Vote

Actually, we're too late to vote, but I think we should have our own vote for next year's Big Read book.  There's a list of 23 books to choose from.  I've only read 4 of them, feel bad that I haven't read 3 of them, and haven't heard of 11of them!  I'd like to hear something about those 11 from my RS reader friends.  Here's the list:

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Our Town by Thornton Wilder
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
The Great Gatsby by F. ScottFitzgerald
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines
Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
Old School by Tobias Wolff
Poetry of Emily Dickinson
Poetry of Robinson Jeffers
Poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Shawl by Cynthia Ozick
Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
Sun, Stone, and Shadows by Jorge Hernandez
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
The Thief and the Dogs by Naguib Mahfouz
The Tings They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Washington Square by Henry James
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

BYU Magazine Agrees

Our BYU magazine came a couple days ago and in the Book Nook, written by an emeritus English professor, I found our February book selection.  He wrote, "The Journey Takers is family history at its best.  Leslie Albrecht Huber (BA '98) transforms a buried past into a living present by following her journeying ancestors as they left their homes in Germany, Sweden, and England to travel to Zion in the American West."  I'm excited because I think we're on the cutting edge with our selection.  I ordered mine from Amazon tonight.  Melissa, I'm letting you read it first, because I'm still way behind on my reading.  (You can also borrow my copy of Call of the Wild which I'm still not reading too.)  I loved the discussion last month.  For those that weren't there, we had a lot to think about as we compared our husbands to Buck and the other dogs.  Then we had fabulous muffins, and Melissa should post her recipe on this blog.  There are only 3 ingredients.  I do regret not taking my camera, because there was a perfect photo op with Kris and Harley (or Harvey?).

You've Got to Read It

Readers, teachers, parents, lovers of books...
You've got to read this post from one of our long distance book group members.
Party Upstairs

Why Are We Reading That?!

This book group has been in existence for at least a couple decades. Thanks to Sue Ann, we're now more organized and have a year-long reading list. The last few years the selection committee has been Sue Ann, Kay, Lyn, Judy, and I think Pam put her two cents worth in too. Anyone is welcome to join the selection group. We are always open to recommendations and try to have at least one evening each year where we can share books that we've enjoyed. We'd also like to use this blog for that purpose.

When we meet to select books for the year, we try to find books from all different genres. We also try to preread all the books with RS standards in mind. You know how you watch a movie and think it's great, then when a friend asks if there was anything in it that wouldn't be inappropriate for a youth, and you have to rack your brain for any innuendo, or violence, or comment that might have been fine for you and your friends, but not for the youth? Sometimes you have to watch the movie again with special sensors. That's what we do with our book list. Someone has usually already read the book and liked it, but then we have to put it through the RS sensors. In the past there have been a few slip-ups. Most recently we read The Maltease Falcon along with the rest of Boise. Many of us loved the book and the writing, but the language was rough and probably not in line with "out of the best books" from the Doctrine in Covenants. In years past we used Terry Stoddard as our censor guide. We wanted to pick books that we would all feel comfortable discussing with her. (Then just before they moved, Terry confessed to liking a little hot romance.)

Some of you may wonder why your favorite books don't ever make the list. (See the previous paragraph.) For me, one of my favorites is The Kite Runner. It won't ever make it through our RS sensors, but it's still a book I'd recommend to all of you - just not as a RS book. We can use this blog for recommendations and reviews of books that won't ever make the RS list, but are still worthwhile. I guess we just want to error on the side of squeaky clean whenever possible. There are sooooo many good books to read. We should be able to find 11 books a year that fall into the "out of the best books" category without reading only church books.

This year we chose two books, A Girl Named Zippy and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, that we read or reread and found that we didn't feel good about putting them on the list. I'm not sure what the issue was with The Immortal Life (check with Lyn), but I reread A Girl Named Zippy and in the end had to veto it. It's a delightful book; a memoir of a young girl in 1965. It brought back memories and made me laugh out loud many times. I hope you all read it. I'll write a review about it later, and lend anyone my copy. I kept telling myself that the few swear words were okay, but then there were a few more, and a few more (less than 10 in the whole book), and a crude remark, and finally I just didn't want the responsibility of putting it on the list. I thought there would be a squeaky clean RS book that could take it's place. (I still want everyone to read it though.)

Confession

I have a paperback copy of Call of the Wild and White Fang. Call of the Wild is only 67 pages. I don't like it. I've read the first two chapters and it's harsh, brutal. I started chapter three, The Dominant Primordial Beast, and I don't think I'm going to finish it. I skipped to the last chapter and read that so I know how it ends. Maybe after the discussion and some of the community events I might decide the writing is worth it. I'm going to give White Fang a go. I read the first chapter last year when Ty had left it on the kitchen counter. Kay remembers it as kind of a love story, sort of. I think that will work better for me.

Big Read Boise and Beyond

Here's a little information from the Statesman:

Kickoff: Answer The Call of the Wild, 10-11a.m. Friday, Jan. 14, Morris Hill Dog Park, 10 Roosevelt Street. People and dogs are invited to gather as Mayor Bieter and Dan Popkey officially em"bark" on a celebration kicking off the 2011 Big Read.

Library book discussion, noon to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 18, Boise Public Library Ustick Branch.

Wolf: The Lives of Jack London, 7 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 19, Boise Public Library, Capitol Blvd. Keynote James Haley, author of Wolf: The Lives of Jack London, introduces us to one of the most compelling novelists of the 20th century.

Family Film Fun, 1 to 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 22, Boise Library Ustick branch will be screening a new animated adventure featuring two wolves who are set free in an Idaho park. (570-6900)

New Year - New List - Two Resolutions

It's 2011. We have a new reading list with something of everybody. I resolve to post on this blog past my record last year which was April. I further resolve to get others involved in posting on this blog. That will help bring to pass the success of the first resolution. And besides, it will make the blog more interesting and fun.

See the sidebar for the complete list of book selections for this year. I'm hoping I can figure out how to put all the books on the Shelfari widget. I've done it twice before, but it's always a puzzle. You'd think that I could just delete the old books and put new ones on the shelf, but that is beyond me. I have to delete the widget, then figure out how to get it again, then find the books, then figure out how to make the size fit. That's my weekend project - build a widget bookshelf.