Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan

Thursday Nov 8, 2018

Beneath a Scarlet Sky 

Author:  Mark Sullivan

Hostess:      Mary Margaret

Attendees:   Janna, Amy, Michelle, Cheryl, Pam 

We enjoyed our opportunity to see Mary Margaret's new home!





Quick Synopsis from Amazon books:

Based on the true story of a forgotten hero, Beneath a Scarlet Sky is the triumphant, epic tale of one young man’s incredible courage and resilience during one of history’s darkest hours.

Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He’s a normal Italian teenager—obsessed with music, food, and girls—but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior.

In an attempt to protect him, Pino’s parents force him to enlist as a German soldier—a move they think will keep him out of combat. But after Pino is injured, he is recruited at the tender age of eighteen to become the personal driver for Adolf Hitler’s left hand in Italy, General Hans Leyers, one of the Third Reich’s most mysterious and powerful commanders.

Now, with the opportunity to spy for the Allies inside the German High Command, Pino endures the horrors of the war and the Nazi occupation by fighting in secret, his courage bolstered by his love for Anna and for the life he dreams they will one day share.

Fans of All the Light We Cannot See, The Nightingale, and Unbroken will enjoy this riveting saga of history, suspense, and love.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** 

We certainly found a lot to discuss, and as always the WWII setting brought so many back stories to life.   In this book we learned a lot about the persecution of Jews in Italy, Facism and Mussolini, and the psychology of Nazi masterminds... as well as some details of the underground resistance and the freedom fighters.  There were so many facets to this WWII story and we found that our memories from high school world history classes were being challenged...   Perhaps Janna declared the quote of the night:  "Education is wasted on the young"   How much more we would and could comprehend if we found ourselves back in classes today, this time eager and willing, and with more time to concentrate on learning all about a subject.     We also questioned what we might do if we were in a position to help others at the risk of our own or our family's safety....  would we?  could we?     This brought up comparisons to the current refugee crisis in Syria.    The epilogue of the book was probably the best part in tying up the rest of the story,  filling in blanks about Pino's post war life which was also quite interesting.   Beneath a Scarlet Sky  reminded us of a previous selection, Unbroken, and the opportunity we had to meet that protagonist, Louie Zamperini.   Pino Lella is still alive today, living in Italy.  We gave this book 4 stars

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Beneath a Scarlet Sky is also going to be made into a movie -some details can be found here:

https://deadline.com/2017/08/tom-holland-amy-pascal-pino-lello-beneath-a-scarlet-sky-spiderman-homecoming-1202148294/ 

December:
The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian at Michelle's house

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

October 4,  2018

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Hostess:  Amy
Attendees:  Cheryl, Janna, Susan, Myra, Gayle, Pam

“Compelling . . . spun with tender patience by Jones, who cradles each of these characters in a story that pulls our sympathies in different directions. She never ignores their flaws, their perfectly human tendency toward self-justification, but she also captures their longing to be kind, to be just, to somehow behave well despite the contradictory desires of the heart.”—Ron Charles, Washington Post

“Tayari Jones has emerged as one of the most important voices of her generation.”—Essence

“In this unforgettable novel, Tayari Jones tackles hard questions about pride, betrayal, and our capacity to forgive.”—Real Simple

"Novelist Jones writes brilliantly about expectations and loss and racial injustice, and how love must evolve when our best laid plans go awry."—Esquire.com

"Tayari Jones provides an essential contemporary portrait of a marriage in this searing novel. An American Marriage gorgeously evokes the New South as it explores mass incarceration on a personal level."—Entertainment Weekly

Our selection generated lengthy and varied discussion... marriage...accusations....victims.....incarceration....friendships....relationship challenges.  It was also timely to current events about accusations (Kavanaugh Supreme Court Justice nomination)   We didn't manage to do our usual star rating but this book got high ranks for creating great converstion.  

Next month's selection:   Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan    

Educated by Tara Westover

Thursday Sept 6, 2018

Educated by Tara Westover
Hostess:  Michelle
Attendees:  Amy, Cheryl, Mary Margaret, Pam M.

Educated:  A book that was both difficult to read but almost impossible to put down.  With echoes of The Glass Castle, this book tells the amazing, unbelievable journey of a daughter of Mormon survivalists: from her irresponsible upbringing to her self-education and achievements (such as a Ph.D in history from Cambridge University) 
She is relatively young to be writing a memoir, at age 31.

We started our meeting off with a videotape of an interview with Tara Westover.  Note her defiant RED LIPSTICK 

Her memoir generated much discussion and questions about childhood memories and their possible distortion, memory compartmentalization, psychological abuse, physical abuse,  family dynamics,  what is being truly "off the grid"....to name just a few topics....as well as the importance of having a good book editor!  We had so many unanswered questions about the author, her father, mother, psychopathic older brother, her other siblings, boyfriends, and her professors.   One question that kept coming up was why she kept returning to the scene of the crimes?  We also thought that some of the intensity of the horrible memories didn't match up to later descriptions, such as the severity of the burn victims and their resulting recoveries.   We were just dying to see a photo or two of her family.    We also were intrigued by her mother's herbal/ holistic business, Butterfly Expressions which appears on the internet to be a "normal" business.  (But does her mother pay income/payroll taxes?)    

 We were a small group for this month's meeting, but our own book club family, none-the-less :)

The book itself we rated about 3.75  but topics and passionate discussion we rated 4.75 stars

Next month's selection is An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Hostess:  Mary Margaret

Hum if You Don't Know the Words by Bianca Marais

August 2, 2018

Book:      Hum if You Don't Know the Words
Author:   Biana Marais

Hostess:     Amy
Attendees:  Michelle, Lori, Debra, Emily, Cheryl, Pam




Summary from Publisher's Weekly May 1, 2017:

Nine-year-old Robin loves detective stories. So when the police arrive the night her parents are killed, she mistakenly believes she is now part of her favorite radio series. It’s a harsh awakening for her to realize that South Africa in the 1970s is a place far more violent than those stories. With her parents gone, Robin’s aunt puts her in the care of a Xhosa nanny, Beauty, a woman with her own tragic secrets: Beauty has vowed to stay in Johannesburg as long as it takes to find her daughter, Nomsa, who has disappeared after a student protest ends in bloodshed. However, as the days stretch into months, Beauty finds herself growing increasingly attached to the motherless white child she is being paid to raise. Likewise Robin grows to love Beauty, despite knowing her dead parents would disapprove of her close relationship with the black woman. In this standout debut Marais handles topics such as grief and racism with a delicate intensity that will make readers fall in love with her characters. From the first few heartfelt chapters to a fast-paced and heart-wrenching ending, Marais has created a stunning historical drama that shouldn’t be missed. (July)

Overall consensus:  we really enjoyed this book  and gave it 4.5 stars, and highly recommend it.

Great characters and development;  we loved Beauty especially, but liked them all.  We learned quite a bit about the Soweto uprising June 16, 1976 and Apartheid in general.  Some of our members were about Robin's age (or younger)  in 1976 while some of us were college-aged that summer and thus were also less concerned about world events at the time.  This we contrasted to today's media-saturated world.  In 1976 there was less news coverage, young people didn't travel as much like today, and we were just in our own (self-centered) worlds at the time.   This book brought out so many topics to discuss, which kept things lively all night.   A great start to our book club fall! 

Group selfie challenges:  oops, cut Emily out of that one,  try again! Next book selection for September:

Educated by Tara Westover 

Beartown by Fredrik Backman

May 10, 2018

Hostess:  Michelle
Attendees:  Amy, Mary Margaret, Debra, Cheryl, Pam M, Pam T

Beartown by Fredrik Backman

“Backman is a masterful writer, his characters familiar yet distinct, flawed yet heroic. . . There are scenes that bring tears, scenes of gut-wrenching despair, and moments of sly humor. . .Like Friday Night Lights, this is about more than youth sports; it's part coming-of-age novel, part study of moral failure, and finally a chronicle of groupthink in which an unlikely hero steps forward to save more than one person from self-destruction. A thoroughly empathetic examination of the fragile human spirit, Backman's latest will resonate a long time.”

– Kirkus Reviews

****************************************************************************

This was our second book choice by author Fredrik Backman.  We previously read A Man Called Ove, and Beartown did not disappoint either.   We discussed so many aspects of this book late into the night.   It was so much more than hockey!  We (six out of seven of us) gave it 5 stars, with special emphasis on the varied characters and their development.  We were delighted to hear there is a Beartown #2 book (Us Against You) and most of us look forward to reading more about the Beartown story and what happens next to the characters we so enjoyed.   

Our next book after summer break is Hum if You Don't Know the Words, by Bianca Marais.

After summer break we will meet back August 2 at Amy's house.   Happy summer reading, and bring your suggestions so we can map out the next few months into fall.

Pachinko April 12, 2018

April 12, 2018

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Hostess:  Cheryl
Attendees:  Michelle, Janna, Susan, Allison, Pam T, Pam M

                 




    "History has failed us, but no matter."

This book gave us some excellent discussion topics such as 

discrimination, the yakuza (Japanese mafia), caste system, 

WWII history, orgy parks, pachinko parlors, and women's struggles.  

"Why do men always get to leave when they can't get what they want."

“Pachinko” chronicles four generations of an ethnic Korean family, first in Japanese-occupied Korea in the early 20th century, then in Japan itself from the years before World War II to the late 1980s. The novel opens with an arranged marriage in Yeongdo, a fishing village at the southern tip of Korea. That union produces a daughter, Sunja, who falls in love at 16 with a prominent (and married) mobster. After Sunja becomes pregnant, a local pastor offers her a chance to escape by marrying him and immigrating together to his brother’s house in an ethnic Korean neighborhood in Osaka. Together, they embark into the fraught unknown.

...Like most memorable novels, however, “Pachinko” resists summary. In this sprawling book, history itself is a character. “Pachinko” is about outsiders, minorities and the politically disenfranchised. But it is so much more besides. Each time the novel seems to find its locus — Japan’s colonization of Korea, World War II as experienced in East Asia, Christianity, family, love, the changing role of women — it becomes something else. It becomes even more than it was.

       (excerpts from the book review summary - The New York Times (by Krys Lee, Feb 2, 2017)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *                            

 We rated Pachinko 4.5 stars

 Next month:  Beartown by Fredrik Backman
 Hostess:  Amy

Bring some book suggestions for the upcoming months!

Here's a start:
Sing Unburied Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Salvage the Bones  by Jesmyn Ward
Hum if You Don't Know the Words by Bianca Marais
Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Anthem by Ali Smith
The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea

Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan

Thursday March 1, 2018

Host:  Janna
Attendees:  Amy, Michelle, Pam T., Cheryl, Susan, Pam M.

From LitLovers Book Summary Guide:

The long-awaited, daring, and magnificent novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of A Visit from the Goon Squad.

Manhattan Beach opens in Brooklyn during the Great Depression. Anna Kerrigan, nearly twelve years old, accompanies her father to the house of Dexter Styles, a man who, she gleans, is crucial to the survival of her father and her family.

Years later, her father has disappeared and the country is at war.

Anna works at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, where women are allowed to hold jobs that had always belonged to men. She becomes the first female diver, the most dangerous and exclusive of occupations, repairing the ships that will help America win the war. 

She is the sole provider for her mother, a farm girl who had a brief and glamorous career with the Ziegfeld Follies, and her lovely, severely disabled sister. At a nightclub, she chances to meet Dexter Styles again, and she begins to understand the complexity of her father’s life, the reasons he might have vanished.

Mesmerizing, hauntingly beautiful, with the pace and atmosphere of a noir thriller, Egan’s first historical novel is a masterpiece, a deft, startling, intimate exploration of a transformative moment in the lives of women and men, America and the world. Manhattan Beach is a spectacular novel by one of the greatest writers of our time. (From the publisher.)

Michelle led us in a thorough discussion and we touched on many aspects of the novel.  We agreed it was well researched but thought that sometimes all that research got in the way of the plot or characters. The novel spread across a wide variety of settings and subjects:  WWII, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the mob underworld, The Merchant Marine, underwater diving, physical handicaps, pregnancy and abortion, to name just a few....  All of which provided good discussion topics.    We unanimously agreed that this was not necessarily Pulitzer material ( the author won the 2011 Pulitzer for her novel A Visit from the Goon Squad)            Did we actually remember to rate this? 

Apologies to any who did not attend this meeting due to the date confirmation/changes, or not being on the email master list.
Next month:

April 12th
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Hostess:   Cheryl