bookish girl book club

A banner that hangs in my library taunts, "So many books, so little time," and I think we've been stymied by just that. So, so many choices and oh so little time to even choose. But we've come up with a few that we think are worthy of a bookish girl's precious time and discriminating taste. Rock the vote, girls (and Dad maybe).
-Kelly


The Tender Bar, a memoir by J.R. Moeringer, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist

J.R. Moehringer grew up captivated by a voice. It was the voice of his father, a New York City disc jockey who vanished before J.R. spoke his first word. Sitting on the stoop, pressing an ear to the radio, J.R. would strain to hear in that plummy baritone the secrets of masculinity and identity. Though J.R.'s mother was his world, his rock, he craved something more, something faintly and hauntingly audible only in The Voice.

At eight years old, suddenly unable to find The Voice on the radio, J.R. turned in desperation to the bar on the corner, where he found a rousing chorus of new voices. Cops and poets, bookies and soldiers, movie stars and stumblebums, all sorts of men gathered in the bar to tell their stories and forget their cares. The alphas along the bar - including J.R.'s Uncle Charlie, a Humphrey Bogart look-alike; Colt, a Yogi Bear sound-alike; and Joey D, a softhearted brawler - took J.R. to the beach, to ballgames, and ultimately into their circle. They taught J.R., tended him, and provided a kind of fatherhood-by-committee.

Book summary excerpt taken from http://www.tenderbar.com/book.html

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, by Lisa See

This absorbing novel takes place in 19th century China when girls had their feet bound, then spend the rest of their lives in seclusion with only a single window from which to see. Illiterate and isolated, they were not expected to think, be creative or have emotions. But in one remote country, women developed their own secret code, nu shu - "women's writing" - the only gender-based written language to have been found in the world. Some girls were paired as "old-sames" in emotional matches that lasted throughout their lives. They painted letters on fans, embroidered messages on hankerchiefs, and composed stories, thereby reaching out of their windows to share their hopes, dreams and accomplishments.

An old woman tells of her relationship with her "old-same", their arranged marriages, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood - until a terrible misunderstanding written on their secret fan threatens to tear them apart.

Book summary excerpt taken from http://www.lisasee.com/snowflower.htm

The Help, by Kathryn Stockett

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.

Twenty-two year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduation from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted insider her after the loss of her own son. Minny is short, fat and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be broken.

Book summary excerpt taken from http://www.kathrynstockett.com/



Good afternoon, girls. So I wanted to say a quick word about the choices we've made this month. Of the three books, I have read only one, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. A friend of mine lent me her copy and asked me to read it. She had just finished it and she really wanted to talk about it. So I read it... and the novel had them same effect on me; that is, I really wanted to talk about it. It's not a perfect novel, but it's certainly good enough... and, by golly, there are some things I wouldn't mind talking about, especially with all of you. The Tender Bar is new to me... but it definitely piques my curiosity and is well-reviewed. The Help... well, heavens you've all heard of The Help! Every reader and her dog's book club is reading The Help. And what do you know, it turns out that every reader loves it (and their dogs, too). The Help is on my nightstand right now... and I only had to wait behind 217 readers to nab a copy from my local library. Happy voting!
-Melissa