Feb 2017: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

From OliverSacks.Com:

"Here Dr. Sacks recounts the case histories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders: people afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations; patients who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; who are no longer able to recognize people and common objects; who are stricken with violent tics and grimaces or who shout involuntary obscenities; whose limbs have become alien; who have been dismissed as retarded yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents.

If inconceivably strange, these brilliant tales remain, in Dr. Sacks’s splendid and sympathetic telling, deeply human. They are studies of life struggling against incredible adversity, and they enable us to enter the world of the neurologically impaired, to imagine with our hearts what it must be to live and feel as they do."

Helpful links:
Author webite click here.

We will meet to discuss The Man Who Misstook His Wife For A Hat on Thursday, 2/23/17, at 7pm in the Community Room of the Atlantic Highlands branch of the Monmouth County Library located at 100 First Avenue inside Borough Hall in downtown Atlantic Highlands.

Jan 2017 - My Brilliant Friend

From Goodreads:
(L'amica geniale #1) by Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein (Translator)
"A modern masterpiece from one of Italy’s most acclaimed authors, My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense, and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante’s inimitable style lends itself perfectly to a meticulous portrait of these two women that is also the story of a nation and a touching meditation on the nature of friendship.

The story begins in the 1950s, in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples. Growing up on these tough streets the two girls learn to rely on each other ahead of anyone or anything else. As they grow, as their paths repeatedly diverge and converge, Elena and Lila remain best friends whose respective destinies are reflected and refracted in the other. They are likewise the embodiments of a nation undergoing momentous change. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her protagonists, the unforgettable Elena and Lila.

Ferrante is the author of three previous works of critically acclaimed fiction: The Days of Abandonment, Troubling Love, and The Lost Daughter, and this novel is the first in a trilogy."

Helpful Links (*Spoilers May Be Possible*):
-Author Site click here.
-"The "Unmasking" Of Elena Ferrante" New Yorker Article click here.
-"Women On The Verge" (review of her writing in general) New Yorker Article click here.

We will meet to discuss My Brilliant Friend on Thursday 1/26/17 at 7pm in the Community Room of the Atlantic Highlands branch of the Monmouth County Library (located at 100 First Avenue inside Atlantic Highlands Borough Hall in downtown Atlantic Highlands opposite Veterans Park).

The Hundred Year Old Man... - Nov/Dec 2016 (Updated 1/3/17)

From Goodreads:
"It all starts on the one-hundredth birthday of Allan Karlsson. Sitting quietly in his room in an old people’s home, he is waiting for the party he-never-wanted-anyway to begin. The Mayor is going to be there. The press is going to be there. But, as it turns out, Allan is not… Slowly but surely Allan climbs out of his bedroom window, into the flowerbed (in his slippers) and makes his getaway. And so begins his picaresque and unlikely journey involving criminals, several murders, a suitcase full of cash, and incompetent police. As his escapades unfold, we learn something of Allan’s earlier life in which – remarkably – he helped to make the atom bomb, became friends with American presidents, Russian tyrants, and Chinese leaders, and was a participant behind the scenes in many key events of the twentieth century."

Helpful Links:
Author website click here.

We will meet to discuss The Hundred Year Old Man... on Thursday, December 1, 2016, at 7pm in the Community Room in the Atlantic Highlands branch of the Monmouth County Library located at 100 First Avenue in downtown Atlantic Highlands (inside Borough Hall).

Details regarding our annual Holiday Party for this meetup to follow. (Watch your email).

Updated 1/3/17 with Holiday Party:

Here are the results of the vote:
-Our favorite book with a total of seven votes (including Linda and Jo's) was: The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
- Our least favorite book with a total of three votes was: The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barberry. It looks like we liked most of the books we read.

At the end of the year Elita (who started the book club with me) and I would always say something about the group. I continued the tradition after she moved back to her native Australia. Here is my message for this year: I want to you to know how much I appreciate every one of you and thank you for being apart of our book club. To our facilitators and those bringing snacks, those who come regularly and those who come occasionally, a heartfelt thank you. You are a wonderful group of people, smart, funny, caring, and supportive. You never make anyone feel uncomfortable if they disagree. You are always generous with your praise and go out of your way to be understanding. I am so grateful and happy to know you and I look forward to seeing you every month. The hours that we meet go by super fast and there is never enough time. I wish all of you a happy holiday and all the good things life has to offer in 2017. See you next year Love, Lori

December 1, 2016

Ines Of My Soul - Oct 2016

From Goodreads:

"Born into a poor family in Spain, Inés, a seamstress, finds herself condemned to a life of hard work without reward or hope for the future. It is the sixteenth century, the beginning of the Spanish conquest of the Americas, and when her shiftless husband disappears to the New World, Inés uses the opportunity to search for him as an excuse to flee her stifling homeland and seek adventure. After her treacherous journey takes her to Peru, she learns that her husband has died in battle. Soon she begins a fiery love affair with a man who will change the course of her life: Pedro de Valdivia, war hero and field marshal to the famed Francisco Pizarro.

Valdivia's dream is to succeed where other Spaniards have failed: to become the conquerer of Chile. The natives of Chile are fearsome warriors, and the land is rumored to be barren of gold, but this suits Valdivia, who seeks only honor and glory. Together the lovers Inés Suárez and Pedro de Valdivia will build the new city of Santiago, and they will wage a bloody, ruthless war against the indigenous Chileans—the fierce local Indians led by the chief Michimalonko, and the even fiercer Mapuche from the south. The horrific struggle will change them forever, pulling each of them toward their separate destinies."

Helpful links:
-Author site: click here. (from her site you can also find links to her other social media)
-NYT Sunday Book Review of novel: click here. (Spoilers Likely)
-Author's TED Talk video: click here.

We will meet to discuss this book on Thursday, October 27th, in the Community Room at the Atlantic Highlands Branch of the Monmouth County Library at 7pm, located at 100 First Avenue inside Borough Hall in downtown Atlantic Highlands.

Catching Up - Great Expectations - Sept 2016

From Penguin Random House:

"A terrifying encounter with an escaped convict in a graveyard on the wild Kent marshes; a summons to meet the bitter, decaying Miss Havisham and her beautiful, cold-hearted ward Estella; the sudden generosity of a mysterious benefactor-these form a series of events that change the orphan Pip’s life forever, as he eagerly abandons his humble origins to begin a new life as a gentleman. Dickens’s haunting novel depicts Pip’s education and development through adversity as he discovers the true nature of his great expectations. Published nine years before Dickens’s death, it remains one of his most celebrated works."

We met to discuss this book on Thursday, September 29th, at the Atlantic Highlands Branch of the Monmouth County Library, located at 100 First Avenue inside Borough Hall in downtown Atlantic Highlands.

Catching Up - At Home - Aug 2016

From Amazon:

"“Houses aren’t refuges from history. They are where history ends up.”

Bill Bryson and his family live in a Victorian parsonage in a part of England where nothing of any great significance has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, he began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as he found it in that comfortable home. To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room to “write a history of the world without leaving home.” The bathroom provides the occasion for a history of hygiene; the bedroom, sex, death, and sleep; the kitchen, nutrition and the spice trade; and so on, as Bryson shows how each has fig­ured in the evolution of private life. Whatever happens in the world, he demonstrates, ends up in our house, in the paint and the pipes and the pillows and every item of furniture.

Bill Bryson has one of the liveliest, most inquisitive minds on the planet, and he is a master at turning the seemingly isolated or mundane fact into an occasion for the most diverting exposi­tion imaginable. His wit and sheer prose fluency make At Home one of the most entertaining books ever written about private life."

We met to discuss this book on Thursday, August 25th, at the Atlantic Highlands Branch of the Monmouth County Library, located at 100 First Avenue inside Borough Hall in downtown Atlantic Highlands.

Catching Up - Still Alice - July 2016

From the publisher, Simon & Schuster:

"Alice Howland is proud of the life she worked so hard to build. At fifty years old, she’s a cognitive psychology professor at Harvard and a world-renowned expert in linguistics with a successful husband and three grown children. When she becomes increasingly disoriented and forgetful, a tragic diagnosis changes her life—and her relationship with her family and the world—forever.

At once beautiful and terrifying, Still Alice is a moving and vivid depiction of life with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease that is as compelling as A Beautiful Mind and as unforgettable as Ordinary People."

We met to discuss this book on Thursday, July 28th, at the Atlantic Highlands Branch of the Monmouth County Library, located at 100 First Avenue inside Borough Hall in downtown Atlantic Highlands.