The Help by Kathryn Stockett.

Book #55 Hosted by Tiffany

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own. ~goodreads

About the Author

Kathryn Stockett was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. After graduating from the University of Alabama with a degree in English and Creative Writing, she moved to New York City where she worked in magazine publishing and marketing for nine years. She currently lives in Atlanta with her husband and daughter. The Help is her first novel. ~http://kathrynstockett.com

Praise for the book

Set in the rural South of the 1960's, THE HELP is a startling, resonant portrait of the intertwined lives of women on opposite sides of the racial divide. Stockett's many gifts a keen eye for character, a wicked sense of humor, the perfect timing of a natural born storyteller shine as she evokes a time and place when black women were expected to help raise white babies, and yet could not use the same bathroom as their employers. Her characters, both white and black, are so fully fleshed they practically breathe no stock villains or pious heroines here. I'm becoming an evangelist for The Help. Don't miss this wise and astonishing debut.

~Joshilyn Jackson, Bestselling author of Gods in Alabama

I came across another book in this genre that sounded interesting:

Year the Colored Sisters Came to Town by Jacqueline Guidry

When the sleepy town of Ville d'Angelle is jolted by the arrival of two black nuns to teach at the local school, 10 year old Vivian and her sister Mavis are exposed to hatred and fear they never knew existed. ~barnes and noble review

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Book #54 Hosted by Indu
January 1946: writer Juliet Ashton receives a letter from a stranger, a founding member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. And so begins a remarkable tale of the island of Guernsey during the German occupation, and of a society as extraordinary as its name. ~authors website

About the Authors

Annie Barrows is the author of the children’s series Ivy and Bean, as well as The Magic Half. She lives in northern California.

Her aunt, Mary Ann Shaffer, who passed away in February 2008, worked as an editor, librarian, and in bookshops. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was her first novel.

Send a Letter
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society has inspired many of you to go back to the old way of correspondence. Now you have the opportunity to send a letter to one of your friends with this electronic Guernsey stationery. -->

http://www.randomhouse.com/rhpg/guernsey//send-a-letter/

Annotated List of Important Books in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Jane Austen- Pride and Prejudice. Isola plans on speaking about it at a meeting but her goat eats her notes (p. 234).

Emily Bronte- Wuthering Heights.One of Isola’s favorite books. She talks about Anne and Charlotte Bronte as well but doesn’t mention specific titles (p. 53).

Thomas Carlyle- Past and Present. The first book that Will Thisbee enjoys helps him “get a grip on Faith.” (p. 101).

Geoffrey Chaucer- The Canterbury Tales. Sidney’s favorite favorite book; the topic of a Society meeting (p. 243).

Charles Dickens- The Pickwick Papers. Amelia’s favorite – it lifts her spirits during the Occupation (p. 50).

Charles Lamb- Selected Essays of Elia. Dawsey has Juliet’s old copy; reason for his first letter to her (p. 9).- More Essays of Elia and Selected Letters. Juliet sends to Dawsey (p. 11).

Wilfred Owen- The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen. Owen’s poetry helps Clovis Fossey to describe his experiences in WWI (p. 72).

Rainer Maria Rilke- Collected poetry (exact title not specified). A gift from Christian to Elizabet6h, with the inscription, “For Elizabeth, who turns darkness into light.” (p. 259).

Seneca- Letters of Seneca. John Booker writes that Seneca and the Society keep him from being a drunk (p. 88).

William Shakespeare- Selections from Shakespeare. Eben Ramsey’s favorite book. He quotes Shakespeare when talking about the German troops landing on Guernsey (p. 63).

Oscar Wilde- An important author in the book—he writes a series of letters to Isola’s grandmother—but none of his works are specifically mentioned.

Photo Gallery of the Island

Testimony by Anita Shreve & Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Book #52 and Book #53 hosted by Nancy

At a New England boarding school, a sex scandal is about to break. Even more shocking than the sexual acts themselves is the fact that they were caught on videotape. A Pandora's box of revelations, the tape triggers a chorus of voices--those of the men, women, teenagers, and parents involved in the scandal--that details the ways in which lives can be derailed or destroyed in one foolish moment.

Writing with a pace and intensity surpassing even her own greatest work, Anita Shreve delivers in TESTIMONY a gripping emotional drama with the impact of a thriller. No one more compellingly explores the dark impulses that sway the lives of seeming innocents, the needs and fears that drive ordinary men and women into intolerable dilemmas, and the ways in which our best intentions can lead to our worst transgressions.
~about the book barnes and noble

"I thought about how one tiny decision can change a life. A decision that takes only a split second to make." — Anita Shreve

About the Author

Anita Shreve grew up in Dedham, Massachusetts, the eldest of three daughters. Joking that she could wallpaper her bathroom with rejections from magazines for her short stories ("I really could have," she says), she published her early work in literary journals. The best analogy I can give to describe writing for me is daydreaming," she says. "A certain amount of craft is brought to bear, but the experience feels very dreamlike."
Shreve is married to a man she met when she was 13. She has two children and three stepchildren, and in the last eight years has made tuition payments to seven colleges and universities. ~read more

As a young man, Jacob Jankowski was tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. It was the early part of the great Depression, and for Jacob, now ninety, the circus world he remembers was both his salvation and a living hell. A veterinary student just shy of a degree, he was put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It was there that he met Marlena, the beautiful equestrian star married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. And he met Rosie, an untrainable elephant who was the great gray hope for this third-rate traveling show. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and, ultimately, it was their only hope for survival. ~read more

About the Author

Sara Gruen is the author of the bestseller Riding Lessons and Flying Changes.She lives north of Chicago with her husband, her three children, four cats, twogoats, two dogs, and a horse.

About the Book Water for Elephants
"I was actually looking through the newspaper and I saw a photograph–a vintage circus photograph–and that was really pretty much it. I ordered the book of photographs and next thing I knew I was researching it and there we are." ~Sara Gruen

Book Discussion Questions for both books:

1. The story in Testimony is told from many different perspectives. Why do you think Anita Shreve chose this narrative style for the novel?

2. In Testimony, several characters comment that if the sexual incident at Avery had occurred at a local public school, it would have drawn little or no attention. Do you agree with this assessment?

3. Water for Elephants moves between a story about a circus and a story about an old man in a nursing home. How do the chapters about the older Jacob enrich the story about Jacob’s adventure with the circus?

4. Did the chapters about the nursing home change how you think about older people?

Wicked by Gregory Maguire

Book # 51 hosted by Ariane

When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious Witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?

Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability, and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to become the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly, and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil. ~authors website

Interview with the Author-

Q:What was your childhood like?

A:"My first job was scooping ice cream at Friendly's in Albany, New York. I hated the work, most of my colleagues, and the uniform, and I more or less lost my taste for ice cream permanently." ~litguides

Q:What prompted you to write Wicked?

A:"I was living in London in the early 1990's during the start of the Gulf War. I was interested to see how my own blood temperature chilled at reading a headline in the usually cautious British newspaper, the Times of London: Sadaam Hussein: The New Hitler? I caught myself ready to have a fully—formed political opinion about the Gulf War and the necessity of action against Sadaam Hussein on the basis of how that headline made me feel. The use of the word Hitler —what a word! What it evokes!

When a few months later several young schoolboys kidnapped and killed a toddler, the British press paid much attention to the nature of the crime. I became interested in the nature of evil, and whether one really could be born bad. I considered briefly writing a novel about Hitler, but discarded the notion due to my general discomfort with the reality of those times. But when I realized that nobody had ever written about the second most evil character in our collective American subconscious, the Wicked Witch of the West, I thought I had experienced a small moment of inspiration." ~authors website

Book Discussion Questions

1. Think about other famous villains, in stories; can you think of some alternative interpretations for them too?

2. If you had written Wicked, how would you change the ending of the story?

3. Why do you think Elphaba feels so attached to the ruby slippers?

4. Why does Elphaba make it her mission to fight for Animal rights?

5. Discuss the transformation of Galinda, shallow Shiz student, to Glinda the Good Witch. How does she change -- and by how much? What is her eventual "significance," both in Oz and in the story?

Son of a Witch

The sequel to Wicked returns to the land of Oz to tell the story of Liir, an adolescent boy last seen hiding in the shadows of the castle after Dorothy did in Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. Bruised, comatose, and left for dead in a gully, Liir is shattered in spirit as well as in form. But he is tended at the Cloister of Saint Glinda by the silent novice called Candle, who wills him back to life with her musical gifts. What dark force left Liir in this condition? Is he really Elphaba's son? He has her broom and her cape, but what of her powers? Can he find his supposed half-sister, Nor, last seen in the forbidding prison, Southstairs? Can he fulfill the last wishes of a dying princess? In an Oz that, since the Wizard's departure, is under new and dangerous management, can Liir keep his head down long enough to grow up? ~read more

Out with the Girls!

Tiffany, Kate, Cathy and Ariane met Franz Wisner and his brother Kurt at the Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe. They were talking about their new book "How the World Makes Love". It was fun hearing them speak since we felt we knew them from their book "Honeymoon with My Brother". Then we had drinks at Max's Bar. Great night, wonderful company, a memory to cherish.

Our next book is Wicked by Gregory McGuire. Think we talked about May 8th but I think Tiff can't make it.

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber

Book #50 Hosted by Cathy

The story of a well-read London prostitute named Sugar, who spends her free hours composing a violent, pornographic screed against men, Michel Faber's dazzling second novel. We learn about the positions and orifices that Sugar and her clients favor, about her lingering skin condition, and about the suspect ingredients of her prophylactic douches. Still, Sugar believes she can make a better life for herself. When she is taken up by a wealthy man, the perfumer William Rackham, her wings are clipped, and she must balance financial security against the obvious servitude of her position. The physical risks and hardships of Sugar's life (and the even harder "honest" life she would have led as a factory worker) contrast--yet not entirely--with the medical mistreatment of her benefactor's wife, Agnes, and beautifully underscore Faber's emphasis on class and sexual politics. Amazon.com Review

Discussion Questions

1. Does Michel Faber keep the reader hooked and entertained throughout this lengthy novel?

2. Are Sugar and William ever in love?

3. The novel ends with a "what if." Speculate about the futures of Sophie and Sugar. Did you suspect William would act the way he did?

4. Why wasn't Sugar skin condition solved with the help of Williams products?

5. Do you believe that Ashwell and Bodley were merely included for comic relief?

Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal by

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;

Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;

Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font;

The firefly wakens, waken thou with me.

Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost,

And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars,

And all thy heart lies open unto me.

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves

A shining furrow, as thy thoughts, in me.

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,

And slips into the bosom of the lake.

So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip

Into my bosom and be lost in me.

How the World Makes Love

Franz Wisner author of Honeymoon with My Brother just came out with a new book.  He's also going to be in town, April 9 -- Changing Hands Bookstore, in Tempe at 7:00 p.m.  

Should we go?  Could be fun.  When's the next meeting? Tiffany? 

Grace by Richard Paul Evans

Grace is the story of a young runaway girl and the boy who hides her from a frightening world too large and unfathomable for him to comprehend. It is also about two brothers and the love that binds them together through difficult times. In some ways this is the most autobiographical of all my novels. When I was eight-years-old my father lost his job and we moved from our beautiful home in California to a rundown, rat-infested home in a poor neighborhood, like the one I describe in the story. Most of all, Grace is a story of a young couple learning to love.
~Visit Author's Website

Every week someone from Richard's mailing list will win a signed copy of his latest book

About the Author

Richard Paul Evans is the author of eleven New York Times bestselling novels and five children's books. He has won the American Mothers' Book Award and two first-place Storytelling World Awards for his children's books. His books have been translated into more than eighteen languages. More than thirteen million copies of his books are in print worldwide. Evans is also the founder of The Christmas Box House International, an organization dedicated to helping abused and neglected children.More than 13,000 children have been housed in Christmas Box Houses. He is the recipient of The Washington Times Humanitarian of the Century Award and the Volunteers of America National Empathy Award. He is currently building a second orphanage in Peru. He lives with his wife, Keri, and their five children in Salt Lake City, Utah.



The next is Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber at Ariane's. Then Wicked by Gregory McGuire at Nancy's.