We had six people join us online (Brad, Beth, Cynthia, Christine, Michael, and Peggy) and book lists from most of us; so that’s 27 books for this month.
The standard theme in the pre-book and post-book discussion was the problems associated with volunteer associations. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have something to contribute to this topic.
The book list can be found here:Â https://mamensa.org/category/book-lovers-sig-book-talks/
Book Lovers SIG always meets on the second Sunday of each month; next month is June 8th. We meet online using Zoom; so it is easy to join in.
Folks generally start checking in around 2 p.m. for a bit of socialization. Book discussions begin around 2:30 p.m. or when I say, “OK, Let’s talk about books!†~ Peggy Brockschmidt
To join us on Zoom, simply click on this link: https://tinyurl.com/BookLoversSIG
You can also open your Zoom app and use these parameters >>
Meeting ID: 946 0436 4344
Passcode: 844358
*****
Beth
Nemesis, Gregg Hurwitz. This book uses red country America as a focus for this exploration of who is an innocent, and that there might be degrees of innocence, mistakes, and redemption. X and Joey explore different ways to be who they are and still be part of a community and sleep at night.
Careless People, Sarah Wynn-Williams. Sarah worked at Facebook from 2011 to 2017 as director of global public policy. She was part of getting Facebook into multiple countries. This story is about how Facebook and the people at the top changed and changed focus and the results for Facebook users. This is definitely the book that Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t want you to read. He does not fare well in these pages.
When the Clock Broke, John Ganz. Starting with Huey Long in Louisiana, David Duke, The Savings and Loan debacle and other giant missteps in American History, ending with the 1992 Presidential campaign with George HW Bush, Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, and Clinton, this takes a closer look at what was going on. This book is about power and the underlying message that only some people count, and women and blacks are certainly not part of the group that counts.
Silence of the Girls, Pat Barker. This account of the end of the Trojan war told from the viewpoint of Briseis, a queen taken into slavery by Achilles. It shows the best in fleeting glimpses, and the worst in grim unemotional detail. It holds out hope for some gentler form of humanity, that is perpetually squashed by the drive for survival by angry power. Sound familiar? How far has civilization come. We used to use swords, now we use Sharpies.
The Women of Troy, Pat Barker. Achilles is dead. The horse is on its way into Troy. The Gods are angry, and the jockeying to pin blame begins amid the destruction. The women have their own ways of responding.
The Voyage Home, Pat Barker. We follow Cassandra, Ritsa, and Agamemnon home to fulfill the prophecy of death all around.
The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexander Dumas. Vengeance and ambition and an exploration of morality.
Artificial Condition, Martha Wells. Our favorite Murder Bot is working on finding out who they are and what happened before the last mind wipe.
Rogue Protocol, Martha Wells. Our Murder Bot is still looking for information. He goes to a ‘terraforming’ that was abandoned, and things go sideways immediately.
The Last Firedrake, Rise of the Dawnstar, The Return of the Dragon Queen, Farah Oomerbhoy. A good tale of special powers and good and evil creatures fighting for survival and control. Fae- dark and light, humans, dwarves, dragons, special tokens, and the whole works.
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki, Haruki Murakami. We follow a group of high school friends that have a breakup and coming of age as the story explores what makes happiness and how it changes over time.
Wizard of Most Wicked Ways, Charlie Holmberg. Souls, bodies, and magic. And evil. And how people hold on to life, and who deserves to live. This is the fourth book in the series about a man with chaos magic, a woman with seer magic, and a boy whose soul inhabited a house rather than die.
Brad
Finders Keepers, by Stephen King. This was a follow-up to King’s novel, Mr. Mercedes. I thought he had to force some of the characters from the first book into this sequel. Plus, at the end he threw in some gratuitous supernatural crap, which doesn’t fit in to either book at all. I wouldn’t recommend it.
Cynthia
The books I talked about this week are books that I read to distract me and make me laugh out loud:
Fort Saint Jesus Bait and Tackle by Louis Tridico. This is a comedic combination horror and science fiction set in the swamp of the Atchafalaya Basin in the heart of Cajun country.
Right Ho, Jeeves and Thank You, Jeeves by P G Wodehouse. Eternally patient and resiliently resourceful, Jeeves, the butler of Bertie Wooster, is constantly called upon to discreetly rescue Bertie from impossible situations.
The Ditches of Edison County by Ronald Roberts is a parody of The Bridges of Madison County. It just makes me laugh.
I escaped a different way with The Essential Neruda edited by Mark Eisner. This is a collection of the stunningly evocative poetry of the Chilean Pablo Neruda. His ability to interpret human emotions is unmatched.
Michael
Behold the Dreamers, by Imbolo Mbue. Very well-told story of the American Dream as experienced by a rich American family that comes undone with the Lehman Brothers collapse and a family of immigrants from Cameroon who fail, but actually succeed, in achieving their version of the dream.
Keeper of Enchanted Rooms, by Charlie Holmeberg. A ghost story about a haunted house. I had to read this for another book club.
Losing Ground, by Charles Murray. A deep analysis of the failure of American social policy from 1950 thru 1980 with recommendations for solutions by the controversial author of The Bell Curve.
Aniara, by Harry Martinson. This is a diary written in poetry form by an employee on a spacecraft ferrying thousands of families to the colonies on Mars. The spacecraft loses its guidance powers and is doomed to travel forever into the darkness of infinite space. An excellent Swedish film was made of the book.
The Pushcart Prize, 2024. For the 49th straight year, an anthology of the best stories, essays, and poetry from the American independent presses as recommended by those editors. For me, this is an annual must-read.
Previous editions have contained work by Margaret Atwood, Ann Beattie, Saul Bellow, Robert Bly, Paul Bowles, Charles Bukowski, Raymond Carver, Billy Collins, Robert Coover, Don DeLillo, Anthony Doerr, Rita Dove, Louise Erdrich, Carolyn Forché, Tess Gallagher, William H. Gass, and many, many others.
Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman. A fantasy about the lives of two boys who are actually minor gods.
Peggy
Black Bottom Saints, by Alice Randall. A gossip columnist, an emcee at a nightclub, and the founder of a kids’ theatre school, Ziggy Johnson knows everyone to know in black Detroit in the middle of the 20th century. Some of the people are famous/real and some are not, but everybody has a cocktail for their feast day. An interesting look at a place and time that is mostly gone.
Spying on the South; An Odyssey across the American Divide, by Tony Horowitz. Before Frederick Law Olmsted developed Central Park, he was a reporter in 1850s New York who went south to learn about plantation slavery and the political views of Southern elites. Tony tries to recreate that trip, with travel by boat, train, and mule, and draws comparisons to the 2016 world he was living in. Not as engaging as Confederates in the Attic, his first book on the South.
Isola, by Allegra Goodman. Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. But when her relationship with a servant is discovered, they are abandoned on a small island with her maid. Inspired by the real life of a 16th-century woman.
The Garden of Small Beginnings, by Abbi Waxman. A young widow with two daughters must take a gardening class for work. Several romances ensue. Each chapter begins with How to Grow Carrots/Celery/Squash/Etc.
