book for December

The book for this month is called A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.

I chose this book because a good friend gave it to me in college with high recommendation. I have heard so many people say it's a wonderful classic and they really enjoy it.

Since this month is such a busy time, I'd be willing to say we could stretch this book out over Dec and Jan if you girls want to!

Here are 2 little reviews that I found online if you're interested:

Betty Smith's first novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, became immediately popular when it was published in 1943. The book sold 300,000 copies in the first six weeks after it was published. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is now considered an essential part of American literature. As an indispensable classic, Smith's book appears on reading lists across the country. It has profoundly influenced readers from all walks of life--young and old alike. The New York Public Library even chose the book as one of the "Books of the Century."

The book follows Francie, her two siblings, her mother Katie and her sisters, and her drunken singing waiter father Johnny Nolan from before their birth till 1918 and the First World War. The book opens with Francie at eleven years old, and we get a sumptuous introduction to her world- the neighborhood she lives in, the children she knows, the dying man who is a neighbor, her wacky extended family, and the shops and shopkeeps that inhabit it. Francie is what would now be called a gifted child and her desire for wordplay evidences itself early on. Later in the book she will show insights into things beyond her years- a preference for factory work over office work to not stifle her creativity, her recognition of a grade school teacher’s, Miss Garnder’s utter lack of understanding of what constitutes good writing - in a prescient precursory glance at what later became known as Political Correctness.

kaufman

another book down!

I just finished the book and I really enjoyed it too. Like you Strickland, I was really happy with the ending. I could tell that the 93 yr old Jacob still had the heart and spirit of a 20 something yr old, and I loved that the book ended with him sneaking away with the circus again! It was perfect! It almost made me tear up about the manager who took him in and kept him from having to go back to the nursing home. And also that the manager recognized what an important man Jacob was and treated him with such respect. Loved that.

I, too, was so sad about Walter and Camel. I wonder if that red-lighting thing was a regular practice in these traveling circuses! so sad. It was cool to see how the image of Walter (Kinko) really changed from the beginning to the end of the book. You start off kinda being disgusted by him, to seeing how caring and kind he really was. I loved relationship with his little dog, Queenie, too.

Jacob's relationship with Marlena was really interesting. Although I definitely don't agree with sleeping with someone while you're married to someone else, I was of course really glad that Jacob and Marlena ended up together. He adored her so much. I was glad the old Jacob talked about their life together in the end.

One of the main things I enjoyed about this book (I kinda said this in an earlier post too) was how it kept changing perspectives of Jacob between being an old and young man. I think that really helped develop his character and make it all the more interesting to me. I loved his nurse, Rosemary....I basically loved every part where Jacob talked about life in the nursing home.

I did come away with a question (maybe the answer is really obvious, but I must have missed it)...... why do you guys think this book is called "Water for Elephants"? And why was the old Jacob so upset when the other old guy in the nursing home said he used to carry water for elephants? I understand that Rosie the elephant is a large part of this book but I just didn't get the carrying the water aspect. I don't remember the author saying much about that.

great choice, Tanna! I will post about the book for December this week.

-Kaufman

Finished.

Hey guys-

First off, I am very excited that Tanna has commented, even if it is not a new post, a comment is a great start! (Tanna i will help you ASAP).

I really like this book alot. I finished last night around and I loved the ending.

Kaufman- I agre with you in that I enjoyed hearing Jacob as an old man because he reminded me of a patient and it helps to see their perspective. It also makes me depressed to get old.

I enjoyed Jacob alot. He seemed like a great guy, a quiet yet strong person. I have never been a huge animal rights activisit or anything, but this book really made me feel bad for the animals and get quite upset with dumb ol August, who is an ass by the way. I never agree with adultry, but I am happy how it ended :) and technically there was no adultry.
I would have been very sad if nothing good happened with old-man jacob at the end, so I can rest easy now knowing he is in the circus again :)

Overall I loved this book, great choice Tanna- you did redeem yourself from you lack of posts earlier. If I had to choose a part I did not enjoy it was probabaly Walter and his little fiasco with the 8-pagers...however i grew to love walter and was extremly disappointed he had to get red-lighted in the book.

Strickland

watering those elephants

hey friends. I've been really enjoying this book, thanks Tanna. minus the few questionable scenes (ha, some of the them were just plain weird), it's been so good. I really love the parts when Jacob is telling of his experience as a 93-year old man in the nursing home. I like that the author throws those parts in here and there. It's real interesting to me, especially as a nurse to hear from the patient's perspective, plus he just seems like an adorable grumpy old man.

That's all for now, hope you all are enjoying it too! I want to see the movie when it comes out!

BK

Strickland is laying down the law.

Ok everyone here is the deal-

we are going to read Water for Elephants through November. Tanna chose this book and we WILL finsih it :) However, she wants to pass along she is sorry about the lude sex scenes, I assured her though , that we do not mind ;) haha...joking. Anyways, this month that is what we are reading, for December Bethany will choose.

Now- everyone better start commenting on this thing, myself included.


strickland

I love the Amazon

Hey guys-

I just bought Water for Elephants for $0.97 on Amazon.com! I'll start readying it as soon as I can.

hmmm

way to go, book club members! no updates since sept 27....since Tanna has not written yet (ahem) I will go ahead and tell everyone that her choice of the book for this month is called Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen. Taylor, hopefully Strickland went ahead and let you know about this. I have purchased the book and I have really enjoyed it so far! happy reading everyone!

Kaufman

take your pill, Jonas!

as I make my way through this book for a second time, I find that I am amused and almost annoyed with the way this community tries to function. the way they try to control everything, even the peoples' natural sexual desires for the opposite gender ("stirrings"), is so odd! I remember feeling this way as I read the book the first time too. yet that's what makes this such a good story. it is such an interesting setting and story line. but I could never live in a community like this, haha.

p.s. I don't know if its my turn to pick next month's book (I think it is), but I know what it's going to be and I'm excited to share it with you girls!

happy reading,

kaufman

Half-way through

Well,

I'm about half-way through the book so far and I find it very interesting. It makes me wonder what it would be like if life was that way. Definately has its pros and cons, but I don't think overall I would enjoy it. Right now Jonas has just had his first day at his new "job." I really like the "Giver" as well too, I like that Jonas doesn't have to be polite now, haha..

strickland

giver

I am looking at my book in my bookshelf right now, and I'm about to start it this afternoon!

yay

kaufman

Book has been Bought

Hey guys

I bought my book this weekend. I will start today.

strickland

book #2

I never read The Giver in elementary school, however I bought it a few years ago because I heard it was so good. So I have read it recently but I don't mind reading it again! I definitely enjoyed it and I'll be glad to pick it back up and give it a second go. Good choice Miss Taylor!

Kaufman

The Giver

Hi everyone!

One more comment about The Giver. You can find it in the "Young Adult" or "Young Readers" section. The bookstore I went to the other day actually had it displayed right out front so it shouldn't be to hard to find. I can't wait to see what everyone thinks of the book. I had a hard time choosing, especially following Strickland's book! I'll being writing my thoughts tomorrow.

Tay.

p.s. Make sure you keep an open mind Strickland :)

Book #2

Hey Guys-

Taylor posted the next book under Kuafman's post of Traveling Mercies so it starts today!

Everyone has promised to be more diligent this time around...i hope this is true.

strickland

My Thoughts...

My thoughts on Traveling Mercies-

First, I really enjoyed it, kept my attention and made me laugh and think. First, I just want to say "ditto" on all Kaufmans views. I loved the quote about just "being there giving grahm crackers to someone," or something along those lines. I think anyone that has been through some degree of their own personal tragedy can agree that the mere prescence of someone speaks the loudest.

I will also agree with kaufman that you never really get a full grasp of how Anne might view Christianity...but I also don't know exactly how I view Christianity either, however I do agree with kaufman that I think there are core beliefs a "Christian" should have. Hers seems alittle New Age to me, a bit scatter brained, and emotionally driven, but again, I definately saw myself in her thoughts alot and I feel like we would be very good friends if she were somewhat younger.

On the "feminst" side I do believe I will disagree with kaufman slightly here. I loved it. I feel like these days any woman who has confidence in herself, or is opinionated or head strong in any way is considered a "feminist." I see it more as a confidence, just merely being comfortable with who you are, and not really giving a shit about what other people label you as (as she puts it). I found it inspiriing and might find some feminist groups to join myself...kidding...kind of.

I like her chapter on forgiveness alot, pg 128 she talks about how she went around saying she is not a Christian who is big on forgiveness, but the other kind, i found that really funny. But i totally agree with her later on when she realizes that not forgiving somone is really causing no harm to that person, just yourself. she says "it's like drinking rat poision than waiting for the rat to die. I thought that was clever...

All in all i loved the book, I could totally relate to the way she thinks. I loved towards the end when she was talking about holding her elderly mom's hand in the sand, because she wasn't good at walking in the sand, and how much she loved her mom and wanted to help her, and was terrified of her dying some day, but then she is secretly resentful about how slow her mom is, lipstick on her teeth, and wanting to throw her in the road for a jeep to runover her...hahahaha, i really do enjoy how honest she is, and if we are honest with ourselves we have all had thoughts like that about people in our lives (if not i have just shared too much of myself with you all). One last quote I liked alot where she is talking about miracles in our lives

Pg 198 "Maybe its not a miracle to you, but I know where I was, and I know where I am now, and you just can't get here from there."

cheers to our bookclub book #2 -Strickland-

Traveling Mercies

well I realize it is Sept 1, but I just finished the last chapter of our lovely little book today! I will try to be more on time for the next one. (although I see no one else has written yet either so maybe I'm off the hook!) ;)

I really enjoyed this book! The introduction was pretty long, and I usually get annoyed with intros and prefaces and I try to speed through them, but this was actually one part of the book I enjoyed the most. I liked hearing about her childhood as she grew up being involved with several different families and different faiths. It definitely gives her an interesting perspective and background as she eventually made her way toward Christianity. I thought her little "conversion" moment was pretty interesting.

"I began to cry and left before the benediction, and I raced home and felt the little cat running along at my heels, and I walked down the dock past dozens of potted flowers, under a sky as blue as one of God's own dreams, and opened the door to my houseboat, and I stood there a minute, and then I hung my head and said, 'F*** it: I quit.' I took a long deep breath and said out loud, 'All right. You can come in'."

I find this kinda cool because, a. it just goes to show me that God really does reveal Himself to people, even those who are bent on resisting Him. Anne had described for a while that she felt this presence and this nagging weight or something on her heart, which she believed to be Jesus pursuing her. I think that is really a beautiful thing. My point b. is that her experience of accepting Christ into her life is definitely very different from my own (I would say we had some different word choices!), but this was her unique moment of opening her heart up to the Lord and He used that as His open door to come into her life. As I grow older I'm always amazed to see different people's various experiences with the Lord; He works in so many ways, and who am I to say that because He's worked in my own life a certain way, He will do the exact same thing in everyone else. Of course, I do believe that there are basic things foundational to being a Christian: i.e. making a conscious decision to accept Christ's work on the cross, accepting Him as your personal Savior, we cannot get to heaven on our own works, etc, etc, but the journey of someone getting to this point can vary a lot; I believe for some it's a specific moment like Anne's, for others a more gradual realization and acceptance over time.

As I continued on in the book I began to see what an interesting character this Anne is! I don't know what you girls thought but I at times thought she was a little out there. :) For instance, how she licked her friend's ashes off her hand as she was spreading them out on the lake, and she said she just wanted to "taste her" and keep some of her inside. Now I know she was going through major grief, but I thought that was a little odd! Speaking of grief though, I saw that this was largely a theme of this book and I thought she had some good thoughts on how to deal with it. Not only did she talk about dealing with grief in your own life, but on how to help others deal with grief that I thought was beneficial, as I sometimes don't know how to best help someone when they are hurting.

"As I've said before, I believe that when all is said and done, all you can do is to show up for someone in crisis, which seems so inadequate. But then when you do, it can radically change everything. Your there-ness, your stepping into a scared parent's line of vision, can be life giving, because often everyone else is in hiding - especially, in the beginning, the parents [or whoever else you're dealing with here]. So you come to keep them company when it feels like the whole world is falling apart, and your being there says that just for this moment, this one tiny piece of the world is OK, or is at least better."

Also, something that her pastor Veronica said:

"This is life's nature: that lives and hearts get broken - those of people we love, those of people we'll never meet. The world sometimes feels like the waiting room of the emergency ward and that we who are more or less OK for now need to take the tenderest possible care of the more wounded people in the waiting room, until the healer comes. You sit with people, you bring them juice and graham crackers."

Again, the older I get, the more I'm seeing how much pain there is in this world and how many people are privately hurting that we wouldn't even know are in pain. I believe we should turn to God first with our grief and our hurting hearts, but I also know that he gave us friends, family, and other people in our lives to come alongside us to help us through this often difficult journey. I love that about God; He has made us in His image, and He is a relational God - therefore He made us as relational human beings! He delights in our deep friendships and joy of being together and when we help each other; I think that it honors Him. Ok I'm getting off on tangents. But back to the grief point, for me as a nurse that also motivates me to be better at coming alongside patients and families in the hospital who are truly dealing with heart-wrenching situations. I only hope that I'll have people there for me during those times as well.

I wouldn't say I agreed with everything Anne had to say; for one thing she kept referring to God as a "she". She also seemed very liberal and feminist, but I still liked a lot of her thoughts. I felt like I didn't get a totally clear picture of what her view of being a Christian was; I know I talked before about her conversion experience, but things she said afterward seemed to be a little wishy-washy and emotions-driven. I didn't really hear her talking very concretely about Christ as the Savior of her life and the only true way to God, so I don't know if that's not what she believes or maybe she simply didn't refer to it much. I don't know, correct me if I'm wrong. You guys can comment on what you thought of that.

last thing, I enjoyed her son, Sam. He is a little pistol and I thought their relationship was pretty sweet.

overall, very enjoyable read! I look forward to seeing what you ladies have to say about it.

Kaufman

alone in a book club....

Hello fellow "bookclubbers"

I say this in quotations because as you can observe I am alone here in this book club. Tanna has talked to me and apolagized asking if she can re-start in September, so she is sitting this book out. She also requested to not pick the next book as she has deemed herself unworthy. Taylor- do you want to choose the Septemberbook?

Strickland

TANNA DAWSON

TAnna-

are you out there?? we are all worried about you...please join us on the blog :)

strickland

First Impressions?

Hey guys!

Just wondering what everyones first impression is. It had my attention just about right away. It's not filled with mystery and romance or anything, but I love when an author can write so candidly about their unique upbringing and also find humor in really dark areas of their life. I always wonder in books like these, do they ever get nervous writing harshly about family or do they just not let them read the book? haha...

strickland (Taylor is a Thompson officially now so im the only strickland on this blog;)

So does everyone have their book now? I'm not sure about Tanna. I know you got onto the blog but do you have the book yet? Let me know.....

schedule

Hey-

ok Taylor semt me a message (did you meant to comment on the blog? I think you just emailed me....)about possibly setting up a schedule. I think we should let Tanna choose next since we all kinda agrees on the first book without her there. So TANNA- you can choose the September book (choose wisely or we will kick you out ;). After that I dont care...how about Taylor next then wrap it up with Kaufman then start over? How does that sound?

August- Strickland
September- Tanna
October- Taylor
Novemeber- Kaufman

Any ideas for how we help this flow properly with our comments? I think we sould all agree to comment once a week at least, and maybe you can just write about whatever you have read, not sure if this will ruin anything for people who aren't as far...but maybe not. So I have already read the first 2 chapters of this book, i'll wait alittle to let people read a few before I comment! I really enjoy it so far but I'm also reading the "posionwood Bible" which is great.

-Strickland-

Introducing the first book!

hey guys-

well, three out of four of us were camping together when we came up with this book club, so we thought of a book we would like to start with. I actually will claim this as my choice for this month, since it is a book Brett bought me for my birthday. We would like for whoever chooses the book of the month to list the name and author of the book, a brief description of the book, and why you chose it. Nothing is off limits (well...you know what I mean) so choose whatever you want even if you don't know if others will like it. we are here to cultural ourselves :), because i know i would never be caught dead reading a jane austin novel but i have a feeling someone (Taylor) will force me to. Here is the first book:

Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith (National Bestseller)
Author: Anne Lamott

Instead of describing it myself, i'll just quote the New York Times Book Review. "Even at her most serious, she never takes herself or her spirituality too seriously...Lamott is a narrator who has realized and soaked up the details of her existence, equally of mirth and devastation, spirit and grief, and spilled them onto her pages."

I chose the book 1. because brett bought it for me and he usually has good taste on books he knows i would enjoy. 2. i like this quote by her, "the best two prayers I know are "help me, help me, help me" and "thank you, thank you, thank you." I like this because I have always considered by faith something simple. I have never been one to love praying in front of people because I dont chose to use big words or long drawn out sentences. My faith is something simple, but also something very real to me which has grown and evolved (and still is) throughout my life.

Bethany S.

sup girls

loving the background! I am impressed Strickles. I am quite excited for this club.

every member of the book club must take this oath...


"I, (name), solemnly swear to be faithful to the book club. I will read each book in its entirety, even if it is not my favorite. I will comment and give my thoughts and research everything including each book's cultural background and latin origin. I promise to never be a part of ANY OTHER BOOK CLUB EXCEPT THIS ONE! I will stay true to book club until death do us part"

hahaha, ok just kidding, but seriously. ok I'm weird.

but yay I'm excited! :)

Kaufman

Beginning a book club

Hey guys-

okay so I really love this idea of an online "book club." I have never done anything like this so I'm not really sure how we want to go about it. I put you all as "authors" under the permission catagory so you can all change the design if you dont like it, or add pictures, or do whatever you want.

I think we all decided that 1 month per book sounds good, i know we are all busy so we dont want to force people to read every night if they can't. If we need more/less time for each individual book that's fine, just let everyone know.

How do we all stay at the same pace? Im not sure how it work if someone is commenting half way through the book and everyone else is only 1/4 the way through, any suggestions?

-b. strickland-