January's book club choice

Read "A Thousand Splendid Suns" and join me at my book club site:

http://readers-haven.webs.com/thismonthsbook.htm


You won't regret it!

Reader's Haven pick for November

        

Join me at my book discussion site  http://readers-haven.webs.com/  for my November discussion. The Pillars of the Earth sweeps through 12th-century England in an era of raging civil war, telling of a group of men and women whose fates are linked to the building of a great cathedral, a site of bloodshed and treachery. A masterpiece of raw courage and passion from the author of Eye of the Needle (from Google books).

Excerpt:
They sat down by a stream at midday. They drank the pure water and ate cold bacon and crab-apples which they picked up from the forest floor.

In the afternoon Martha was tired. At one point she was a hundred yards behind them. Standing waiting for her to catch up, Tom remembered Alfred at that age. He had been a beautiful, golden-haired boy, sturdy and bold. Fondness mingled with irritation in Tom as he watched Martha scolding the pig for being so slow. Then a figure stepped out of the undergrowth just ahead of her. What happened next was so quick that Tom could hardly believe it. The man who had appeared so suddenly on the road raised a club over his shoulder. A horrified shout rose in Tom's throat, but before he could utter it the man swung the club at Martha. It struck her full on the side of the head, and Tom heard the sickening sound of the blow connecting. She fell to the ground like a dropped doll.
Tom found himself running back along the road toward them, his feet pounding the hard earth like the hoofs of William's warhorse, willing his legs to carry him faster. As he ran, he watched what was happening, and it was like looking at a picture painted high on a church wall, for he could see it but there was nothing he could do to change it. The attacker was undoubtedly an outlaw. He was a short, thick-set man in a brown tunic with bare feet. For an instant he looked straight at Tom, and Tom could see that the man's face was hideously mutilated: his lips had been cut off, presumably as a punishment for a crime involving lying, and his mouth was now a repulsive permanent grin surrounded by twisted scar tissue. The horrid sight would have stopped Tom in his tracks, had it not been for the prone body of Martha lying on the ground.
The outlaw looked away from Tom and fixed his gaze on the pig. In a flash he bent down, picked it up, tucked the squirming animal under his arm and darted back into the tangled undergrowth, taking with him Tom's family's only valuable possession.

Book Club Choice for June: The Thirteenth Tale

My choice for this month's book club is best described by this review:

A Storied Past

The Thirteenth Tale

by

Diane Setterfield



Published by Atria Books



Review by W. R. Greer





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The Thirteenth Tale is a story about stories. Vida Winter, the woman whose story is at the center of Diane Setterfield's novel, tells her biographer, "Everybody has a story. When are you going to tell me yours?"
The biographer and narrator of this novel is Margaret Lea. She lives a quiet life outside of London with her parents, works in her father's antiquarian bookstore, and writes the occasional short biography of persons whose lives were so obscure that they've been almost lost to history. Her world revolves around books. She devotes six hours a night to reading, and loves the old stories where she can lose herself in their romance, intrigue, revenge, and madness before all the plot lines ultimately come together for a happy and satisfying ending. Jane Eyre is a book she often refers to as her favorite. Margaret doesn't have much of a life beyond her books and her father's store. She carries a scar, both physical and emotional, from her birth, a tragic event which has left her mother unable to enjoy any happiness in her life.
Margaret gets a letter from Vida Winter, perhaps the most renowned novelist of her time, asking Margaret to write her life's story. Vida Winter was perhaps most famous for her Tales of Courage and Desperation, which contains twelve different fables retold in her own fashion. Rumors abound that there were supposed to be thirteen tales, and for years, everyone wondered about what happened to the thirteenth tale.
Vida Winter's problem is that she's running out of stories to tell. Her novels were a way to ignore her own story and push it to the back of her mind, but now as she's facing her final days, her story is demanding to be told. For reasons that are unclear to Margaret, Vida Winter wants to tell this story to her. And what a story it is.

Vida's story goes back a generation before her birth. It involves a mother dying during childbirth, a beautiful daughter, a cruel son, and a husband unable to cope with his grief. This is a pattern that will repeat itself. Lovers are debilitated by grief, driven to madness and a hermit-like existence. Children run wild in the absence of any firm parenting. There are deaths, children born out of wedlock, ghosts, a governess, a kind country doctor, scandal, a topiary garden, and a fire that eventually destroyed the Angelfield home. To say any more would spoil the unraveling of the story.

Margaret resides at Vida Winter's Yorkshire home while the story is doled out in pieces to her. She realizes, though, that she's not getting the whole story, or at least not yet. The staff at the home interacts with her as little as possible. Something is digging in the garden at night and on some nights, it sounds like someone is softly singing the same five notes over and over again. Margaret makes a few trips to Angelfield to view the ruined home, discovering more surprises to the story. Yet, there are parallels in Vida's story to Margaret's life, reopening her own psychic wounds. A walk on the moors nearly does her in, and the story reaches its climax on a stormy night when the phone lines are down. Jane Eyre moves from being a book often discussed in The Thirteenth Tale to being an important part of the story. Margaret must put it all together, though, to understand Vida's life and the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale.

Vida Winter becomes a character that dominates this novel. Her clear grasp on what makes a story interesting reflects on Diane Setterfield's skill as well. The Thirteenth Tale is a riveting story that unravels with surprises and discoveries, where seemingly innocuous comments and events early in the novel actually bear great weight in the story's denouement. It's the type of novel that tempts the reader to reread it once they're finished, just to enjoy how all the parts come together once again. If you like to read and if you like a good story, Diane Setterfield has an entertaining one to share with you.



Please pick up a copy and read it for your own entertainment. If you are so inclined, interact with me on my discussion site: http://readers-haven.webs.com/        LET'S READ AND TALK!

Book Club Update

The book for this month at http://readers-haven.webs.com/thismonthsbook.htm

is Betty Smith's semi autobiographical novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I hope someone will pick this book up at the library and join me. You won't regret it! And when you're done, watch the movie. I will.

New Book Choice for Reader's Haven

Please join me in reading this month's book selection: My Antonia

This is a pioneer story of hardship, perseverance, and different kinds of love.

You'll love it-I did!

http://readers-haven.webs.com/thismonthsbook.htm

It is up for discussion

I've written a few things on my new book club site and welcome your comments and suggestions. If you want to participate......let's read and talk.

http://www.readers-haven.webs.com/

Reader's Haven Book Club

I have a new website that I am almost ready to share. My daughter made it for me for Christmas. It is a book club with discussion topics for the members to comment on. She has it all set up for my first book-"Gone With The Wind"-which is my favorite book. I'm adding things to the website and soon I will open it up for everyone and I hope some of you will join me for discussions. She made the website and gave me a set of books to use as one of my Christmas gifts, isn't that an awesome gift! I hope to use a different book for each month. Gone With The Wind may take more than one month because it is super long and full of discussion topics. Please tell me you've read it! Seeing the movie doesn't count because it barely resembles the book. Even though the movie is almost 4 hours long, it is a "bare bones" version of this magnificent story. If you haven't read the book, please tell me you will! And then join me at my Reader's Haven.... Coming soon......