January book club

Just as an FYI for those of you that have some extra time to read over the holidays, our January book club will be at Alyssa's on Jan. 30. The book is Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas by James Patterson. It should be fun!

December Christmas Book Club

For December I, Emily B, volunteered to host book club.  So it will be December 19th at MaryAnne Hunter's home.  I'm super excited to read and discuss the three stories President Monson reads each year around Christmastime.  I have done this in the past and always enjoyed those years when I do (even better when my husband reads them with me).  I love the Christ-centered perspective it brings amid the hustle and bustle of the season.

The three stories are:

1. the story of the birth of Christ as told in the Gospel of Luke (available online or in the Bible)
2. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (available online or download to a kindle free). 
3. The Mansion by Henry Van Dyke  (available online or download to kindle free).

************************************************************************
from the First Presidency Christmas Devotional, December 2011

“There is no better time than now, this very Christmas season, for all of us to rededicate ourselves to the principles taught by Jesus Christ,” President Monson said. He spoke of witnessing the annual commercialization of Christmas, of seeing Christmas become less about Christ and more about sales, parties, and presents.

And yet, President Monson said, “Christmas is what we make of it. Despite all the distractions, we can see to it that Christ is at the center of our celebration. If we have not already done so, we can establish Christmas traditions for ourselves and for our families which will help us capture and keep the spirit of Christ.”

Three Christmas Stories

President Monson said that each year for Christmas, he reads the story of the birth of Christ as told in the Gospel of Luke. He also reads A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and The Mansion by Henry Van Dyke, and he remembers the change of heart undergone by Ebenezer Scrooge and the lessons about the true meaning of giving learned by John Weightman. Both characters learned that a reward in heaven is based on forgetting oneself and not seeking worldly gain or recognition.

President Monson pleaded with each of us to not spend Christmas but to keep Christmas in our hearts and lives.

“Because when we keep the spirit of Christmas,” he said, “we keep the spirit of Christ, for the Christmas spirit is the Christ spirit. It will block out all the distractions around us, which can diminish Christmas and swallow up its true meaning.”

President Monson then summarized some of the many gifts we receive because Heavenly Father gave us the gift of His Son, sending Him to earth as our Redeemer.

“Because He came to earth, we have a perfect example to follow. As we strive to become more like Him, we will have joy and happiness in our lives and peace each day of the year. It is His example, which if followed, stirs within us more kindness and love, more respect and concern for others.

Because He came, there is meaning to our mortal existence.

Because He came, we know how to reach out to those in trouble or in distress, wherever they may be.

Because He came, death has lost its sting, the grave its victory. We will live again because He came.

Because He came and paid for our sins, we have the opportunity to gain eternal life.

Because He came, we are gathered tonight to worship Him in bonds of brotherhood and love.

May His precious Spirit be with us, and may He ever be the center of our celebrations and indeed of our very lives.”

November's book club

Meta will be hosting book club on November 28th (1203 Genessee Street)! Here's a little info about the book; it should be a VERY interesting discussion:

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.

Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality” until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family—past and present—is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.
- from Amazon.com

Book Club suggestions

Lisa had a friend send her a list of books they'd done in her book club for the past 13 years. Lots of these look like great suggestions.

1999
“Persuasion” by Jane Austen
“Woman in White”  by Wilkie Collins
“The Chosen”  by Chaim Potok
“Crossing to Safety”  by Wallace Stegner
“The Pilot’s Wife”  by Anita Shreve
“Jonathan Livingston Seagull” and “Illusions” by Jonathan Bach

2000
“Blithedale Romance”  by Nathaniel Hawthorne
“Tuesdays With Morrie” by Mitch Albom
“Les Miserable”  by Victor Hugo
“Simple Abundance” by Sarah Breathnach
“The Long Walk”  by Slavomir Rawicz
“The House of Mirth”  by Edith Wharton
“Queen Lucia”  by E. F. Benson
“Golden Compass”  by Philip Pullman
“Precious Bane”  by Mary Webb
“Gone With the Wind”  by Margaret Mitchell


2001
“Endurance”  by Alfred Lansing
“Sole Survivor”  by Derek Hansen
“At Home at Mitford”  by Jan Karon
“Left Behind”  by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins
“Poisonwood Bible”  by Barbara Kingsolver
“Reason For Hope”  by Jane Goodall
“A Year in  Provence”  by Peter Mayle
“Mark Twain Short Stories”  by Mark Twain
“The Giver”  by Lois Lowry
“The Education of Little Tree”  by Forrest Carter and Rennard Strickland
“Nicholas Nickleby”  by Charles Dickens



2002
“Beekeepers Apprentice”  by Laurie King
“Ender’s Game”  by Orson Scott Card
“Tending Roses”  by Lisa Wingate
“Sorcerer’s Stone” and “Chamber of Secrets”  by J.K. Rowling
“Gifts From the Sea”  by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
“The Blessing Way”  by Tony Hillerman
“All Creatures Great and Small”  by James Herriot
“The Old Man and the Sea”  by Ernest Hemingway
“East of Eden”  by John Steinbech
“Wish You Well”  by David Baldacci
“Return to Christmas”  by Chris Heimidinger


2003
“84 Charing Cross Rd.”  by Helen Hanff
“Used and Rare” by Nancy and Larry Goldstein
“My Last Days as Roy Roger”  by Pat Cunningham Devoto
“An Anthropologist on Mars”  by Oliver Sacks
“Dandelion Wine”  by Ray Bradbury
“Frankenstein” by Mary Shelby
“The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett
“The Spirit Controlled Woman”  by Beverly Lahaye
“Peace Like a River”  by Leif Enger


2004
“Girl With a Pearl Earring”  by Tracy Chevalier
“Back When We Were Grownups”  by Anne Tyler
“On A Pale Horse”  by Piers Anthony
“The Secret Life of Bees”  by Sue Monk Kidd
“I Capture the Castle”  by Dodie Smith
“Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind”  by Ann B. Ross
“Life With Jeeves”  by P. G. Wodehouse
“On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon”  by Kaye Gibbons
“To Kill a Mockingbird”  by Harper Lee
“A Town Like Alice”  by Nevil Shute
“The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”  by C. S. Lewis



2005
“Jane Eyre”  by Charlotte Bronte
“Life of Pi”  by Yann Martel
“And There was Light”  by Jacques Lusseyran
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream”  by William Shakespeare
“The Wedding”  by Nicholas Sparks
“The Simple Faith of Mr. Rogers:  Spiritual Insights from Me”  by Amy Hollingsworth
“Once Upon a Town”  by Bob Greene
“We Band of Angels”  by Elizabeth Norman
“Not Without My Daughter”  by Betty Mahmoody
“October Sky”   by Homer Hickan
“Anne of Green Gables”  by L. M. Montgomery



2006
“The Laws of Evening”  by Mary Yukari Waters
“Lost In a Good Book”  by Jaspar Fforde
“Small Change:  The Secret Life of Penny Burford”  by J. Belinda Yandell
“Little House on the Prairie”  by Laura Ingall Wilder
“Toad Rage”  by Morris Gleitzman
“The Persian Pickle Club”  by Sandra Dallas
“Epitaph For a Peach:  Four Seasons on My Family Farm”  by David Mas Masumoto
“Having Our Say”  by the Delaney Sisters
“Diary of a Provincial Lady”  by E.M. Delafield
“Break In”  by Dick Francis
“Pigs In Heaven”  by Barbara Kingsolver



2007
“Ella Minnow Pea”  by Mark Dunn
“Blink the Power of Thinking Without Thinking”  by Malcolm Gladwell
“A Short History of Nearly Everything”  by Bill Bryson
“The Thirteenth Tale”  by Diane Setterfield
“Tisha”  by Purdie, as told to Specht
“The Hiding Place”  by Corrie Ten Boon
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows”  by J.K. Rowling
“Tears of the Giraffe”  by Alexander McCall Smith
“The Alchemist”  by Paulo Coelho
“A Christmas Carol”  by Charles Dickens


2008
“Across Five Aprils”  by Irene Hunt
“Crow Lake”  by Mary Lawson
“A Wrinkle in Time”  by Madeleine L’Engle
“Snow Flower and the Secret Fan”  by Lisa See
“A Morbid Taste for Bones”  by Ellis Peters
“The Ultimate Gift”  by Jim Stovall
“Aesop’s Fables”
“White Fang”  by Jack London
“Little Heathens”  by Mildred Kalish
“Listening is An Act of Love”  by Dave Isay



2009
“Beauty:  A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast”  by Robin McKinley
“The Last Lecture”  by Randy Pausch
“The Unexpected Mrs. Polifax”  by Dorothy Gilman
“Sunday at Tiffany’s”  by James Patterson
“Three Cups of Tea:  One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace”  by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
 “Letters of a Woman Homesteader”  by Elinor Pruit Stewart
 “Cold Comfort Farm”  by Stella Gibbons
 “New Moon”  by Stephanie Meyers
 “A View of the Ocean”  by Jan de Hartog

2010
"Zookeeper's Wife"  by Diane Ackerman
"Still Life"  by Joy Fielding
"Crucial Conversations"  by Kerry Patterson
"The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" by Mary Ann Shaffer & Anne Barrows
"The Frontiersmen, A Narrative"  by Allan Eckart
"The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind"  by William Kamkwamba
"Saffy's Angel"  by Hilary Mckay
"Prayers For Sale"  by Sandra Dallas

 "Letters From Yellowstone"  by Diane Smith
 "The Everlasting Story of Nory" by Nicholson Baker

2011

January 2011:   The Way of the Peaceful Warrior  by Dan Millman
February 2011:   So Brave, Young and Handsome by Leif Enger
March 2011:    Mrs. Mike  by Nancy Mars Freedman and Benedict Freedman
April 2011:  The Hobbit  by J.R.R. Tolkien May-July 2011:  The Fellowship of the Ring Triology  by J.R.R. TolkienAugust 2011:  The Mountain Between Us by Charles MartinSeptember 2011: Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory by Ewen Montagu 

October 2011: At Home, a brief history of private life by Bill Bryson

 201
January 2012:  Breath:  A Lifetime in the Rhythm of an Iron Lung:  A Memoir by 
                          Martha Mason and Anne Rivers Siddons

 February 2012: The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
  

March 2012:  The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio:  How My Mother Raised 10 Kids in 25 Words or Less  by Terry Ryan

October Book Club

October's book is Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden. Book club will be at Melissa Kiser's house (8 Goldfinch Dr. in West Henrietta) on Oct. 24 at 8:30 pm.

Sarah's Key

Uh-oh, it's August 9 and I haven't mentioned the book for the month yet. Drumroll please . . . Sarah's Key! I've already read it and it's great and heart-wrenching. It's about a Jewish child in Paris who was put in an internment camp, and given a modern splash story line too. You'll love it. Read it and come to book club at Jenna's on the last Wednesday of the month. See you there!

July 2012--Still Alice

Book Information

Title: Still Alice

Author: By Lisa Genova

Meeting Information

Date: Wednesday, July 25th

Time: 8:30 pm
Location: Lisa C's Home

June 2012--The Happiness Project

Book Information

Title: The Happiness Project

Author: By Gretchen Rubin

Meeting Information

Date: Wednesday, June 27th

Time: 8:30 pm

Location: Emily B's Home

about the book: http://happiness-project.com/books/the-happiness-project/about-the-book/

And the book for May is . . .

Brave New World! Meta will host and it will be the last Wednesday in May (May 30). Here is the information on the book. Just to get you excited, when I told Brad, he said he remembered it having GREAT discussion topics. It got me all pumped to read it.

Set far in the future, in the twenty-sixth century, it depicts
a society in which people’s lives are completely controlled
by world government. Fetuses are created by artificial
fertilization in test tubes and ‘parents’ are unknown.
Society is divided into different levels, with each level
performing different functions, and children are given
whispered messages in their sleep that teach them to
be content with their place in society. The ‘happiness’
drug, soma, is freely distributed so that unhappiness is
never experienced. It is a society in which freedom has
been sacrificed for happiness and stability. Only a few
individuals dare to question the society in which they live.
-from penguinreaders.com

You can read the book for free online:
http://huxley.net/bnw/one.html

It doesn't get any easier than being able to read it for free online. See you all in May at Meta's!