We picked a new book to read today, and that book is Light From a Distant Star by Mary McGarry Morris.

Here’s Amazon’s product description of the book:

Light from a Distant Star is a gripping coming-of-age story with a brutal murder at its heart and a heroine as unforgettable as Harper Lee’s “Scout.”

It is early summer and Nellie Peck is on the cusp of adolescence – gangly, awkward, full of questions, but keenly observant and wiser than many of the adults in her life. The person she most admires is her father, Benjamin, a man of great integrity. His family’s century old hardware store is failing and Nellie’s mother has had to go back to work. Nellie’s older half-sister has launched a disturbing search for her birth father. Often saddled through the long, hot days with her timid younger brother, Henry, Nellie is determined to toughen him up. And herself as well.

Three strangers enter Nellie’s protected life. Brooding Max Devaney is an ex-con who works in her surly grandfather’s junkyard. Reckless Bucky Saltonstall has just arrived from New York City to live with his elderly grandparents. And pretty Dolly Bedelia is a young stripper who rents the family’s small, rear apartment and becomes the titillating focus of Nellie’s eavesdropping.

When violence erupts in the lovely Peck house, the prime suspect seems obvious. Nellie knows who the real murderer is, but is soon silenced by fear and the threat of scandal. The truth, as she sees it, is shocking and unthinkable, and with everyone’s eyes riveted on her in the courtroom, Nellie finds herself seized with doubt.

No one will listen. No one believes her, and a man’s life hangs in the balance. A stunning evocation of innocence lost, Light from a Distant Star stands as an incredibly moving and powerful novel from one of America’s finest writers.

It sounds like an intriguing read. Maybe we’ll learn something from Nellie along the way.

Happy Reading!

A crime lost to time

A secret buried deep

One book unlocks an unimaginable truth

The Physick Book promises to be an interesting read.

Howe sets her novel in the summer of 1991 and in the late 17th century during the Salem witch trials.  As the story alternates between these two time periods a connection develops for the main character, graduate student Connie Goodwin, and the accused women of 1690s Salem.  A teaser for the book follows:

“Harvard graduate student Connie Goodwin needs to spend her summer doing research for her doctoral dissertation. But when her mother asks her to handle the sale of Connie’s grandmother’s abandoned home near Salem, she can’t refuse. As she is drawn deeper into the mysteries of the family house, Connie discovers an ancient key within a seventeenth-century Bible. The key contains a yellowing fragment of parchment with a name written upon it: Deliverance Dane. This discovery launches Connie on a quest—to find out who this woman was and to unearth a rare artifact of singular power: a physick book, its pages a secret repository for lost knowledge.”

Howe herself is the descendant of two women accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials, Elizabeth Proctor and Elizabeth Howe.  We’d love for  you to discover the mysteries of this book along with us!

“The story details the life of the Trueba family, spanning four generations, and tracing the post-colonial social and political upheavals of the Latin American country they live in. The story is told mainly from the perspective of two protagonists (Esteban and Alba) and incorporates elements of magic realism. Some readers claim that the novel is a roman à clef. According to them, The Poet in the novel is probably Pablo Neruda, and Allende’s cousin, once removed Salvador Allende, is both The Candidate and The President.”

Click here to read the full article.

We were originally scheduled to meet this past weekend to discuss this novel, but due to scheduling conflicts we are opting not to meet again until November to discuss The House of the Spirits as well as our next novel, The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy.

The Dud Avocado is loosely based on Dundy’s own experiences living in Paris.  She was born in New York City in 1921 and lived in both Paris and London.

At the time The Dud Avocado was published it received praise from many people including Groucho Marx:

“Dear Mrs Tynan, I don’t make the habit of writing to married women, especially if the husband is a dramatic critic, but I had to tell someone (and it might as well be you since you’re the author) how much I enjoyed The Dud Avocado. It made me laugh, scream and guffaw (which incidentally is a great name for a law firm). If this was actually your life, I don’t know how on earth you got through it. Sincerely, Groucho Marx.”  (note: When the novel was published, Dundy was married to theater critic Kenneth Tynan, hence the address of Mrs. Tynan)

Barnes & Noble sums up the book on its website as follows:

“The Dud Avocado follows the romantic and comedic adventures of a young American who heads overseas to conquer Paris in the late 1950s. Edith Wharton and Henry James wrote about the American girl abroad, but it was Elaine Dundy’s Sally Jay Gorce who told us what she was really thinking. Charming, sexy, and hilarious, The Dud Avocado gained instant cult status when it was first published and it remains a timeless portrait of a woman hell-bent on living.”

Happy Reading!

Since we decided to puch back our reading of The Given Day, we needed to select another book for this month.  We decided to read Emma by Jane Austen.  I, of course, am very excited to read anything by Jane Austen.  Emma was the last novel Austen was able to publish in her lifetime.  The novel follows the exploits of the the spoiled little rich girl, Emma Woodhouse.  Emma has too much money and too much free time on her hands.  She fancies herself a wonderful match-maker, but has no desire to be matched herself.  The novel follows the growth of Emma as she discovers she doesn’t know everything, can’t control other people’s feelings and is actually very much in love.

As with most Austen novels, Emma has been put on the big screen in multiple film and television adaptations.  The BBC has filmed three different television adaptations of the novel.  The first aired in 1972 and starred Doran Godwin as Emma.  A 1996 adaptation starred Kate Beckinsale and the most recent adaptation began filming in April 2009, stars Romola Garai and will air sometime this fall.  The same year Kate Beckinsale’s Emma aired, a movie adaptation of the novel was also released starring Gwyneth Paltrow.  Clueless starring Alicia Silverstone is a modern adaptation of Emma and was released in 1995, the year before Paltrow and Beckinsale’s adaptations.

Emma Woodhouse is unique among Austen’s heronines in many respects but is also very similar to others in her strong, intelligent character.  If you haven’t read Emma I encourage you to read it with us, and if you have, it’s always fun to read it again!

Janet Maslin reviewed the book for The New York Times, titling the article “A Vision of Old Boston in All Its Angry Power.” (Click on the title to read the article.)  If her article title is any indication of what the book will be like, it should be an adventurous ride.

And from the HarperCollins page on the book:

Coursing through some of the pivotal events of the time—including the Spanish Influenza pandemic—and culminating in the Boston Police Strike of 1919, The Given Day explores the crippling violence and irrepressible exuberance of a country at war with, and in the thrall of, itself. As Danny, Luther, and those around them struggle to define themselves in increasingly turbulent times, they gradually find family in one another and, together, ride a rising storm of hardship, deprivation, and hope that will change all their lives.

This book promises to be an exciting walk through our country’s history.

Aside from being able to chat with Rachel, I really enjoyed the novel.  It took me away to a place I am very unfamiliar with and I became completely engrossed in it.  The language of the novel flowed very well and was extremely readable.  I think I finished it in about three days.  I was totally wrapped up in Mercy’s struggle to grow into the woman she was meant to be against all odds.

During our chat with Rachel she told us how she wrote The Killing Tree with the encouragement of her husband while she was in law school!  She also compared writing The Killing Tree with writing her second novel, The Memory Thief (due out in March 2010).  She had a lot of good advice for the aspiring authors in our group.

We had a fabulous time chatting with Rachel and would definitely recommend that anyone given an opportunity like this one take it.

If you are not familiar with the Harry Potter series, it follows the life of Harry Potter beginning at age 11 when he discovers that he is a wizard and there is an entire wizarding community he’s previously known nothing about.  And not only has he never known about the wizarding world, once he is introduced to it, he learns he is probably the most famous wizard of this community.  Each book follows one year of Harry’s life at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  Harry’s story has a unique way of growing with him.  As he ages, his trials and circumstances age with him.  As Harry’s wizarding skills grow, his adversaries become more and more menacing.  Through the trials of facing his foes with his friends, Harry develops relationships that allow him to feel a part of a family of sorts which he never had prior to discovering the wizarding world.

The Harry Potter books do allow for a deeper dive into the wizarding world and a broader look at Harry’s life in general, but the movies have done an excellent job of staying true to the overarching story.  The movies also give a fantastic glimpse at some of the unique elements of the wizarding world, like bringing the game of Quidditch to life and giving the viewer a look at some magical creatures.  You also get to see the characters grow up, literally.  It’s always good to use your imagination when reading a book, but there’s something about seeing it on the big screen to really bring it home.  The movies are definitely a great supplement to the books, especially for visual people.

I’ve also heard that the movies are quite enjoyable for people that haven’t read the books prior to watching the movies.  I can’t really comment on that more since I read all the books before enjoying the movies.

In concluding, I’ll say the books are fun and easy to read and the movies are enjoyable to watch.  What more could you want?  Harry Potter is definitely one cultural phenomenon that you should check out…in print and on film.

The next book on our reading list is The Kiling Tree by Rachel Keener.  We are really excited to be reading this book since we won a contest through ReadingGroupGuides.com and will get a chance to chat with the author herself.  Here are a couple of links to information about the book and the author:

The Killing Tree – Hatchette Book Group

ReadingGroupGuides.com – The Killing Tree

Our chat with Rachel will be on July 30 and we couldn’t be more excited.  We have a couple of aspiring authors in our group and I’m sure they will have lots of questions for Rachel about getting her first novel written and published.  I’m sure we’ll also have lots of questions about the story of the novel as well.

Jane Austen was an English novelist born Dec. 16, 1775.  Her writing began around 1787 with poems, short stories and plays written for her own enjoyment as well as her family’s.  Austen’s works focus on moral issues of the day that still resonate today.  During her lifetime Austen published 4 novels: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1815).  She also completed two other novels which were published posthumously by her family: Northanger Abbey and Persuasion (published together in 1817).  The original drafts for many of these novels were written in the mid-1790’s corresponding to Austen’s early 20’s.

At the time of her death in July 1817, Austen was in the midst of writing a new novel entitled Sandition.  Austen completed 12 chapters of the novel before she had to stop working due to illness in March 1817.  It is unknown what illness took the life of Austen at the young age of 41, but it has been suggested that she died from Addison’s disease or possibly Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

While Austen’s life and writing were cut short by her untimely death, her works are still influential today; from the many people who love reading her novels to the many Hollywood movies based on her work.  There have also been sequels, prequels and adaptations written for almost all of her works.  Movies and miniseries based on Austen’s work include multiple versions of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma.  The 1995 movie Clueless is an updated version of Austen’s Emma.  More recent movies influenced by Austen and her novels include 2007’s Becoming Jane starring Anne Hathaway as Jane Austen and 2007’s The Jane Austen Book Club.

If you’ve never read any of Austen’s works, I encourage you to do so.  She is one of my personal favorite authors.  Her novels always put a smile on my face.  If you’d like to read more about Austen, check out her Wikipedia page.  This page is full of good information plus some references that might make good reading as well.

Happy reading everyone!

Hope you enjoy!!