June Selection: Where Men Win Glory

Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer highlights Tillman's character and personality while examining the murky circumstances of his death - along the way exposing truths about men and war.

Yay or Nay?  

Consensus: The reviews cover the extremes of love and true dislike, but most feel it is a disturbing yet interesting book.

What do you think?

May book - Bold Spirit: Helga Estby's Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America

This is a fascinating story, not just for her trek across Victorian America, but also for the insights into the social, political, economic and cultural landscape. Interesting glimpse into our part of the country as well. Fans of Little House on the Prairie might recognize some Minnesota locations. What a woman!

Website for more information: http://www.boldspiritacrossamerica.com/

Discussion questions have been posted as a file under the More tab on the Meetup site.

5th Book Club Meeting will be March 29th at 6:30pm

Hi Folks, our next book is Assination Vacation by Sarah Vowell.

Assassination Vacation is a book by Sarah Vowell, published in 2005, in which she travels around the United States researching the assinations of U.S. Presidents Abraham Lincoln, William McKinley and James Garfield. While most of the book is devoted to facts about the assassinated presidents and the men who would murder them, Vowell intersperses the book with anecdotes of the adventures that she took part in on her self-proclaimed 'pilgrimage' of presidential assassination.

Please remember to bring an appetizer, beverage or something to share. We will be meeting at 6:30pm and it usually runs 2 hours. 

NPR has an excerpt and review of the book at their website: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4646283


ALSO:

Several books to consider for our next read:

1. Bold Spirit: Helga Estby's forgotten walk across Victorian America by Linda Hunt. This is a true story about a local woman who grew up in the Pacific Northwest.

2. The Dirty Girls Social Club by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez (this was recommended by one of the Oly librarians).

3. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet: a novel by Jamie Ford. After we read the novel we can check out the actual hotel which is located in Seattle.

4. Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.

5.  A Girl Named Zippy: growing up small in Mooreland, Indiana by Haven Kimmel.

The Secret Life of Bees

Our next book is The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. Some questions to ponder:

1. Were you surprised to learn that T.Ray used to be different? What happened?

2.  What qualities did Lily have that allowed her to survive, endure, and eventually thrive despite T.Ray?

3.  Who is the queen bee in this story?

4.  Lily's relationship to her dead mother was complex: from guilt to idealization, to hatred, to acceptance. Is she right in saying that people would rather die than forgive? Was it harder to forgive herself or her mother?

5.  Have you had a mother figure in your life who wasn't your true mother? Have you ever had to leave home to find home?

6.  What did you like best about Rosaleen?

7.  What is the role of the Divine Mother in the book? Do you see this evident in reality?

8.  How was Lily transformed by the circle of females - Calendar sisters and Daughters of Mary? What did you think of them?

9.  Do we need rituals, like wailing walls, to help us deal with grief and suffering?

10. How would you describe Lily and Zach's relationship?

11. How would you like the story to play out for Lily, T.Ray, Rosaleen, Zach?

True History of the Kelly Gang

Hi Folks, our next book is the True History of the Kelly Gang.  We will be meeting at Judy Best's home on Tuesday, January 25th at 6:30 pm.  Please bring an appetizer and or a beverage to share. 

Twelve by Twelve: A One-Room Cabin off the Grid and Beyond the American Dream

Our next book for discussion is by William Powers.

Why would a successful American physician choose to live in a twelve-foot-by-twelve-foot cabin without running water or electricity? To find out, writer and activist William Powers visited Dr. Jackie Benton in rural North Carolina. No Name Creek gurgled through Benton’s permaculture farm, and she stroked honeybees’ wings as she shared her wildcrafter philosophy of living on a planet in crisis. Powers, just back from a decade of international aid work, then accepted Benton’s offer to stay at the cabin for a season while she traveled. There, he befriended her eclectic neighbors — organic farmers, biofuel brewers, eco-developers — and discovered a sustainable but imperiled way of life.

In these pages, Powers not only explores this small patch of community but draws on his international experiences with other pockets of resistance. This engrossing tale of Powers’s struggle for a meaningful life with a smaller footprint proposes a paradigm shift to an elusive “Soft World” with clues to personal happiness and global healing.

Three Cups of Tea

Our first book is Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. You can post your comments about this book here to share with other members. Post questions, comments, musings, reflections, etc...

To get us started:  What is the significance of 3 cups of tea in this book? Do you have a "3 cups of tea" moment to share? It can be little or big, momentous or barely noticed at first glance. But somehow your life was not quite the same afterward.