August Recommended Reads

Hi All!

Hope you enjoyed last night, and as promised the list for August, just choose whichever takes your fancy and we'll have loads to discuss at Anniversary meeting! So enjoy .....

1) The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd

Inside the abbey of a Benedictine monastery on Egret Island, just off the coast of South Carolina, resides a beautiful and mysterious chair ornately carved with mermaids and dedicated to a saint, who, legend claims, was a mermaid before her conversion.When Jessie is summoned home to the island to cope with her eccentric mother’s seemingly inexplicable act of violence, she is living a conventional life with her husband, Hugh, a life “molded to the smallest space possible.” Jessie loves Hugh, but once on the island, she finds herself drawn to Brother Thomas, a monk who is soon to take his final vows. Amid a rich community of unforgettable island women and the exotic beauty of marshlands, tidal creeks and majestic egrets, Jessie grapples with the tension of desire and the struggle to deny it, with a freedom that feels overwhelmingly right and the immutable force of home and marriage. Is the power of the mermaid chair only a myth? Or will it alter the course of Jessie’s life? What transpires will unlock the roots of her mother’s tormented past, but most of all, allow Jessie to make a marriage unto herself.Where does the yearning for soul-mated love come from? When it comes to love, what are the pulls inside a woman between the ordinary and the sublime? The Mermaid Chair is a vividly imagined novel about mermaids and saints, about the passions of the spirit and the ecstasies of the body, brilliantly illuminating the awakening of a woman to her own deepest self.

2) Theft by Peter Carey

I don't know if my story is grand enough to be a tragedy, although a lot of shitty stuff did happen. It is certainly a love story but that did not begin until midway through the shitty stuff, by which time I had not only lost my eight-year-old son, but also my house and studio in Sydney where I had once been as famous as a painter could expect in his own backyard ...'So begins Peter Carey's highly charged and lewdly funny new novel. Told by the twin voices of the artist Butcher Bones and his 'damaged 220-pound brother' Hugh, it recounts their adventures and troubles after Butcher's plummeting prices and spiralling drink problem force them to retreat to northern New South Wales. Here the formerly famous artist is reduced to being a caretaker for his biggest collector, and the nurse for his erratic brother. Then the mysterious Marlene turns up one stormy night, clad in a pair of Manolo Blahniks. Claiming that the brothers' friend and neighbour owns an original Jacques Liebovitz, she soon sets in motion a chain of events that could be the making or ruin of them all. Once again displaying Peter Carey's extraordinary flair for language, "Theft" is a love poem of a very different kind. Ranging from the rural wilds of Australia to Manhattan via Tokyo - and exploring themes of art, fraud, responsibility and redemption - this is a great novel which will also make you laugh out loud.


3) Marley & Me by John Grogan

John and Jenny were just beginning their life together. They were young and in love, with a perfect little house and not a care in the world. Then they bought home Marley, a wiggly yellow fur ball of a puppy. Life would never be the same. Marley quickly grew into a barrelling, ninety-seven pound steamroller of a Labrador retriever, a dog like no other. He crashed through screen doors, gouged through drywall, flung drool on guests, stole women's undergarments, and ate nearly everything he could get his mouth around, including couches and fine jewellery. Obedience school did no good - Marley was expelled. Neither did the tranquilisers the veterinarian prescribed for him with the admonishment, 'Don't hesitate to use these.' And yet Marley's heart was pure. Just as he joyfully refused any limits on his behaviour, his love and loyalty were boundless, too. Marley shared the couple's joy at their first pregnancy, and their heartbreak over the miscarriage. He was there when babies finally arrived and when the screams of a seventeen-year-old stabbing victim pierced the night. Unconditional love, they would learn, comes in many forms. This is the heartwarming and unforgettable story of a family in the making and the wondrously neurotic dog who taught them what really matters in life.

Bookclub Next Meeting July 31st

Hi All!
Just to remind you next meeting is this Monday and am forwarding details, venues, times etc to your e-mail as I type...hope to see you all there!

Luv
Shinners

Other books suggested for the July Read

my best friend’s girl by Dorothy Koomson (Image copyright Time Warner Paperbacks , Published by Time Warner Paperbacks . Further details available at http://tinyurl.com/mlj25, meet the author at http://tinyurl.com/efme4.

What would you do for the friend who broke your heart?Best friends Kamryn Matika and Adele Brannon thought nothing could come between them - until Adele did the unthinkable and slept with Kamryn's fiancé, Nate. Worse still, she got pregnant and had his child. When Kamryn discovered the truth about their betrayal she vowed never to see any of them again. Two years later, Kamryn receives a letter from Adele asking her to visit her in hospital. Adele is dying and begs Kamryn to adopt her daughter, Tegan. With a great job and a hectic social life, the last thing Kamryn needs is a five year old to disrupt things. Especially not one who reminds her of Nate. But with no one else to take care of Tegan and Adele fading fast, does she have any other choice? So begins a difficult journey that leads Kamryn towards forgiveness, love, responsibility and, ultimately, a better understanding of herself.


The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (Image copyright: Hodder Headline. Published by Hodder Headline. Further information, reviews, excerpts & readers guide are available at http://tinyurl.com/mdhtk)

Living on a peach farm in South Carolina with her harsh, unyielding father, Lily Owens has shaped her entire life around one devastating, blurred memory--the afternoon her mother was killed, when Lily was four. Since then, her only real companion has been the fierce-hearted, and sometimes just fierce, black woman Rosaleen, who acts as her “stand-in mother.” When Rosaleen insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily knows it's time to spring them both free. They take off in the only direction Lily can think of, toward a town called Tiburon, South Carolina--a name she found on the back of a picture amid the few possessions left by her mother. There they are taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters named May, June, and August. Lily thinks of them as the calendar sisters and enters their mesmerizing secret world of bees and honey, and of the Black Madonna who presides over this household of strong, wise women. Maternal loss and betrayal, guilt and forgiveness entwine in a story that leads Lily to the single thing her heart longs for most. The Secret Life of Bees has a rare wisdom about life--about mothers and daughters and the women in our lives who become our true mothers. A remarkable story about the divine power of women and the transforming power of love, this is a stunning debut whose rich, assured, irresistible voice gathers us up and doesn't let go, not for a moment. It is the kind of novel that women share with each other and that mothers will hand down to their daughters for years to come.

The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd (Image copyright: Hodder Headline. Published by Hodder Headline. Further information, reviews, excerpts & readers guide are available at http://tinyurl.com/zxzje

Inside the abbey of a Benedictine monastery on Egret Island, just off the coast of South Carolina, resides a beautiful and mysterious chair ornately carved with mermaids and dedicated to a saint, who, legend claims, was a mermaid before her conversion.When Jessie is summoned home to the island to cope with her eccentric mother’s seemingly inexplicable act of violence, she is living a conventional life with her husband, Hugh, a life “molded to the smallest space possible.” Jessie loves Hugh, but once on the island, she finds herself drawn to Brother Thomas, a monk who is soon to take his final vows. Amid a rich community of unforgettable island women and the exotic beauty of marshlands, tidal creeks and majestic egrets, Jessie grapples with the tension of desire and the struggle to deny it, with a freedom that feels overwhelmingly right and the immutable force of home and marriage. Is the power of the mermaid chair only a myth? Or will it alter the course of Jessie’s life? What transpires will unlock the roots of her mother’s tormented past, but most of all, allow Jessie to make a marriage unto herself.Where does the yearning for soul-mated love come from? When it comes to love, what are the pulls inside a woman between the ordinary and the sublime? The Mermaid Chair is a vividly imagined novel about mermaids and saints, about the passions of the spirit and the ecstasies of the body, brilliantly illuminating the awakening of a woman to her own deepest self.


The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
(Image copyright Orion Publising Group. Published by Orion Publising Group. Further details available at http://tinyurl.com/kxkf3

Hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is the 'cemetery of lost books', a labyrinthine library of obscure and forgotten titles that have long gone out of print. To this library, a man brings his 10-year-old son Daniel one cold morning in 1945. Daniel is allowed to choose one book from the shelves and pulls out 'La Sombra del Viento' by Julian Carax. But as he grows up, several people seem inordinately interested in his find. Then, one night, as he is wandering the old streets once more, Daniel is approached by a figure who reminds him of a character from La Sombra del Viento, a character who turns out to be the devil. This man is tracking down every last copy of Carax's work in order to burn them. What begins as a case of literary curiosity turns into a race to find out the truth behind the life and death of Julian Carax and to save those he left behind. A page-turning exploration of obsession in literature and love, and the places that obsession can lead.