April Meeting Date & Next Three Books

It was great to meet at our lovely new library - thank you, RVPL!

Our next book selection is Headlong by Michael Frayn and the meeting is scheduled for Friday, April 9, at 7pm. The New Yorker called it "Part detective story, part art history lesson, part cautionary tale, and entirely funny." Used copies on amazon start at $4.00, including S&H.

We decided to select our next two books as well, thinking it might be helpful to have an idea of what's coming up - particularly since the following one is lengthy -

Our May/June selection is Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño. One reviewer writes, "Hilarious and sexy, meandering and melancholy, full of inside jokes about Latin American literati that you don't have to understand to enjoy, The Savage Detectives is a companionable and complicated road trip through Mexico City, Barcelona, Israel, Liberia, and finally the desert of northern Mexico. It's the first of Bolaño's two giant masterpieces to be translated into English (the second, 2666, is due out next year), and you can see how he's influenced an era." --Tom Nissley. 672 pp. The meeting date is TBD. Used copies begin at $6.99 including S&H on amazon.com.

The June/July selection is The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay. Here's a portion of one review: "Set in a world torn apart, where man enslaves his fellow man and freedom remains elusive, THE POWER OF ONE is the moving story of one young man's search for the love that binds friends, the passion that binds lovers, and the realization that it takes only one to change the world. A weak and friendless boy growing up in South Africa during World War II, Peekay turns to two older men, one black and one white, to show him how to find the courage to dream, to succeed, to triumph over a world when all seems lost, and to inspire him to summon up the most irresistible force of all: the Power of One." 544 pp. Again, meeting date is TBD. Used copies begin at $4 including S&H on amazon.com.

Please consider joining us for our next meeting!

New Meeting Place!

Great news...

We have just been informed that we will be allowed to use one of the meeting rooms at the Round Valley Public Library for our next meeting, Feb. 26 (thanks, Beth, for all of your communication with the good folks at the library and for doing the paperwork, etc. Thanks also to everyone at our lovely new library).

Hope to see you there in a couple of weeks ~

I still haven't received my Tove yet, so in the meantime, I did read a book from RVPL that I'd like to add to our list for consideration: John Connolly's The Gates: A Novel. I think it's 2009 and the hardcover runs 304 pages (including footnotes). If any of you have ever read a Lemony Snicket book, you will recognize the tone of this offering as something along those lines for grownups. Connolly (as stated on the cover, and I believe mentioned at an earlier discussion by Alan) is an Award-Winning Author who presently resides in Dublin.
I still have no news on the meeting room issue, but will post, e-mail, and generally sing it from the rooftops when I do.

Next choice?

     I've just been perusing the list which Beth kindly put together and glancing at the reviews on Amazon. Here's my 2¢ worth:

In order of interest for me (read length ;-} ):

    Homer and Langley. I haven't read any E.L. Doctorow. The inspiration for this book is intriguing; and the book is short ;-)

    The Eight. by Katherine Neville. Have we read any author's first novel yet?

    Stones into Schools. Can the continuing story be as gripping and popular as Three Cups of Tea? I like the sub-title.

    Headlong . Michael Frayn : playwright and from the Isles! 'nough said . . .

    Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño. Because we like to read translated literature and because Roberto was a poet and died young(ish) - 50.