Jane's Shortbread Recipe

All by weight!

Salted butter 8 oz 
White sugar 4 oz 
White flour 12 oz

Cream butter and sugar until soft.
Add flour and combine thoroughly
Press firmly into greased tin making level.
Prick all over with fork.
Bake at 300 deg for 35-45 minutes, until light gold.
Sprinkle with white sugar while still hot.
When cool, cut into portions, and leave in tin until completely cold. Enjoy!

Stoner

That was certainly a fun evening at Jane's.  Stoner inspired some great conversation.  Also we were pretty clearly enlivened by the wine and nibbles, and happy to be catching up with each other.  An enthusiastic thank you to Jane!

We have dates decided for the next four months.  On January 8th, 2015 we'll be at Jan's to talk about the winner of the Man Booker prize, The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan.   On February 5th the book will be winner of the Giller prize, Us Conductors by Sean Michaels. We'll be meeting at Sue's.

March 12th will be at Jo's and April 16th will be at Lynda's.  I believe we decided to wait before choosing books for these dates.

We noted the passing of P.D. James who is seen below talking about her last novel, Death Comes to Pemberley.



A few movie recommendations:

• Pride
• The Imitation Game
• The Theory of Everything
• St. Vincent

And Netflix:

• Orange is the New Black
• Call the Midwife
• House of Cards
• Death Comes to Pemberley
• The Bridge (Broen)

Also I think you may find the podcast Serial intriguing.  

At Wanda's Thursday Night

Through heavy rains, thunder, lightning and even flooded underpasses we made our way to a warm welcome at Wanda's.  Thank you for hosting the evening which turned out to be wonderful once we entered damply though your door.

Everyone seemed to appreciate The War that Ended Peace for the information and insights about the deliberate and inadvertent steps that lead to war.

A reminder that our next book is Stoner by John Williams.  (Read Julian Barnes on Stoner: the must-read novel of 2013).  We'll be meeting at Jane's on November 27th.

We won't be meeting in December but on January 8th our book club will meet at Jan's.  The book will be The Mann Booker prize winner The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan.

Dates and locations were set aside for the future.  On February 5th we'll be at Sue's and on March 12th we'll be at Jo's. We didn't choose books for these occasions but thought we might consider reading the winners of the Giller and the Governor General's awards.

Other books that were mentioned:

• Tell by Frances Itani
• All my Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews

Returning to the subject of war, here is some perspective:

No Name Book Club with No Book

On Wednesday night we had a wonderful time at 7numbers on Danforth - excellent food, plenty of wine and chat.

Saara, our scout at the Toronto International Film Festival recommended four movies to watch out for in the coming year.

• An Eye for Beauty directed by Denys Arcand
• Still Alice starring Julianne Moore from the novel Still Alice by Lisa Genova
• Wild starring Reese Witherspoon from the memoir Wild by Cheryl Strayed
• The Grump - a Finnish film based on Tuomas Kyro's novel.

There wasn't a great deal of book talk in the course of the evening, at least not within my earshot, except a mention of David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas, who's just published a new novel that's getting high praise:  The Bone Clocks.

Remember that we'll be at Wanda's on October 16th to talk about The War that Ended Peace by Margaret MacMillan.

A Long Way from Verona

How lucky we were that after a dull gray day, we were finally treated to a lovely sunset, good friends, and cheerful conversation.  There was general enthusiasm for the book as we all took turns remembering favourite scenes.

We moved forward with planning for the fall.  In September I believe that we decided to play it by ear as we get closer to the 17th, choosing a location or perhaps switching the date in response to the weather situation.  If the weather is on our side, we'll cross to the Island.  Failing that we'll meet at a restaurant TBA.  *The date has been updated here and I hope it's right now.*

On October 16th we'll go to Wanda's to talk about The War that Ended the Peace by Margaret MacMillan.

On November 27th we'll be at Jane's and the book will be Stoner by John Williams.

We decided to skip over December but meet early in 2015.  The date is January 8th and the location is Jan's.  No decision was made on the book.

But we did talk about several noteworthy books:

• The Madman and the Butcher: The Sensational Wars of Sam Hughes and General Arthur Currie by Tim Cook
• The Hundred-year-old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
• Kim Philby: A Spy Among Friends by Ben MacIntyre
• Perfect by Rachel Joyce
• The novels of Martin Cruz Smith
• And also of John le Carre particularly A Most Wanted Man, the inspiration for the Philip Seymour Hoffman movie playing in theatres now 
• La Virevolte (Slow Emergencies) by Nancy Huston

Besides A Most Wanted Man we also mentioned these films currently playing:

• Boyhood
• The Grand Seduction
• Chef
• The Hundred-foot Journey
• The Trip to Italy

You may have noticed that the Toronto Book Awards shortlist is out.  

I don't think the film version of The Hundred-year-old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared has arrived in Toronto yet.  See what you think about the trailer:

With August Fast Approaching

The word is that July's book club evening at Saara's was wonderful, particularly the view from the 31st floor.  I was sorry to have to miss it, and the talk about The Unlikely Pilgrimage.

 But August's event will be here at my place (Marian) on Thursday July 21st.  The book will be Jane Gardam's first,  A Long Way from Verona.  I'm looking forward to seeing everyone!

Thursday night at Maureen's

Didn't that evening fly by with such an interesting book to talk about?  Thank you Maureen for a great time.

Next month we'll be at Lynda's talking about The Maid's Version by Daniel Woodrell.  Here he is telling about his book:

A reminder that the date for this evening is Wednesday June 11th.

We chose dates for the summer months.  In July we'll be at Saara's house on on Tuesday the 15th.  The book will be The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce.

In August, instead of my place (Marian) we're planning an excursion to the Islands.  Did we decide to skip going to my place, or re-schedule that for September?  There should be lots of time to decide that before September.  Anyway, the date will be Thursday the 21st.  We didn't choose a book, since the situation might make our usual conversation difficult.

Other books mentioned were:

• The Emperor of Paris by C.S. Richardson
• A Long Way from Verona by Jane Gardam
• The High Road by Terry Fallis
• The Imposter Bride by Nancy Richler
• The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
• In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson
• The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

2 cups almond meal, or almond flour

¼ cup coconut oil, softened (non vegans can use butter)

3 Tablespoons pure maple syrup

¼ teaspoon sea salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

½ cup dark chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the almond meal, salt, and baking soda, then add the coconut oil, maple syrup and vanilla extract and mix well.
3. Fold in the chocolate chips, then drop batter by rounded tablespoons onto a baking sheet lined with a Silpat, or parchment paper.
4. Bake at 350F for 8-9 minutes, until the edges are golden brown.
5. Allow to cool on the pan for 10 minutes, then serve warm or allow to cool to room temperature.

Correction

I had indicated that our date in May was Thursday the 5th, which doesn't make sense.  Now I see that my daytime book club is on Monday the 5th, and that means that our group will meet on Thursday the 8th of May.  

About The Goldfinch

“When I looked at the painting I felt the same convergence on a single point: a glancing sun-struck instance that existed now and forever. Only occasionally did I notice the chain on the finch's ankle, or think what a cruel life for a little living creature--fluttering briefly, forced always to land in the same hopeless place.” 

“What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can’t be trusted—? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight towards a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster?” 
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

A big thank you to Jo for inviting us home to talk about The (wonderful) Goldfinch, among many other topics.

Remember that next month, on Thursday April 10th, we'll be at Susan's talking about Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Various topics that popped up in our conversations:

• On the topic of blindness in The Gambia here's a BBC article of interest.  Sightsavers is a charitable organization that offers various kinds of help to prevent and correct blindness. 
• I'm a big fan of Kiva, which uses internet technology to facilitate crowd-sourced micro-loans from person to person.  You can learn more about how this work by reading The International Bank of Bob by Bob Harris.  Here is a video where he tells his story of micro-loaning with Kiva.


Another book that I can recommend on a similar subject is Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WooDun.  
• Check out Gapminder for a graphical representation of the statistical data about the world. Here's Dr. Hans Rosling using statistics to consider development in Africa.
  
  
• Canada Reads 2014 was well worth watching.  See if you agree with trending #WabKinewForPrimeMinister
• Just because it came into my mind as we were talking about the burden of being among the privileged try to see Please Give (probably on Netflix), an indie movie that pokes gentle fun at our guilt.  

Gifts

Thanks to Janice, our February book club gathering was a great evening.  The conversation around several Hellgoing stories was animated.  Noticing the drums standing beside the entrance, I was reminded of a film you might enjoy called The Visitor.  (Drumming plays a central part in the movie). It's from 2007 but you may be able to find it at the library.

Please remember that our next book is The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.  We'll be meeting at Jo's on March 6th.  Here's an interview with DonnaTartt:

Meanwhile Jo suggested viewing this video on the topic of Gift Economy:

You can also read Charles Eisenstein's book Sacred Economics online.

Laughter

From Victor Hugo: “Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face".

We met at Jane's on a bitterly cold evening for conversation and laughter. Thank you Jane for your warm hospitality.  Bon voyage to all of you who are travelling this week. 

We made decisions about the next several months as follows:

• On Thursday February 6th we'll meet at Jan's and talk about Hellgoing by Lynn Coady.
• On Thursday March 6th the meeting will be at Jo's.  The book will be Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.
• On Thursday April 10th we'll be at Susan's talking about Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
• Maureen will host on Thursday May 8th.  The book will be The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout.
• We'll be at Lynda's house on Wednesday June 11th and talking about The Maid's Version by Daniel Woodrell.

Still to be finalized are the dates and books for July at Saara's, August at Marian's and September at Wanda's.  

I got the impression that some of us might want to try the recipe for trout that Saara described.  Is this it?

Jo informed us about Project-Free TV.

The two apps that support a seamless interface with the Toronto Public Library are OverDrive and OneClick.  

Other books mentioned:

• The Boys in the Trees by Mary Swan
• The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure
• Brain on Fire by Susannah Calahan
• The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
• Life after Life by Kate Atkinson
• The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin
• The Orenda by Joseph Boyden
• Caught by Lisa Moore
• Give me Everything You Have by James Lasdun
• The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

Here's Lynn Coady talking about next month's book, Hellgoing.