Our Nov/Dec Read: The Story of Beautiful Girl

Melissa, Buffy, Susan and I met last night at Starbucks to discuss The Postmistress and pick our next read. Although the majority found The Postmistress to be a slow novel, we agreed there were some very meaningful scenes, particularly with the Jewish families fleeing Germany (and the decisions mothers had to make during that time).

On Melissa's suggestion, we have chosen to read The Story of Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon for the holiday season. We'll try to find time in December for a discussion. 

Next Up: The Postmistress

We've selected Sarah Blake's The Postmistress for our September/October Literary Wives read. Buffy suggested it, noting that Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help, highly recommended it. It will interesting to read a story set in World War II and continue with our theme of female main characters.

Sarah's Key

Again, I'm grossly overdue on updating this blog. But better late than never...

For our July/August reading, we read Sarah's Key. Although we didn't really get to discuss it fully because we chose to go see The Help at our last meeting, I think it was a book that captured everyone's attention.

Like several other books we have read as a book club, Sarah's Key has been made into a movie. It has not been widely released so we may have to wait for Netflix to pick it up. Just watching the trailer (available on the IMDB site) reminded me what a powerful story this was.

If you would like more information about the Vel d'Hiv round-up of French Jews, there are several items online. At quick glance:

• Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vel%27_d%27Hiv_Roundup
• Article from Time magazine: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1880118,00.html

May-June Selection: The Tiger's Wife

I've been ridiculously overdue in updating The Literary Wives. My apologies. We have met as a book club and discussed books, movies, kids, and life but I haven't recored anything here since January. Whoops!

So here we go with a semi-clean slate...Buffy has chose The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht for our May/June read.

This novel has received a good amount of press and the reviews are varied. One reviewer noted: "The Tiger's Wife" will seduce and confound, fascinate and exasperate" (see the full review here). At it's very basic level, it's a story of a grandfather and a granddaughter. A tiger and a mystery. Multiple layers woven into one story and yet many separate stories. Hmmm...intriguing or maybe frustrating (as the description of Little Bee frustrated me).

We'll gather as a group mid-June (if the majority have read the book by then) to discuss and share our impressions. Happy reading!

Little Bee

We read Little Bee by Chris Cleave for our December/January selection. We'll meet January 20th to discuss.

This book received high praise from numerous sources and is a recommended book club read by many sites. It will be interesting to see what the members of our book club thought about this choice. I wrote in an email to our group that I almost didn't finish this book because it was so depressing. I'm thinking more and re-reading the beginning to determine why I was so put off by this book, compared to other books I have read about refugees. I'm not willing to give it the praise of being the best book I have ever read (far from it for me personally) but I do respect that it is a well-written novel.

Chris Cleave is a very involved writer who seems to love interacting about his work. You'll find his web site informative about the issues he addresses in Little Bee. 

Read more here: http://www.chriscleave.com/little-bee/get-involved/