August Meeting

It's a potluck get-together in Kay's beautiful backyard on Tuesday, August 16th.  We start the potlucks at 6:30.  This is the last one of the year.  Come whether you have something to share or not.  There's always plenty. 

Our book is the NAZI Officer's WIFE by Edith Hahn Beer, with Susan Dworkin.  This is a remarkable memoir of a Holocaust survivor.  We'll have a lot to discuss about courage, choices, survival, and heritage.  Thankfully, despite the risk it posed to her life, Edith saved every document she had, as well as photographs she took inside labor camps.  These are now part of the collection at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and some are included in the book.  They have also filmed an A&E Special Presentation about the memoir, so if you don't have time to read the book, you can Netflicks it.

Just Some Ideas

A lot of us have been reading this summer, but too busy to make it to Book Group.  Hopefully everyone is keeping track of the books that they’ve especially enjoyed.  Anyone can meet with us to select the books 2012.  In the past Sue Ann, Lyn, Kay, Pam and I have chosen our titles.  We’d really like to get input from everyone, especially from some who are younger than us (below 50!).  We’ll take suggestions at any time, the sooner the better because we like to have someone read them through before January to make sure they fit our RS standards.

Lyn brought up an idea at our last meeting about having a yearly theme.  Some book groups have done this and have been able to delve more deeply into a subject.  They can choose fiction, nonfiction, church books, young readers, or just about any genre like we do now.   This year we’ve had a few books that deal with family history, and we have three coming up that deal with Jews and Germany in WWII.  We could have chosen one of those topics as a theme.  You can also keep it very broad and have a theme of relationships, America, or serving others.  Let’s think about it.

If you have any ideas for themes, books, or something different to do at our meetings, just leave a comment, E-mail anyone in the group, or just talk to us at church.  This book group has been going for decades.  We want it to get better and better.

July Update

Our July meeting was held in Dawnee’s  enchanted garden – a perfect place to curl up on a glider and read.  I hadn’t read the book, and had a hard time staying tuned in to the discussion because I was just looking around the garden and rocking in the shade.  We discussed Emily of New Moon, from the same author that wrote Anne of Green Gables, L.M.Montgomery.  This book was suppose to be more autobiographical.  Lyn liked it more, but Stephanie, who is the Anne of Green Gables #1 fan, didn’t like it near as well.  This book was written in the 1920s (I think) and we discussed how it was a harder read because of the detailed descriptions and just slower flow.  We wondered how many readers now days can stick with the Jane Austen type writing, or Dickens.  Pam mentioned that at a writing workshop she attended, they said to have a book published it needs to start with action on the first page (or first paragraph) and there needs to be action on every third page.  This is the Harry Potter generation.  Many of us can just convert to Dawnee’s philosophy – Netflicks.  She watched Emily of New Moon and August’s selection, The Nazi Officer’s Wife.  It would be nice to be ahead of the game.  It seems I’ve been reading too many selections after the meetings this year.

June Update–Late

We met at Dani’s house (formerly Shelly’s house) for our June, potluck meeting.  First of all, we need some people to post recipes.  There were some good salads and desserts.  I really can’t remember what exactly, but I do remember I brought watermelon or cantaloupe.  You won’t need a recipe for that.  If you can’t figure out how to join the blog or post, I can help you out, or you can e-mail me information or recipes and I’ll make sure they get on here sooner or later.  By the way, I’m taking a blog lesson and I hope to add a page to this blog where we can put all the recipes in a “potluck” section, and keep the main page for books.

Thank you Dani for your hospitality.  We love your house.  We also welcomed a new friend at this meeting, Marcelle M.  She couldn’t stay long, but we look forward to getting to know her better and to hear her thoughts.

The book we discussed was The Forgotten Garden.  It was a favorite of some, and others had some issues with the character or a few pieces that didn’t seem real plausible.  We had a great discussion on who we really are, and how important heredity, environment, and family are to each of us.  I liked Lyn’s thoughts on how important bloodlines are in the scriptures, and how she use to think that it was a vengeful God that would visit the sins of the fathers upon three or four generations.  She later thought how it might not be God’s vengeance, but more just the human condition, where we tend to do things the way our parents did things and those traditions and philosophies are handed down through the generations.

I was in the favorite camp with this book.  I liked the writing especially the “Dickens” parts and the fairy tales.  I also like several of the characters and the jumping around through the century to fill in clues about the mystery.  Sue Ann liked the book and has read others by this author.  She doesn’t recommend the other books though because they always deal with some tragedy.