Bella Novella ~ book club

The Audacity of Hope ~ by Barack Obama, 2006

2008-10-04T14:31:00.001-07:00

The book for October 21 is The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama.

[It didn't happen -- stay tuned.]

The Freedom Writers Diary ~ by The Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell, 1999

2008-08-19T19:56:00.000-07:00

Connie Heerman, a 27-year veteran teacher of Perry Township in Indiana, has been suspended for a year and a half for using The Freedom Writers Diary in her classroom. So what kind of book IS this?

As an idealistic twenty-three-year-old English teacher, Erin Gruwell confronted a room of "unteachable, at-risk" students. One day she intercepted a note with an ugly racial caricature and angrily declared that this was precisely the sort of thing that led to the Holocaust — only to be met by uncomprehending looks. So she and her students, using the treasured books Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl and Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Sarajevo as their guides, undertook a life-changing, eye-opening, spirit-raising odyssey against intolerance and misunderstanding. They learned to see the parallels in these books to their own lives, recording their thoughts and feelings in diaries and dubbing themselves the "Freedom Writers" in homage to the civil rights activists "The Freedom Riders." This book they produced has powerful entries from the students’ own diaries and a narrative text by their teacher.

The book deals with violence, homelessness, racism, abuse and other topics that this group of urban California students lived with. When Connie Heerman (pictured above) allowed her students to read the book, her supervisor -- unhappy with the language and content in the book -- asked her to stop using it in the classroom, even though her students had signed permission slips. When she refused, she was charged with insubordination and eventually suspended through the end of the 2008-2009 school year.

I posted this information on my Banned Books blog, asking for people's comments about it. (Click on the link and read the comments.) Alison cross-posted her review of the book (go ahead and read what she said ... there aren't any spoilers there ... and notice the cover of HER book shows the movie tie-in).

This is the book we've chosen to read for our next discussion:
7:00 pm on Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Panera Bread at Northgate off Hixson Pike
August 21 update: Connie Heermann's husband Tom has posted two comments on my original Banned Books post. And here are a couple of interesting things I've found to share:

(1) July 12, 2008 Newsweek article Write and Wrong by Anna Quindlen, and

(2) this video by Connie Heermann.

Burger's Daughter ~ by Nadine Gordimer, 1979

2008-07-10T16:06:00.000-07:00

(click to enlarge image)
South African writer Nadine Gordimer won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991. Her seventh novel, Burger's Daughter, focuses upon the daughter of a white, communist Afrikaner hero. This novel is more revealing than a thousand news dispatches as it tells the story of a young woman cast in the role of a young revolutionary, trying to uphold a heritage handed on by martyred parents while carving out a sense of self. Based partly on fact, successively banned and unbanned by the South African authorities, the novel has also become something of a test case for feminist critics of Gordimer's writing.

NOTE: New location!
7:00 pm on Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Panera Bread at Northgate off Hixson Pike

Forgive Me ~ by Amanda Eyre Ward, 2007

2008-05-29T02:42:00.000-07:00

Forgive Me, a 2007 novel by Amanda Eyre Ward, is the book we've chosen for our next discussion. I've copied this from Barnes & Noble's Features section about the book online:

From the acclaimed author of How to Be Lost comes a gorgeous new novel about love, memory, and motherhood.

Nadine Morgan travels the world as a journalist, covering important events, following dangerous leads, and running from anything that might tie her down. Since an assignment in Cape Town ended in tragedy and regret, Nadine has not returned to South Africa, or opened her heart–until she hears the story of Jason Irving.

Jason, an American student, was beaten to death by angry local youths at the height of the apartheid era. Years later, his mother is told that Jason’s killers have applied for amnesty. Jason’s parents pack their bags and fly from Nantucket to Cape Town. Filled with rage, Jason’s mother resolves to fight the murderers’ pleas for forgiveness.

As Nadine follows the Irvings to beautiful, ghost-filled South Africa, she is flooded with memories of a time when the pull toward adventure and intrigue left her with a broken heart. Haunted by guilt and a sense of remorse, and hoping to lose herself in her coverage of the murder trial, Nadine grows closer to Jason’s mother as well as to the mother of one of Jason’s killers–with profound consequences. In a country both foreign and familiar, Nadine is forced to face long-buried demons, come to terms with the missing pieces of her own family past, and learn what it means to truly love and to forgive.

With her dazzling prose and resonant themes, Amanda Eyre Ward has joined the ranks of such beloved American novelists as Anne Tyler and Ann Patchett. Gripping, darkly humorous, and luminous, Forgive Me is an unforgettable story of dreamsand longing, betrayal and redemption.

Another of the "features" at B&N.com is an excerpt, labeled "Chapter One," though you'll also find "Two" embedded in the single long paragraph and "Three" at the end. So it's actually two complete chapters shown as one long paragraph! Really! (I have the book in hand and was able to compare it with B&N's excerpt.)

7:00 pm on Tuesday, July 8, 2008
at Greenlife Grocery (upstairs on balcony)

Great Possessions: An Amish Farmer's Journal ~ by David Kline, 1990

2008-05-02T19:55:00.000-07:00

Frankly, I wasn't overly impressed when I heard this book is by an Amish farmer who describes his family, his labors, and everyday life on his 70-acre southern Ohio farm. But this single sentence by the San Francisco Chronicle makes it sound somewhat more interesting to me: "A rich example of how staying still and alert in one place makes it possible to watch the world come alive."

I look at people like Masha Hamilton ... and some of you in this book club ... and realize how widely you have been able to travel and how much of the world you have been able to visit. Over the decades of my life I have given this much thought and have decided there are advantages in both kinds of living; travelers get to explore widely, while stay-at-home types like me get to experience life in depth. Yes, I am quite aware that it's possible to experience the same day or week hundreds of times and not learn anything new, but I have deliberately set out to do something other than that. When we meet on May 27th, we can compare notes on these two possible lifestyles, one wider and one deeper. Our master gardener Deborah, for example, can tell us what she thinks of David Kline's journal. How many of you have planted something this spring?

7:00 pm on May 27, 2008
at Greenlife Grocery

Great discussion tonight!

2008-04-29T20:44:00.000-07:00

Dear Masha,

Thank you so much for joining us tonight via speakerphone. I know now never to be anywhere near a cappuccino machine when we're on a speaker! We were in the cafe part of Books-A-Million, and the employees had not made a single noise like that for the first hour of our discussion ... only when we were on the phone with you. I'm so sorry!

Paula, Deborah, and Ginnie went away from tonight's meeting as impressed as Donna and I have been since we met you in Kingsport. We all enjoyed our discussion and your answers to our questions. It's interesting that we came up with another question or two after we hung up with you, so maybe you'll get questions by email. I sort of suspected you actually did cartwheels and magic tricks, and I love it that you do.

Thanks again for your willingness to be involved with your readers.

~~~ Bonnie
__________

For those of you who want to read about our meeting in Kingsport, click on this link: meeting Masha. You may enjoy seeing the two-and-a-half minute video Masha shared with her audience that day.

Masha Hamilton ~ our speaker on the 29th

2008-04-11T06:22:00.000-07:00

I'm excited to tell you that I met the author of this month's discussion book! On Wednesday, Masha Hamilton was in Kingsport, Tennessee, as the featured author at the Tennessee Library Association's pre-conference discussion of One Convention, One Book. I took a chance and drove the 3+ hours hoping for a chance to see her ... and I did! She's a great speaker, and she'll be meeting with us via speakerphone on the 29th. How cool is that?

Meeting her was great, and I'll write about it later today. When I do, I'll come back here and add a link to that write-up so you can read all about it. For now, read what I wrote when I got back to Chattanooga that evening by clicking here.

The Camel Bookmobile ~ April discussion

2008-04-01T11:13:00.000-07:00

UPS delivered my copy of the book today, and I have already outlined it for my notes. Here's a link to my Notes, Quotes, and Questions blog, where I post my reading notes online. Please feel free to comment here or there, whenever something you read strikes you in some way. Tell us when you get excited about an idea ... or have a question ... or wonder what we think of a particular part of the book.

The Camel Bookmobile ~ by Masha Hamilton, 2007

2008-03-27T06:02:00.000-07:00

Since April is upon us and we need to start reading, I'm making an executive decision that this will be our first book (this year). Here's a bit of information about the book.

The Camel Bookmobile
~ by Masha Hamilton, 2007

Story Behind the Book

The Camel Bookmobile Video

Camel Bookmobile photos

Excerpt from the book

Masha Hamilton, the author, has already agreed to meet with us on April 29th by speakerphone, so don't miss this momentous occasion.

Synopsis:
When Fiona Sweeney tells her family she wants to do something that matters, they do not expect her to go to Africa to help start a traveling library. But that is where Fiona chooses to make her mark: in the arid bush of northeastern Kenya, among tiny, far-flung communities, nearly unknown and lacking roads and schools, where people live daily with drought, hunger, and disease.

In The Camel Bookmobile, Fi travels to settlements where people have never held a book in their hands. Her goal is to help bring Dr. Seuss, Homer, Tom Sawyer, and Hemingway to a largely illiterate and semi-nomadic populace. However, because the donated books are limited in number and the settlements are many, the library initiates a tough fine: if anyone fails to return a book, the bookmobile will stop coming.

Though her motives are good, Fi doesn't understand the people she seeks to help. Encumbered by her Western values, she finds herself in the midst of several struggles within the community of Mididima. There the bookmobile's presence sparks a feud between those who favor modernization and those who fear the loss of the traditional way of life in the African bush. The feud heightens when one young man—"Scar Boy"—doesn't return his books. As promised, the library stops all visits, but Fi goes to the settlement alone, determined to recover what has been lost.

Evocative, seamless, and haunting, The Camel Bookmobile is a powerful saga that challenges our fears of the unknown. It is a story that captures the riddles and calamities that often occur when two cultures collide. It follows an American librarian who travels to Africa to give meaning to her life,and ultimately loses a piece of her heart. In the end, this compelling novel shows how one life can change many, in spite of dangerous and seemingly immutable obstacles.

Starting over

2008-03-23T08:38:00.001-07:00

Dear Friends,

It's been a long, long time since Bella Novella last met, but I'm feeling the stirrings of spring and rebirth. Several things have come together to make me think of that old gang of ours: Deborah ran into Donna at Wal-Mart this week; Terry (who came up with "Bella Novella") has moved back to town; and I saw the name of Irene's son online when I searched a web site. And we DO have a special story that should not be lost: Reeder (rhymes with reader) was born the day his mother was supposed to lead our book discussion (and how old is he now, Vicki?). All that makes me think we really need to breathe new life back into our book club! So........ I propose:

One ~ that we pick a date, time, and place: "We meet regularly at 7:00 pm on the last Tuesday evening of each month at Books-A-Million near Northgate," starting April 29, 2008.

Two ~ that we start with a novel about books, to which end I have supplied you with information about a couple of novels below that sound good (neither of which I've read).

Three ~ that I will lead discussions (saving you the time and worry), unless you volunteer for a particular book.

Four ~ that we not limit the group to those who have participated in the past (some of you reading this are the "new faces" I hope will join the club).

Let's do it!

Love,
~~~ Bonnie
__________

(1) The Camel Bookmobile ~ by Masha Hamilton ~ is about the importance of books and features a unique distribution system for getting the books to readers in small Kenyan villages. Even better, the author is willing to "meet" with book clubs by phone. The book is coming out in paperback on the first day of April. Read an excerpt, and learn more about the book on Masha's web site: http://mashahamilton.com/

(2) The Tenth Circle ~ by Jodi Picoult ~ has a graphic novel embedded in it: the date-raped girl's father is a comic book artist. This book came out in paperback over a year ago. Read an excerpt, and learn more about the book on Jodi's web site: http://jodipicoult.com/

(I got a hardback copy of Jodi's newest book, Change of Heart, in yesterday's mail. It was published March 4, 2008. What are YOU reading these days?)