Wednesday night....

i'm so embarrassed. i have absolutely nothing to contribute.

Although these books are a few years old. They are the last books of popular fiction that I really enjoyed;
Sister of my Heart and The Secret Life of Bees.

If you have a hard time finding the author of Sister of my Heart and are interested in it...let me know, I will search around for it.

Odd Thomas, by Dean Koontz

My book club read "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult this year. It was so good -- I really, really enjoyed it. I hated to bring it back to the library. (It led me to read "Plain Truth," another of her books, which I also really enjoyed...but I enjoyed MSK the most of all of my book club books, hands down.)

You should read that "Gilead Balm" book that is getting so much publicity. I say that for selfish reasons since I haven't read it but probably would if you gave it a thumbs up.

Oh, I was just thinking about writing a post about this -- good books I've read this year, or books to give as gifts, or something. Does your book club have a theme?

My fave book from this year: Mountains Beyond Mountains, about Paul Farmer's work with the poor in Haiti. Right now I am enjoying Girl Meets God, about a young woman who converted to Anglicanism from Orthodox Judaism. I am in the middle of Better Off, about a man who lived with radical Mennonites for 18 months. If your book club is full of mothers, consider Having Faith. A book I was recently reminded of was Complications, by Atul Gawande, which is a series of humble and really well-written essays about being a doctor.

On the fiction front -- this year I read Sense & Sensibility, which mostly reminded me of how much I prefer Mansfield Park. Maybe for next December read A Christmas Carol. I started it last night with my bigger boys and was surprised at how much even the 5yo enjoyed it and wanted to keep talking about it. The C.S. Lewis space trilogy is fun with some good discussion in it too, esp. in Perelandra.

Tell us what you settle on!

Correction: The title is "Gilead: A Novel".

Forgive me if I've missed a previous mention of this book. However, run do not walk to "The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency" by Alexander McCall Smith. If (pardon me, when) you enjoy it, there are more books in the series that are also delightful.

It's a little long, but I really enjoyed Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susannah Clarke.

Deafening, by Frances Itani.

I can tell you that it's a novel about a deaf woman in the early twentieth century, but that's a little like telling you Gone With the Wind is a Civil War novel; true as far as it goes, but terribly misleading.

Try it, try it, do! I looked forward to the doctor's appointments I had the week I was reading it, because I knew they would give me extra time to read.

Anything by Louis de Wohl.

Well...MamaT...what do you think of our suggestions???

It has been around for awhile, but David James Duncan's The River Why is a great read and would make good book club fodder. I also recommend anything by Ivan Doig. Also, digging into older books, At Play in the Fields of the Lord, Far Tortuga and The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen are fantastic.

Currently I have been rereading Guaraschi's Don Camillo books, which are light, fun, and capture Italianicity to a tee.

I also recommend just about anything by Richard Russo, particularly Empire Falls.