A Dirge

 My book club, Argonauta, has banned Irish books because they're always about suffering.  This book I just read proves them correct.  The Gathering by Anne Enright is about alcoholism, child molestation and beatings.  The protagonist dies and the Wake is the Gathering.

Liam, the deceased, committed suicide.  His sister narrates.  All the relatives come to the Wake and are described ad nauseum. 

2021-2022 Reading List.

                                                   Argonauta has chosen its books for 2021-2022

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Hurston

Caste by Isabel Wilkerson

The President’s Daughter is Missing by

William Clinton and James Patterson

Count the Ways by Joyce Maynard

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins

Magnolias Don’t Bloom in September by Carol Lynn Luck

The Forest of the Vanishing Stars by Kristin Harmel

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi

The Lazy Gardener

 

Too hot and humid

I let my garlic grow. 

Now a riotous blanket

of flowers over show!

Use these buds in a vase

or season a dish with flowers

because garlic adds more taste

overpow'ring vampires' powers.

Silly I know.  But Argonauta is tomorrow and I have so much garlic!  The garlic has turned to flower and I hate to waste it.  So when the book club meets tomorrow, I plan to give each member a small bouquet of the flowers and this little ditty.  Fun!

Harry Potter, Again

A long time ago, my book club Argonauta read a book that was all the rage.  It was a children's book. I'm talking about 1997 and J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  We enjoyed it very much.

That was a long time ago and I didn't remember much of it.  I did remember that this was the first book in the series and the characters and setting were introduced.  So when my granddaughter read the book and started talking about this character and that one, I didn't have a clue about what she was talking about.  So, I just re-read the book.

It is much better discussing it with a child, than with an adult group.  It was fun.  Her energy, delight, and interpretation were enjoyable.

I'm not going to write a review.  I just want to note that book discussions are better with grandchildren. 

Black and White

The book for May in my book club group, Argonauta, was The Tea Planter's Wife by Dinah Jefferies. At first, I didn't like it.  Probably, my fault.  I am used to reading non-fiction books and encyclicals and papal exhortations, so a story seemed silly.  The characters annoyed me.  Of course, I'm not used to reading about people!  The main character, the tea planter's wife, Gwendolyn, seemed to be always whining about one thing or another.  Her husband, Laurence wasn't communicative.  His sister was a kaleidoscope of emotions and actions. If it weren't assigned by Argonauta, I would have thrown the silly book across the room.  But that's the beauty of belonging to a book club.  You read books you would have never read on your own.  You learn and learn to appreciate books you would never have approached.  And this is what happened to me and The Tea Planter's Wife.

When Gwendolyn gave birth to one black twin and one white twin, I became involved with her.  I, as the author, Dinah Jefferies, intended, thought the father was Ravasinge.  Spoiler alert!  I learned (yes I did research) that it is biologically possible for two sperm from two different men to impregnate a woman.

The story took off from there.  Gwendolyn, Verity, Laurence, and Naveena are woven into a mesh of circumstances that tie their familial interests into an emotional mess.  The setting of Ceylon at the beginning of World War II and the political and economic stress add to the tension of the plot.

Yes, I learned to enjoy the book.  The ending is a page-turner.  The storyline is different.  I am recommending the book. The only question I have is why was Laurence's sister given the name Verity?  Verity is a derivative of "truth"
and I don't see what that has to do with her character.

Argonauta's Selections

This is how one of my book clubs (Argonauta) chooses its book selections.  No more Irish stories, memoirs, and mysteries.  Not because they're not good, au contraire; it's that we've read too many and are sick of them.  I predict we will add African stories to the list because there's two on this year's list.

We met in a restaurant for breakfast--a quiet, not rushed atmosphere, place.  Each of us ordered a huge breakfast.  After breakfast, the bidding discussion began.  Here are erthe resulting selections:

September:  Lilac Girl by Marsha Hall KellOctober:  Circling the Sun by Paula McLain
November:  Britt Marie Was Here by Felix Bachmann
December:  Bossy Pants by Tina Fey                                        
January: Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
February:  Eleanor Oliphant by Gail Honeyman
March:  The House at Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper
April: Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Burke
May:  The Tea Planter's Wife by Dinah Jefferies
June-August: To Be Decided

We leave the last months open because, during the year, one of us will read something so fantastic that they insist the book be read.  This always happens.  Also, during these free months, we come across books we want to recommend for Argonauta's list. This method works for us.

By the way, I know I misspelled authors and titles.  I also know you will correct me.  

Gamma

Gamma is the name my youngest grandchild calls me.  Makes sense; if your mother is Ma then it follows that Grandmother is Gamma.

Oh no, I'm sounding like the story I just finished, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry, by Fredrik Backman. If you like fantasy, you'll enjoy this book.  I had trouble getting into it. Simultaneously, I'm reading: Mary, Queen of Heaven by Scott Hann, Chesterton's Everlasting Man (for the second time), Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching by Anthony Esolen, and The Many Sides of Peace by Brayton Shanley, among various others, which explains why reading a novel like My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry was hard to get used to.

Of course, I did -- get used to it.  How could one not?  This is the type of book that keeps a smile on your face throughout your entire reading.  The theme is the importance of grandmothers to their grandchildren.  Intergenerational differences are celebrated.  In fact, individual differences are celebrated per se.  The story line involves a little girl delivering letters (which isn't easy) to people the grandmother wants to apologize to.  This simple idea, however, is interwoven in the fantasy world the grandmother made up for children.  It works, trust me, it works ingeniously.

My favorite part of the book is when two grandparents visit their grandson in prison.  This direct quote will give you a taste of the author's writing:

And probably a lot of people think Maud and Lennart shouldn't do that, and that types like Sam shouldn't even be allowed to live, let alone eat cookies.  And those people are probably right.  And they're probably wrong too.  But Maud says she's firstly a grandmother and secondly a mother-in-law and thirdly a mother, and this is what grandmothers and mothers-in-law and mothers do.  They fight for the good.

See why I enjoyed the book?  By the way, this is a Christmas story because of the timing of the climax and ending.  So it was perfect for my book club, Argonauta, whose Christmas party is tonight.  I finished this book at breakfast--nine hours before the meeting.  I had to finish it.  I enjoyed it too much to miss out on the discussion.  I recommend it so you don't miss out on this unique story and delightful gamma.

Argonauta 2015

This is the day my book club, Argonauta, met to choose our book selections for the year.  It did not begin very well.  We planned to meet at a certain place for breakfast.  However, when we arrived we found out that the place was closed for the week.  It was their vacation.  So we made a few telephone calls and settled upon another place, in a different town, for lunch.

This place was wonderful.  We arrived at 11:00 AM and they opened at 11:00 AM.  That meant that we were the only people in the restaurant.  They'd be no chance of us being kicked out due to our rowdy behavior.

Two hours later, after much laughter, arguing over Atticus Finch, (Iconic character), and clapping, we came up with the following:

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant

Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee

The Nightingale by Kristen Hanna

A Desperate Fortune by Susana Kearsley

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown

Half a Yellow Sun by Chimamand Ngozi Adichie

The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian

Me Before You by Jojo Moynes

Argonauta

The Argonauta met today to pick out next year's selection of books.  These are the book club's picks:

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Death Comes to Pemberley by P. D. James
Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight
Christmas at Eagle Pond by Donald Hall
The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Natchez Burning by Greg Iles
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
A Star for Mrs. Blake by April Smith
50 Children by Steven Pressman

Typical Book Club Meeting

As of four hours ago, I had nothing to post.  I would have posted something, according to my personal philosophy.  But nothing inspired me, then.  I also knew something would happen at Book Club.  It usually does.

The book club has been going on for years and years.  It's beyond ten years.  The name is Argonauta, because the first book we ever read was Anne Murrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea, and in it she talked about the seashells, Argonaut.  They travel the seas, and that, to us, conveys adventure.  Hence, we chose Argonauta as our Book Club's name.

Hors D'oeuvres

Tonight, we discussed The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh.  Keeping with the flower theme, our hostess had flowers around her living room and dining room.  Her dining table was beautifully set with hydrangeas.  We all love hydrangeas, but in The Language of Flowers, they meant dispassion.

For hors d'oeuvres we had shrimp with two kinds of dips, a couple of cheeses, chili, etc.  Of course, the wine was whatever your little heart desired: white, red, or rose.

Desserts

We discussed the book and relished the food and wine.  We all loved the book.  We also planned to go to Nantucket or Block Island to see the daffodil festivals; but of course, we won't.  The fun is the planning.  "Getting our act together" is difficult.

Boston Cream and Carrot Cake

After the book discussion, we adjourned to the dining room.  Here our hostess outdid herself.  A big bouquet of hydrangeas was the centerpiece, with candles.  At each table setting was a little gift, for each of us--a ladybug planter.  In the ladybug was a tea rose.  The beverage was decaffeinated tea or coffee.  The wine was still available.  We had cupcakes to accompany our drinks.  We had two kinds of cupcakes.  One choice was Boston cream cupcakes.  The other was carrot cake with cream cheese.  I had both.  Don't think I'm a pig; I cut each one in half.  So it was really only one cupcake.

Ladybug Planters

Something happened while we were departing that made tonight different from all other book club nights.  As I was leaving, I heard "help," "help."  I looked at the direction the cries were coming from.  I thought I saw an animal running up and down beside the driveway.  One of us ran over to the "animal" and was talking to it.  Then the scene became clearer.  It wasn't an animal running back and forth; it was a hand waving help.  Someone, somehow, had fallen in the snow, right beside the driveway.  Then the one who was helping, got pulled down into the snow, trying to pull the other one out.  Now there were two in the snow.

Others ran to help and pull them out.

Not me; I was taking pictures to post on Facebook.  I only had my phone.  It was dark and the driveway didn't have enough light.  So what you are seeing is the backside of the one, trying to pull up the other.  I wish the picture had come out better.  They will never live this down.

As I said before, Argonauta conveys adventure.

What you are looking at is Monique trying to pull Linda out of the snow.
Don't ask how she fell into the snow bank.
What happens to Argonauta, stays with Argonauta.

My turn to host, next month.

Argonauta Picks

As usual, the Argonauta Book Club ate a gourmet brunch at Jayne's. Here are this year's picks:

The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman

The Hangman's Daughter by Oliver Patzsch

Wench by Dolen by Perkins-Valdez

A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver

the Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

Beyond the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

The Dovekeeper by Alice Hoffman

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

I know the spelling is bad but we'll still be able to access the books.  Can't wait to read them!

Book Club

The Argonauta Book Club met at Jayne's house for Brunch and book selection.  As usual, Jayne out did herself with her selection of food: quiche, fruit, mimosa, pancakes, and I'm afraid I don't remember what else.  Fantastic!  Jayne is a gourmet cook.

The book club received its name from the very first book we ever read, Anne Murrow Lindberg's Gifts from the Sea.  In Gifts from the Sea,


The Argonauta is an unusual creature that is not attached to itsshell at all. It is a cradle for the young, held in the mother Argonaut's arms until the egg hatches and swims away. The shellis then left behind while the mother sets out to seek a new life. The author sheds any melancholy and allows herself to be entranced by the concept of the Argonauta shell. It is freer than the other shells and is the best representation of the middle years of life. The children have gone and the mother is left to venture out to sea in search of the unknown next step.


We felt that we had reached this point in our lives, as the sea shell, Argonauta, searching for adventure.  Also, we remembered the Greek myth of Jason and the Argonauts and felt that being Argonauts was a noble thing to be.  Hence, the name.


We didn't have any rhyme or reason for choosing our books.  They're just books we wanted to read.  We didn't pick out 12 books for each month, however.  We left room for us to decide later.


Our list:


Sept:    Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Oct:     The Help by Kathryn Stocket
Nov:     Still Alice by Lisa Genove
Dec:     The Swan by Mary Oliver
Jan:     The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larson
Feb:     Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Mar:     The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe
Apr:     Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
May:    What is the What by Dane Eggers


Any suggestions?

Love of the Word

The members in my book club, the Argonauta, love to read. We all read, but the Argonauta are different from other readers. We read everything and use it to gain knowledge. We're all teachers, or former teachers, maybe that's why. Very few of our books are fiction. We aren't impressed with the New York Times top ten. We definitely don't read any Oprah books, that we know of. Our criteria is that one of us has to recommend the book because they've read it and want us to read it. This works for us.

I've also noticed that I'm different from the other Argonauta in that I love the Word. I love to read the Bible and everything written about it. I have an insatiable thirst for knowledge about the Bible. I'd love to discuss it but most of the time, their eyes glaze over.

Thank God for my Dominican Study Group. I can read and talk about the Word all I want. I'm among kindred spirits.

I like to think of it as Saint Dominic's charism. It's a gift.

We are Blessed

In Book Club tonight we discussed Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai Sijie and Ina Rilke. Naturally, we talked about China. The Cultural Revolution wasn't that long ago. We marveled at the changes in China. We speculated upon the changes to come.

The discussion also made us appreciate how lucky we are to live in this country. We can read and own books. We have libraries. We can have discussion groups, like my own Book Club, the Argonauta. The concept of freedom really hit home in us women.

We thank God that we live here, and now, at this time in history.