in our group have read it, so it should be easy for us to discuss it around the busy holidays.
Jan. Poetry Exchange. Bring several copies of a poem you would like to discuss.
Feb. My Name is Asher Lev, by Chaim Potok. This classic is the 4th most popular pick by our book club (after Vanity Fair, Rebecca, and The Count of Monte Cristo). I liked this customer review that I found on Amazon.com:
I am not an artist. Nor am I a gifted person in any respect. But, for a few moments, I had a notion of what it could be like to be blessed and cursed with a talent so rare, and so special. This feeling occured when I read and delved into the world of Asher Lev.
"My Name is Asher Lev" is Chaim Potok's best novel. It is complete, subtle and passionate; devastating to its core. It tells the poignant and difficult story of Asher Lev, a New York-born religious Jew who finds the gift of painting within him early on, yet is isolated from his community due to the philosophy that Judaism, modern art, and Christianity are distinctly seperate worlds.
In my favorite scene from the book, detailing the power of Potok's imagination, Asher Lev is a young boy, who looks at his mother one day and creates a rendition of her on paper. Because she is depressed at the time, and smoking, Potok has Lev use the leftover ash from her finished cigarettes as the drawing object; his mother is created in shades of gray. A story this original, this creative, and this imaginary deserves to be read.
Potok, a rabbi, has done an excellent job in detailing a Jewish community in the United States, as well as conveying the relationship it holds with the Christian majority. Besides being a good read on art, the novel offers a fascinating glimpse into the tensions that separate two religious worlds.
"My Name Is Asher Lev" is a wonderful read and I recommended it to all.
Mar. The Warrior Heir, by Cinda Williams Chima. This is the first of a fantasy trilogy, and we are only planning on reading and discussing the first book. But I suspect there will be several of us who will read the whole thing. Here is a summary I found on Goodreads.com:
Before he knew about the Roses, sixteen-year-old Jack lived an unremarkable life in the small Ohio town of Trinity. Only the medicine he has to take daily and the thick scar above his heart set him apart from the other high-schoolers. Then one day Jack skips his medicine. Suddenly, he is stronger, fiercer, and more confident than ever before. And it feels great - until he loses control of his own strength and nearly kills another player during soccer team tryouts. Soon, Jack learns the startling truth about himself: he is Weirlind - part of an underground society of magical people who live among us. At the head of this magical society sit the feuding houses of the Red Rose and the White Rose, whose power is determined by playing The Game - a magical tournament in which each house sponsors a warrior to fight to the death. The winning house rules the Weir. As if his bizarre magical heritage isn't enough, Jack finds out that he's not just another member of Weirlind - he's one of the last of the warriors - at a time when both houses are scouting for a player. Jack's performance on the soccer field has alerted the entire magical community to the fact that he's in Trinity. And until one of the houses is declared Jack's official sponsor, there are no limits to what they'll do to get Jack to fight for them. . . .
Apr. No Graves as Yet, by Anne Perry. This Is a WWI historical fiction and the first in a series. The rating for this book on Amazon and Goodreads is good and for the sequels are great! Here is a review from Publishers Weekly:
This absorbing mystery/spy thriller, set in tranquil Cambridge just before the onset of the Great War, marks a powerful start to bestseller Perry's much anticipated new series. In a lush and deceptively peaceful opening scene, college professor and chaplain Joseph Reavley is interrupted while watching a cricket game by his intelligence officer brother, Matthew, who reports the sudden death of their parents in a car crash. This horrifying news sets off a long but compelling investigation by the brothers that takes them across verdant summertime England, looking for a secret document that their father was trying to deliver to Matthew at the time of his death. Against a backdrop of ominous news from the continent, Perry artfully weaves connections between pacifist students at Cambridge, one of whom is also murdered, and German agents who may be planning "a conspiracy to ruin England and everything we stand for." The intrigue is further complicated by jilted lovers and jealous spouses at the university, all with grudges against an alleged blackmailer in their midst who may also be privy to exam cribbing and other illicit goings-on. Perry's title, a quotation from G.K. Chesterton, is a portent of the carnage that soon awaits the youth of England, yet by the final resolution of this gripping case, many graves have regrettably already been filled in Cambridge's serene churchyards.
Sep. The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas. As noted earlier in this email, it's a top-five I-want-to-read classic in the poll I took last year. It's 1300 pages, so don't leave this until the last week in August!
Oct. A Winter Dance, by Gary Paulsen. This is the author's account of running the Iditarod without having any idea what he was doing. Here is a customer review I found on Amazon.com:
I made the grave mistake of trying to read this book while on a public bus. It wasn't long before I realized the folly in this, as I repeatedly had to stifle the wild guffaws that threatened to pour forth without my consent. The other passengers probably came to the conclusion that I was either very sick or slightly deranged as I rocked back and forth in my seat and tried to pretend that I was, in fact, merely coughing. Gary Paulsen has offered us one of the most hilarious accounts of running the Iditarod that I have ever come across.
Living in Minnesota, Paulsen had a small team of five dogs that he used to work his traplines. Over time he became more and more entranced with mushing, until he eventually realized that wanted to, needed to, run the Iditarod - the 1,100+ mile dogsled race stretching across the state of Alaska between Anchorage and Nome. The first half of the book deals with his preparation for the race - finding more dogs, training the dogs, getting the right equipment, etc. We soon see that he has quite a bit to learn. Over the course of this training period, Paulsen finds himself attacked by dogs, run away with by dogs, and often spending many miles being dragged along on the ground behind his sled by dogs. He manages to break his sled repeatedly, get separated from his team, and one night, get sprayed by five different skunks in rapid succession. He is, in short, one of the least qualified of all possible Iditarod candidates.
The second half of the book takes us through the race itself. In the beginning, he makes every possible rookie mistake. He gets lost before even leaving the city of Anchorage, after putting the wrong animal in the lead-dog position:
"We went through people's yards, ripped down fences, knocked over garbage cans. At one point I found myself going through a carport and across a backyard with fifteen dogs and a fully loaded Iditarod sled. A woman standing over the kitchen sink looked out with wide eyes as we passed through her yard and I snapped a wave at her before clawing the handlebar once again to hang on while we tore down her picket fence when Wilson [the lead dog] tried to thread through a hole not much bigger than a housecat. And there is a cocker spaniel who will never come into his backyard again. He heard us coming and turned to bark just as the entire team ran over him; I flipped one of the runners up to just miss his back and we were gone, leaving him standing facing the wrong way barking at whatever it was that had hit him" (pg. 145).
Much of the first half of the race is a series of such uproarious follies. Unbeknownst to him at the time, the other mushers had voted Paulsen the least likely competitor to get out of Anchorage. But he eventually did, and he ultimately manages to muddle his way through the entire race. As the journey goes on, the book becomes a little more serious as we see Paulsen undergo a transformation. He learns about himself, about the dogs, and about life. He feels himself become one with the frozen world of the north, eventually feeling more at home there that he had with his wife and family in Minnesota.
There are sad parts, too. We see a beloved dog trampled to death by a moose before the first day is over. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon occurence. Moose do not yield the right-of-way to dog teams, and can be extremely dangerous when upset. We also see a maddened musher kill one of his own dogs in a fit of rage. Killing or abusing dogs during the race is strictly prohibited, and the man was duly disqualified, but I still found this the hardest part of the book to read.
'Winterdance' is a magnificent story of a man following his dream and gaining a wealth of knowledge about himself and the world. Paulsen's easy, self-deprecating humor and vivid verbal imagery bring the story to life. It is also a fast read - I finished the book in one day. I have rarely read anything that has made me laugh so hard, or that has moved me so much by the end. Growing up in Alaska, I always watched the Iditarod start in Anchorage. I've met some of the winning mushers. But Paulsen's story is entirely unique. He was not a race champion or mushing hero, but the rankest rookie out there. And yet he endears himself to our hearts. For any fan of dog mushing, wilderness survival stories, or both, I recommend this book without hesitation.
I look forward to seeing you at Beechtree Book Club!
--
Marah
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