Two changes

On Thursday November 7th the location has changed to Wanda's place.

Lynda will host the following month and the date for that is Wednesday December 4th.   

Sweet

We had a great turn-out for Thursday's book club at Susan's house to talk about Sweet Jesus.  Thank you to Susan for providing a super evening with two kinds of pie!

A reminder that next month (November 7th) will be at Lynda's home.  Let's hope that the builders have finished her renovation.  We'll be talking about 419.

These books were mentioned:

• The Round House by Louise Erdrich
• The Hour of the Red God (The Honey Guide) by Richard Crompton
• Cleaver by Tim Parks
• Italian Neighbours by Tim Parks
• Istanbul Passage by Joseph Kanon
• Erasing Death by Sam Parnia

We also got into some discussion of our favorite television series:

• Breaking Bad
• Broadchurch
• The Americans
• Six Feet Under
• The Sopranos
• The Big C

Native Women & Charlottetown Accord

In The Inconvenient Indian, the author discussed the Charlottetown Accord. I don't believe he mentioned the fact that the Native Women's Association was excluded from negotiations leading up to the Accord. Although other native and Metis organizations were given funding and invited to participate in the negotiations, native women were not represented. The NWA therefore went to court to seek the same financial support as the men's organizations. Here is a link to a summary of the Supreme Court of Canada decision.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Women's_Association_of_Canada_v._Canada

At Maureen's in September

Welcome back Saara! And many thanks to Maureen for hosting last night.  

We covered a lot of ground talking about the thorny issues raised in The Inconvenient Indian,  and several other tricky topics.  Some of the subjects that came up were Word on the Street, TIFF and the film Like Father Like Son, Ai Weiwei, the civil war in Syria and chemical weapons, the new Quebec law restricting religious symbols, etc. etc.  

We also made plans for meeting this fall.  

• On **Thursday October 17th** we'll gather at Susan's to talk about Sweet Jesus by Christine Pountney. 
• On Thursday November 7th we'll be at Lynda's and the book will be 419 by Will Ferguson.  
• On Thursday December 5th the book will be Big Breasts and Wide Hips by Mo Yan and we'll be at Wanda's.  

Other books that were mentioned:

• Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
• The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville
• The Emperor of Paris by CS Richardson
• The Orenda by Joseph Bowden
• The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer 
• Letters from Skye by Jessica Brockmole
• We Need New Names by Noviolet Bulawayo
• Fever by Mary Beth Keane
• Life by Keith Richards
• The Painted Girls by Kathy Marie Buchanan
• Everybody has Everything by Katrina Onstad
• Erasing Death by Sam Parnia
• The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
• My Antonia by Willa Cather
• Mount Pleasant by Don Gillmor

Sorry about the books I've missed here.  Some of my notes from last night that seemed OK at the time are just flat-out cryptic this morning.

In case you haven't seen it already here's Jian Ghomeshi's interview with Ai Weiwei.

Notes from August 2013

First of all, down to business:  Last night was at my place because of Lynda's flood damage.  And it follows that I won't be hosting in September - Maureen will.  The date is still Sept. 11 and the book is still The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King.  As for October, we'll be reading Sweet Jesus by Christine Pountney and in November the book will be 419 by Will Ferguson.  We didn't pin down locations for these two evenings, as there were a number of unknown variables.

It was no surprise that everyone had some kind of flood story to report.  For those coping with flood damage, and in reference to The Inconvenient Indian here's the government of Canada's advice about mould.  To be fair, I did find another link provided by Health Canada where the broader public is advised about coping with mould.

Also, on the topic of the ethics of college football and other contact sports, here's the interview that Fareed Zakaria had with Malcolm Gladwell recently.



 Here are the books mentioned last night:

• Maine by J. Courney Sullivan
• 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Last Friends by Jane Gardam
• Just Kids by Patti Smith
• Aftermath by Rhidian Brook
• Red Joan by Jennie Rooney
• Life after Life by Kate Atkinson
• NW by Zadie Smith
• Walls by Marcello di Cintio 
• TransAtlantic by Colum McCann

Here's Thomas King, author of The Inconvenient Indian in a Q&A:




And in preparation for October here's a link to Christine Pountney talking about her book, Sweet Jesus.

Also I forgot to mention last night that I'd recently enjoyed reading The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion.

Backyard Book Club - July

It's always a good time when we can hold book club outdoors on a warm evening.  So here's a big thanks to Jane for providing the charming setting, good food and wine; and thanks also to mother nature for giving us good weather.  Mister Pip was a happy choice - everyone seemed to enjoy reading it.

We chose a book for September: The Inconvenient Indian A Curious Account of Native People in North America by Thomas King.

A reminder that our August meeting will be at Lynda's when we'll be reading A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar by Suzanne Joinson.

Here she is introducing the book:




Other books mentioned were:

• A Beautiful Truth by Colin McAdam
• The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
• The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

We also talked about digital privacy.  DuckDuckGo is the search engine that allows for anonymous searching on the web.   There is more than one service for maintaining anonymity on the web.  One of them is Hide-My-IP and c|net has a list of others. All I know about keeping phone records hidden is what the spies do in the novels I've read.  They are careful to replace phones, or sim cards daily or even more frequently, which is not exactly practical for most of us.  

At the Beach

Thank you to Jo for hosting.  We had a great time, and the report from those who had dinner at your local restaurant Whitlock's sounded very positive too.

Our next gathering will be at Jane's on July 3rd and we'll be talking about Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones.  Here's Lloyd Jones talking about the book:



The book I mentioned having enjoyed was Sweet Jesus by Christine Pountney.  Here's a review.

But I forgot to mention The 100-year-old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson.  Just so you know, neither of these books is remotely like a "woman's weepy".  

A reminder that three recipes were requested: Wanda's orange cake, Jan's cheesecake and Jo's spicy shrimp.