the power of two parties

Book Clubs - Coming Soon!

Tuesday, Dec. 16 at 7:00 PM @ 171 S. Scott Blvd. (Anna's)

Saturday, Dec. 20 at 9:30 AM @ 171 S. Scott Blvd.

Hope you can come to one -- or both! Can't wait to discuss Greene with you.

Unrelated to the books ... for the book club.

Seems appropriate, as I rarely read the book club books and yet show up for book club, huh?!

This is a link to the Wall Street Journal article I mentioned on Saturday morning about the millennial generation and their sense of entitlement in the workplace.

december

hey all. next up: "the power and the glory" by graham greene.
date: saturday, december 20th
time: 9:30 AM (adjustable)
place: Anna's house

feel free to post reflections, interesting links, etc. as you read!

delighted

I'm so enjoying the novel! I haven't read very far, but I have my suspicions ... dun dun dun. I love the language -- the tone, the quaintness of it.

New time, same place, same book

Next book club will now be on Nov 1 at 9:30 am, at Lisa's house for some super-sleuthing :)

Next time, next place, next book

Date: Oct 18
Time: 9am
Place: Lisa's house
Book: _The Murder of Roger Ackroyd_, Agatha Christie

Looking forward to it!

wish i was there

dearly beloveds! michelle told me you were reading agatha christie this month. excellent choice. the other day npr ran this story about some recordings christie made in preparation for writing her autobiography. they included a clip of her voice, talking about her novels. thought you might like to give the grande dame a little listen. her manner of speaking is most extraordinary. miss you all!

time and place

How about saturday, august 23 at 9:30 am? Tell Orpah if you think earlier or later would work better; it will be at her house in the lovely hamlet of Swisher. :)

at the beginning

Just started this last night. very captivating, soul-wrenching, scary. glad my dreams were unrelated. good pick orpah!

Ready to discuss

So, I've just finished the book (I know, a bit premature) and would like to do the book club tomorrow please. I know how you felt, Orpah, this one has got to be discussed.

announcing august

hello out there! thank you Orpah for resurrecting book club for the fall. this august, we'll be reading and discussing "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. date and time TBA?

murders and madness

hey all! thought i'd chime in with my summer reading update, too. i just finished "the emperor of ocean park" by stephen carter. it's full of verbosity and legal intrigue, and much of the story is set amid the legal world of DC. how appropriate.

now i'm on to "the memory keeper's daughter" by kim edwards. has anyone else read this already? it's very sad. (that's my erudite review.)

a good read

a little shout out to lisa and laura (and nathan, who was also part of this conversation, if i recall). i checked out rod dreher's _crunchy cons_ at the library and have been thoroughly enjoying it. it would have been a champion bookclub book - and still could be, i suppose - because i think everybody in the book club probably qualifies as a crunchy con to one degree or another. there sure would be a lot of fodder for discussion. i'm still in the early chapters but lots of thoughts are percolating. he published it in 2006 before the oil crisis, economic downturn and the presidential campaign. wonder how all those events would figure into his ideas?

dreher also blogs at http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/

Hey all, just thought I would check and see if anyone is checking this this summer?? I also thought I would see if anyone is reading anything good. I read _Cry the Beloved Country_ (loved it, thanks Orpah, for putting it on Good Reads!) and have checked out _Plainsong_ from the library, but not started it yet...hopefully soon!

the passing of the torch

hey all, just want to let you know that i've passed the blog's administrative privileges to anna. that means she can change the colors, fonts, and layout at will.

use the power wisely, anna.

as the sole member of the omaha chapter of book club, i'll probably look in and maybe throw up a post now and then, but hope you'll enjoy the blog as long as it's useful.

love you all. it's been great.

we could be sharing all we've got ...

This would be so fun! I am free Thursday or Friday evening. :)

we could have a swingin' ti-ime

lisa leaves on the 17th - andrew graduates that same day - any chance we could sneak away for a couple of hours the night before? friday the 16th? it would make things a little crazy those of us with stuff going on (and who doesn't have stuff going on?). but it would be worth it, if we can make it happen.

the other option for me would be thursday the 15th. andrew has a thing at the law school, so i'd need to host so ben could hit the hay. but i'm more than happy to make that work, if you don't mind boxes and general disorder.

are we still thinking of having a reading? poems, short pieces...?

let's get together yah-yah-yah

I'm leaving for vacation on 5/17 at 9:30 am and will be back late on 5/24...otherwise I'm open!

you're gonna make me lonesome when you go

DUDES. when are we going to have our final fling before we all disperse???

Charlie bit me

a little incident with gabe and adrian this morning called this video to mind. and now that ben's teething, i'm sure we'll have our own versions of this scenario re-enacted regularly. for some reason, this video is SO FUNNY. maybe it's the british accents. maybe it's charlie's huge head. it's not strictly book-club business, but oh well. hope you have a laugh.

a book you might enjoy

last week (while waiting for my copy of a chance to die - still hasn't come!) i read this great book by ann patchett, called run. bet you'd like it a lot. many interesting themes. anyway, next time you're at the library browsing, grab it.

edith would be appalled

This "Stuff White People Like" blog makes me laugh so hard because so much of the cultural commentary is true. This particular post speaks to entertaining vs. hospitality and the failure to understand "hidden art" for its own sake. 

future book club members at play

andrew and i were in the nursery sunday and i happened to find my camera in the diaper bag. what a sweet - and no doubt precocious - little group of boys.

let's all make room

Thanks for recommending this one, Darby. I got it through interlibrary loan (through ICPL) from the Pella library. 

Christine Pohl examines the early church origins of hospitality, tracks its course through history, and talks about where we are today. I agree that a large part of this tradition of reaching out to strangers has been lost, and hospitality is now equivalent to "entertaining." I'm hoping this book will encourage me to live in a way that is hospitable, not just try to "entertain" those I know who can repay me.

update on a previously mentioned book

i just got my copy of the creative family, by amanda blake soule, and it is great.

loved this one

This book was beautifully crafted: heartwarming without being "heartwarming," delightful to slowly ponder without being "captivating," rich with detail and full of true characters.

And yes, Darby's already read it. :)

snapshots (lisa, our pictures came out so blurry we didn't make the cut. but we know we were there)

Next up:

A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael
by Elisabeth Elliot

May 3
10 am
Melanie's

be there or be square

bring your bad selves:

saturday
10 am
lisa's

Loving this book

So, I finally got my copy in the mail and love it so far. It is a bit out of date, but she puts in words and explains things that I have felt about creating. I always talk about how I'm not creative, but she does not allow that out; not only that but then tells me how I am indeed creative, I just didn't realize it. Great pick, Darby!

In the great green room there was a telephone

The majority of my reading these days starts with those words, or "Diggers are good at dig, dig, digging." or "The sun has set not long ago, now everybody goes below." or even "One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish." They're great, and certainly well-loved, books around here, but I will admit that there are only so many times one can read the same book in a day without feeling at least a little loony.

A friend recently recommended the blog fantastic books for 6 and under, and it really is a great resource written by a mom about the library books her preschoolers have loved. Variety is a good thing. I need to make a list before our next library run.

resource for enriching daily life...

i've seen this book and read the author's blog occasionally, and think it intersects nicely with hidden art. it's a (more current) discussion of creativity and family life by a really cool mom. a couple of omaha friends have highly recommended it.

books we've also read

Here's a few more: A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian (read right before My Lovely Enemny), by Marina Lewycka, and Housekeeping (read right before Oracle Bones), by Marilyn Robinson. We read Memoirs before Housekeeping, I think. The others were even earlier - before my time!

Authors: Caroline Cox for This Immoral Trade, and Peter Hessler for Oracle Bones. I couldn't figure out how to update the sidebar! :)

Wah-Wah

this is the film that came to mind while reading half of a yellow sun. it's about the british expat community in 1960s swaziland, just prior to swaziland gaining independence from the empire. click the here to watch a trailer.

books we've read

i tried to make a list of everything we've read (see column on the right) but was hopelessly confused about what we read, and when we read it. if you have additions, corrections, or a list that puts the books in the proper order, you can either change it yourself via the dashboard or post a comment and i'll change it. gracias.

monsieur kouchner

Bernard Kouchner, a famous humanitarian who is now the foreign minister of France, also tried to aid the Biafran people. He founded the organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) as a response to the suffering. This cover story gives good background info.

blog virgin

Hi all, I don't have anything interesting to say. I've only just ordered the book, but thought I would post as practice since this is my first ever attempt at blogging...can I now call myself a blogger? Chris wondered what one does on a blog post, so I showed him Darby's and he said "oh, so it's like writing a journal but everyone gets to read it..." I guess that's accurate :) Maybe someday I'll get really adventuresome and add a picture. Now wouldn't that be something?! :)

write, the beloved country

Thank you Darby for setting this in motion. Here's a link to a Vanity Fair list of recommended African lit. I couldn't find their bit about C.N. Adichie, but Ishmael Beah makes an appearance here: Write, the Beloved Country

a bit of Biafra trivia

I heard a random fact last night: in the late 60's John Lennon declined to be knighted by Queen Elizabeth in protest of the British government's involvement in Biafra. Interesting to know that at least some people in the West were paying attention...

maiden post

welcome to the blog! you're all authorized to add anything, change anything, and post at will. happy blogging...