Born a Crime

A young Trevor Noah and his mom

Thank you to Maureen for a great evening at the lake. With full attendance we had a lot of catching up to do. The snacks were a hit and the blueberry upside down cake was special.  Here's the recipe, with a reminder that Maureen used frozen wild blueberries in place of the giant fresh kind.

Born a Crime was an interesting read, and an intimate view of life in South Africa. There are quite a few chances to see Trevor Noah on Netflix at the moment.  There are his comedy specials Trevor Noah: Afraid of the Dark and Trevor Noah: African American and a documentary, You Laugh But it's True and he shows up in an episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. 

We made some plans for the future months.  In March we'll be at Susan's and the book will be A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan.  The date for this is Wednesday, March 21st.
In April we'll be reading The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien.  We'll meet at Saara's on Thursday, April 19th.
May will be at Wanda's.  The book is And After the Fire by Lauren Belfer.  The date is Thursday, May 24th.

Other Books We Mentioned

• The Wonder by Emma Donoghue
• The American War by  Omar El Akkad
• The Lotteries Plus One (children's literature) by Emma Donoghue - Proceeds support Room to Read, a charity supporting education and literacy around the world. 
• The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy
• The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
• Bellevue Square by Michael Redhill

Jennifer Egan talks about A Visit from the Goon Squad 

2018

An excellent start to the year at Mai Bistro last night!
We'll meet again at Maureen's on Febuary 22nd to talk about Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood. 

One-handed entertaining

Maximum respect is due to Janice for pulling off December's book club gathering with a broken wrist, and making it look easy.  Thank you for a great evening!

Our next meeting will be at Mai Bistro at 7 pm on January 4th, 2018.  This will be an opportunity to enjoy food and friendship, and there's no book assigned for January.

On February 22nd we'll be at Maureen's to talk about Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah.

The only decision about March was location - we'll be meeting at Susan's.

In case The End of Eddy is still puzzling here's Edouard Louis on his book:

Books mentioned last night:

• Orhan's Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian
• The Underground Girls of Kabul by Jenny Nordberg
• After the Fire by Lauren Belfer
• A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
• The Devil's Making by Sean Haldane
• Red Notice: A true story of high finance, murder and one man's fight for justice by Bill Browder

Film Suggestions:

• Rake 
• Top of the Lake: China Girl 
• Lady Bird
• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
• The Shape of Water
• Cardinal
• 21 Grams
• Pure
• The Crown
• The Break
• Peaky Blinders
• First They Killed My Father

Have a very merry Christmas everyone, and all the best for the new year.  See you on January 4th. 

The Grapes of Wrath and Dustbowl Migration

Here are links to a few articles about The Grapes of Wrath and the Dustbowl Migration:

http://numerocinqmagazine.com/2012/08/27/the-senses-of-an-ending-the-grapes-of-wrath-novel-and-film-patrick-j-keane/

https://migration.ucdavis.edu/rmn/more.php?id=1355

http://faculty.washington.edu/gregoryj/dust%20bowl%20migration.htm

The Grapes of Wrath

This was such a great book for discussion, and there was no shortage of great conversation last night at my place: the dust bowl, migration, exploitation of farm workers,  mechanization of agriculture, censorship, politics, the photography of Dorothea Lange, supply management and more.

Our next book club evening will be at Lynda's on December 13th and the book will be The End of Eddy by Édouard Louis.

For January we have decided to meet for dinner at Mai Bistro again.  The date will depend on everyone's schedules.  Watch for an update here.

We didn't have enough people to decide on dates for February; we can finalize that next time.  But we did choose the book: Born a Crime by Trevor Noah and Maureen will host for February.

Following that we will be at Saara's in March and Susan's in April.

Books mentioned last evening:

• We'll All be Burnt in Our Beds Some Night by Joel Thomas Hynes
• The Violinist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
• Britt Marie was Here (also A Man Called Ove) by Fredrik Backman
• Minds of Winter by Ed O'Loughlin
• Caught by Lisa Moore
• Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry
• An Ice-Cream War by William Boyd
• Running the Books by Avi Steinberg
• Laughing all the Way to the Mosque by Zarqa Narwaz
• Thank You for Being Late:An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations by Tom Friedman
• Commonwealth by Ann Patchett 
• South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914 - 1917 by Ernest Shackleton
• Forged in Crisis by Nancy Koehn

Dorothea Lange photos

Here is a link to photos of migrants taken by Dorothea Lange

The Break

Hoping to enjoy the backyard as the season was winding down, we all came prepared with our warm woolies.  But sanity prevailed - it was just too cold for outside book club.  Jo welcomed us warmly and it turned out to be a wonderful evening, inside. Thank you Jo.

The Break generated considerable conversation.  I believe this is the video that Jo recommended where Jian Ghomeshi interviewed Katherena Vermette:

Don't forget that the next book is The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck.  (If you choose to swerve the novel, the classic film is playing on Netflix). This gathering will be on Thursday, November 2nd at my house.

The following book club will meet at Lynda's and the book will be The End of Eddy by Édouard Louis.  It will be on Wednesday, December 13th.

 Books We Mentioned: 

• Lila by Marilynne Robinson  
• Born to Run (Autobiography) by Bruce Springsteen
• The Promise of Canada by Charlotte Gray
• The Mighty Dead: Why Homer Matters by Adam Nicolson
• The Death of Expertise by Tom Nichols

A worthy podcast is The Sunday Edition on CBC with Michael Enright.