Meeting Date | Host | Selection | Notes | |
Special
December (Christmas Season) Delay! Meet Thursday 3 January 2008 |
Charlie Palmer (243-4962) or cell: 263-4586 host
at 131 14th
SW (about 1/2
block south of Central ) Going west on I-40, take the 6th/12th exit; then, go south on 12th. Turn right on Central. Turn left on 14th. House is directly across the street from the 12 story Queen Mary. There is no parking on 14th street, use the double driveway to left of house. Call if problems. |
This book has received excellent reviews. Our Albuquerque/ Bernalillo County Library System has 27 copies - no waiting! Updike's 22nd novel is in some ways, a departure. While working on the book, Mr. Updike, now 74, white-haired, bushy-browed and senatorial-looking, risked suspicion by lingering around the luggage screening machines at La Guardia Airport, where he learned that the X-rays were not in black and white, as he had imagined, but rather in lurid colors: acid green and red. He also hired a car and a driver to take him around some of the seedier neighborhoods in Paterson, N.J., and to show him some churches and storefronts that had been converted into mosques. "He did his best, but I think I puzzled him as a tour customer," Mr. Updike reported. Excerpt from Time; New York Times Review |
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Thursday 31 January 2008 |
Mike Blackledge (294-6030) |
Charming Billy by Alice McDermott audio interview |
"Billy
is really the reason for the novel. He was the beginning and the
end point. He's that stereotypical, lovable Irishman, drinks too
much, talks too much, puts his arm around you at 3 AM, when everybody
else has gone home and with tears in his eyes tells you how much he
loves you. He's a great guy but also he's drinking himself to
death, and no one can stop him. " - Alice McDermott I chose this book following the strong recommendation of a lady calling in to NPR on one of their Friday Book Reviews. The listener stated that this was her all-time favorite book, about an alcoholic and how his friends viewed him after his death. Our Albuquerque Library system has 13 copies of this book; 11 copies are on the book shelf right now. National Book Award Winner Charming Billy was a late entry, as my earlier choice, No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy, has been missing from the shelves of our Library System ever since the November 2007 movie was released. Members are still encouraged to read the book prior to seeing the movie. |
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Thursday
28 February 2008 |
41 La Puerta Trail Placitas, NM 87043 505 771-1601 Tubesingda@aol.com |
Infidel by Ayaan Hirshi Ali Ayaan presents: Video1 Vid2 |
Readers
with an eye on European politics will recognize Ali as the Somali-born
member of the Dutch parliament who faced death threats after
collaborating on a film about domestic violence against Muslim women
with controversial director Theo van Gogh (who was himself
assassinated). Even before then, her attacks on Islamic culture
as "brutal, bigoted, [and] fixated on controlling women" had generated
much controversy. In this suspenseful account of her life and her
internal struggle with her Muslim faith, she discusses how these views
were shaped by her experiences amid the political chaos of Somalia and
other African nations, where she was subjected to genital mutilation
and later forced into an unwanted marriage. Copyright
2007. Published by
Free Press, a division of Simon Schuster. Amazon has it new hardcover for $15.60 with their discount or used here for under $11. Should come out in paperback in early February 2008. Kindle version for $9.99. |
|
Thursday
27 March 2008 |
Tom
Genoni
(292-4985) 1616 Catron SE (In 4-Hills, turn right on Stagecoach, left at the 4-way stop sign onto Cuatro Cerros, 2nd right onto Bernalillo, then 1st left onto Catron. About half-way down Catron, 1616 house is on the right.) |
Man in the Holocene by Max Frisch |
Extra credit for solving the "Golden Ratio" puzzle on page 12. Double-extra credit for reading in the original German. No copies available in our Library System however Amazon has many used copies for reasonable cost. |
|
(modified) First Thursday 1 May 2008 |
Ron
B. |
|
a novel by Sarah Dunant 18 copies in our local Library system. Sarah Dunant: Biography |
|
(modified) Next to Last Thursday 22 May 2008 |
Ken Gillen (797-8956) 331 White Oaks Dr. NE (From Tramway and Live Oak Rd [one block N. of Paseo del Norte], go EAST 0.6 mi on Live Oak, then SOUTH 0.3 mi on White Oaks Dr. to last house on right. Pay no attention to most of the house numbers.). |
Won several book awards. |
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Thursday
26 June 2008 |
Right
at the 5-mile
marker onto
Tunnel
Springs Road.
Right
onto Quail
Meadow Road
(first
street on right - 0.2 mile)
Right
onto Leah Lane
(first
street
on right-0.4 mile)
HARD right onto Sunset Blvd 17
Sunset Blvd is the
third drive/house
on the left. The 17 is in small gold numbers near the ground, near road.
|
There are numerous study guides to Golding's Lord of the Flies, and many of
these are available to you on-line. One example can
be found here. |
||
(modified)
First
Thursday Thursday, 7 August 2008 |
Keith Gilbert (265-8122) 913 Parkland Circle SE From Wyoming, go West on Zuni to Carlisle; |
After
The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini again takes us into
the heart of
Afghanistan with A Thousand Splendid
Suns: a story of two Afghan women and their life. It
is not just a story of
helpless women, it is story of the greatness of their endurance. More than enough copies of this book are in our local library system. Bio on Khaled Hosseini. The Khaled Hosseini Book Group Discussion site also provides several video clips where the author answers questions submitted by readers, and discusses such topics as writing from the viewpoint of a woman. |
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Thursday, 28 August 2008 |
Ed
Duff |
"Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
should be on the list of every literate
music lover. The story is riveting, the participants breathe and feel
and are alive, and throughout this elegantly-told novel, music pours
forth so spendidly that the reader hears it and is overwhelmed by its
beauty. Ann Patchett is a special writer who has written a special
book."
—
Lloyd Moss, WXQR
25
copies in our local library system, however perhaps only 1/3 of these
available currently. Check
here.
|
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Thursday 25 September 2008 |
Rob Easterling (286-8796) East Mountains: 51 Avenida del Sol, Cedar Crest, NM 87008 Take N14 4.5 mi. N of I-40 (exit 175, Cedar Crest). Turn Left into Ventana del Sol subdivision. Follow keypad instructions. |
First published in 1933, the book was
Steinbeck's second novel (after his unsuccessful Cup
of Gold),
The title was taken from a hymn excerpt of the Rig Veda's Book
X. Steinbeck found To a God Unknown extremely difficult
to write; taking him roughly five years to complete, the novella proved
more time-consuming than either East
of Eden
or The Grapes of
Wrath, Steinbeck's longest
novels. In this short novel, Steinbeck explores the relationship
of man to his land. The plot follows a man,
Joseph Wayne, who moves to California in order to establish a homestead, leaving his father,
who soon dies. The novel examines what is meant by belief
and how it affects different people. It also portrays the connection
between the farmer and the land, a common theme, which appeared also in
his later novels, such as East
of Eden.
There are only five (5) copies in our local library system as found here. |
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POSTPONED!
for one week until Thursday 6 November 2008 |
|
Winter in the Blood by James Welch summary & study guide |
James Welch was born on November 18, 1940, on the Blackfeet reservation in Browning, Montana. His father, a welder, hospital administrator, and later rancher and farmer, was a Blackfeet Indian. His mother, who trained as a stenographer, was a member of the Gros Ventre tribe. Welch was raised as a Catholic and
attended schools on the Blackfeet
and Fort Belknap reservations before moving with his family to
Minneapolis. He graduated from high school in 1958 and briefly attended
the University of Minnesota. Winter in the Blood (1974), the first novel by James Welch, is set on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in Montana, which is located forty miles south of the Canadian border and twenty miles north of the Missouri River. It is the fourth largest Indian reservation in Montana; more than five thousand people live there. The protagonist and narrator of the novel is a thirty-two-year-old Blackfeet Indian whose name is never revealed. |
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[3rd]
Thursday: 20 November 2008 [Thursday before Thanksgiving] |
Charlie Palmer (243-4962) 1506 Park SW From
I-25, go West on Central or |
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
by Michael Chabon |
The Yiddish
Policeman's Union is
a truly wonderful literary novel. The
book is one part thriller, one
part ironic love story and two parts Yiddish lesson. The book is
Jewish, however, in the same way that Joyce's books are Irish - you
don't have to be "in" to get it but some of the meaning (and especially
the humor) is deeply cultural.
Gary Ganong has located this on-line Yiddish Dictionary which may prove useful to the gentile reader. |
|
Thursday 18 December 2008 [Thursday before Christmas] |
Mike Blackledge
(294-6030) Please bring a book for a fellow club member, wrapped in newspaper or butcher paper. We will have a book exchange to start the meeting. |
In one sense, What is the What brings together
two earlier selections for the Club during this year of 2008: Infidel and Lord of the Flies. Valentino
Achak Deng, the real-life hero of this engrossing epic, was a
refugee from the Sudanese civil war - the bloodbath before the current
Darfur bloodbath - of the 1980s and 90s. In this fictionalized
memoir, Salon.com's Dave Eggers ([then 36 yr old] author of "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius")
makes him an icon of
globalization. For a film documentary on the Lost Boys of the Sudan which follows three young men (including John Dau to Syracuse, NY), see the National Geographic film: God Grew Tired of Us. This book was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. 455 pages; easy to read and intriguing. 18 copies in our local Library system. Valentino Achak Deng's Foundation web site; includes slide shows and a reader's guide. Here is Wikipedia.com entry for author Dave Eggers. |
Schedule for Year 2008
LTBC 2008 schedule last updated: 20 November 2008 Back to Schedule for Year 2007 Forward to Schedule for Year 2009 |
Return to: LTBC Home Page. |
Coffee Table
Email the LTBC via Mike@Blackledge.com |