Welcome back!

Hi ladies! Welcome back to the blog! It's been a while and somehow I remembered the password.

Last night at Clara's we decided to try to make a list of all the books we've read over the years, so here's a start. I'll update this list as we remember the books.

28 Stories of AIDS in Africa

A reliable wife

A thousand splendid suns

Absurdistan

Before I go to sleep

Broken for you

Clara Callan

Death with interruptions

Elegies for the brokenhearted

Extremely loud and incredibly close

Fault lines

Fried green tomatoes at the whistlestop café

Girl in translation

Gone girl

Hotel on the corner of bitter and sweet

House broken

Into the darkest corner

Little Bee

Lullabies for little criminals

Major Pettigrew's last stand

Not that kind of girl

Olive Kitteridge

Outliers

Painted girls

Paula Spencer

Remarkable creatures

Sarah's key

Secret daughter

Seriously I'm kidding

Still Alice

The birth house

The dry grass of August

The emperor of maladies

The goldfinch

The Guernsey literary and potato peel pie society

The help

The hunger games trilogy

The invention of wings

The language of flowers

The light between oceans

The Paris wife

The perfume collector

The postmistress

The princess bride

The sense of an ending

The shell seekers

The shipping news

The thirteenth tale

The truth about the Harry Quebert affair

The virgin cure

Then we came to the end

Time traveler's wife

Wild

January's Book

Hi ladies!
I know this post is a little late but I wanted to say thank you to Sarah D for a fantastic book choice in Secret Daughter and for hosting such a great party.

Thanks also to Alexis for hosting the Birth House party - another awesome read.

Our next hostess is Rachel P - looking forward to her selection!

Happy reading ladies,

Sarah R

November/December

Hi ladies!
First of all, a big thank you to Clara for hosting the Still Alice party - a great read.

Our November/December hostess is the lovely and talented Alexis, and she has chosen The Birth House, by Ami McKay. Here's the blurb:

The Birth House is the story of Dora Rare, the first daughter to be born in five generations of Rares. As a child in an isolated village in Nova Scotia, she is drawn to Miss Babineau, an outspoken Acadian midwife with a gift for healing. Dora becomes Miss B's apprentice, and together they help the women of Scots Bay through infertility, difficult labours, breech births, unwanted pregnancies and even unfulfilling sex lives. Filled with details as compelling as they are surprising, The Birth House is an unforgettable tale of the struggles women have faced to have control of their own bodies and to keep the best parts of tradition alive in the world of modern medicine.

I would say that is sounds amazing, but I confess, I'm writing this blog really late and I've already read it - it's incredible! What a wonderful choice - thanks Alexis!

See you Dec. 5th.

S

New Order

As promised, I've updated our hosting order... schedules got a bit conflicted this month, so Clara's hosting in October and hopefully Althea can host in November. As we're getting together late in both these months, a few of us were talking about skipping December altogether - it's always difficult during the holidays anyway. So here's the new (tentative) list!


Clara - October
Althea - November
Sarah D - January
Alison - February
Rachel M - March
Rachel P - April
Alexis - May
Kathleen - June


S

October!

Hey there ladies,
Thanks for coming out to September's party - A Reliable Wife was pretty steamy, but I think it led to some great conversation. Thanks to Sarah D and Alexis for letting me host at their place!

And now, on to October. We've got the schedule sorted out now, and Clara will be our next lovely hostess. As for November, stay tuned for updates!

Clara's choice for our next read is Still Alice by Lisa Genova. Here's the blurb:

Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children and a house on the Cape, is a celebrated Harvard professor at the height of her career when she notices a forgetfulness creeping into her life. As confusion starts to cloud her thinking and her memory begins to fail her, she receives a devastating diagnosis: early onset Alzheimer's disease. Fiercely independent, Alice struggles to maintain her lifestyle and live in the moment, even as her sense of self is being stripped away. In turns heartbreaking, inspiring and terrifying, Still Alice captures in remarkable detail what it's like to literally lose your mind...
Reminiscent of A Beautiful Mind, Ordinary People and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Still Alice packs a powerful emotional punch and marks the arrival of a strong new voice in fiction.

Sounds great! See you on October 31st.

S

September's Pick

Hey there Princesses!
Hopefully everyone's enjoying the beautiful summer we've been having.

Thanks so much to Kathleen who hosted a lovely evening to discuss Death with Interruptions!

And now, on to September.
Our next hostess will be me - Sarah R. The book I've chosen is called A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick and here's the blurb:

Set in a small Wisconsin farming and manufacturing town still crumbling a decade after the depression of the 1890s, A Reliable Wife tells the story of Ralph Truitt, a wealthy businessman who advertises for "a reliable wife" in newspapers across America. The woman he chooses, Catherine Land, describes herself as "a simple, honest woman," but in truth she is both complex and devious - not the missionary's daughter she claims to be in her letter to Truitt but a courtesan of great beauty, kept by men and haunted by a terrible past. Catherine's plan in accepting the marriage offer is simple: she will win this man's devotion, and then, ever so slowly, she will poison him and leave Wisconsin a wealthy widow. What she has not counted on though, is the passion she finds in this seemingly solid, forthright man - a man who also harbours secrets and whose own past is far from pure.


Looking forward to it! I'll be hosting at Sarah and Alexis's place so stay tuned for an email!

Happy reading,
S

The Next Cycle

Hi ladies!
We're now officially on the third cycle of our fantastic book club! Because of that, I'm going to list the order of hostesses for the next round - this is just based on the order we hosted last time, so if we need to make any changes we can totally do that.

Here it is:

Sarah R - September
Althea - October
Clara - November
Sarah D - December
Alison - January
Rachel M - February
Rachel P - March
Alexis - April
Kathleen - May

We'll probably shake it up a bit... I know December is always a difficult month and there was also talk of doing another mothers get-together. Althea might want to host on her own, Kathleen might not be back in the city yet... you get the idea. But I promise to update the list whenever there are changes!

Sarah R