Clayton

Seeing Clayton decorated for Christmas will be a special treat.

Frick Tour Update

I have some additional details about the Frick Mansion Tour on Saturday, December 15. As we discussed, we will meet at Dode's house at 2pm to drop off food, BYOB, and our book exchange items (remember to bring a used book that is holiday wrapped to use in our book exchange).

We will leave Dode's at approximately 2:30pm and arrive at the Frick about 3pm taking two or three cars depending on how many people attend. We will start our tour at the Visitor's Center/Gift Shoppe at exactly 3:30pm ( I confirmed a reservation today) and the cost of the tour is $12 each. They ask that we make only one payment - so I will collect the money at Dode's before we leave so that I can pay for all of the tickets when we arrive. The tour of the mansion is a docent led tour and should last about 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes. There are also other buildings and galleries on the site that might be of interest to you - all of them closing around 5pm. After the tour we will go back to Dode's for some holiday cheer and to have our book exchange.

Please leave any comments, suggestions, or questions on this site so that we can get the information out to everyone. This should be a wonderful holiday event - I hope that everyone is as excited as I am about our little road trip to the Frick - a wonderful piece of Pittsburgh history!

Our New Book Selections

Our new selections for February, March and April were chosen at our last meeting.
February's selection Getting Rid of Matthew by Jane Fallon sounds like a quick and fun read. This book may not be your typical Valentines Day reading choice "but the surprising and rewarding treat is a bright, grown-up story of two women who discover friendship and trust in one another" Publishers Weekly.

Our next two choices are The Glass Castle a chilling, childhood memoir by Jeannette Walls and The Wednesday Letters by Jason Wright . The Glass Castle has been compared to the popular memoir Angela's Ashes as a story that should be profoundly sad, but instead, is uplifting and heartwarming. The Wednesday Letters seems to be the little book that could, initially published in a run of only 50,000 books by a small publishing company, it is already in its second printing.

The voting was very close with The Road by Cormac McCarthy just one vote short of being selected.

The books are available from both Amazon and the Carnegie Library. In fact, The Glass Castle is another Book Club To Go selection so we will request the book closer to March or April.

Remember ordering several books at a time from Amazon will qualify for free shipping.

Love In The Time of Cholera Discussion

A big thank you to Debbie for hosting us and Sally for leading our lively discussion. It was pretty much decided early in the discussion that most of us didn't like the book or the main characters from the book. Seeing the movie didn't improve our book reading experience since it was agreed no one really cared for the movie, either. (Although, it was generally agreed that Benjamin Bratt did look pretty good on the big screen!)

Florentino was described as an obsessive stalker, a pervert and a manipulative, unfeeling womanizer with an odd maternal relationship. Several members of our discussion group questioned his character when he seduced his fourteen year old ward and his reaction at her later suicide. Even having a child out of wedlock with one young women and causing the murder of another never seemed to matter to Florentino. While Fermina was depicted as a lonely and rigid women, she was also very class conscience, possibly because of her humble origins. Dr. Urbino, the only character that was described favorably by club members, was called a humanitarian but still a man of his times. The club also believed that Dr. Urbino and Fermina eventually fell into a true love while Florentino's love was called obsessive and selfish.

Several people questioned what, if anything, the suicide of Jeremiah de Saint-Amour had to do with story. It was agreed that one of the themes of the book was aging and also, living fully in spite of your age. The opinions on this point ranged from Saint-Amour's death having nothing to do with the themes of the book to the opinion that the manner of his death was the actual theme of the book.

Some of the themes we discussed included love as a disease, causing both physical and emotional pains; the environment (the river) as an analogy for the changes from young love to mature love; and the many birds throughout the book, the parrot that causes the Doctor's death, prostitutes called birds, the young mother carrying her child in a birdcage as well as the perfumed crows and the pigeons kept by the murdered girl.

Most of the girls next door agreed they were glad to have read the book but probably would not read anymore of Garcia Marquez' books. More than a few of us wondered 'what was Oprah thinking'?

Book Selection, Part 2

I was just on the Carnegie Library site requesting a few books when I ran across a new feature called Book Club To Go . It's a specially packaged kit containing 10 copies of a book and a discussion guide. There are 11 different choices and one of them is our next book, The Shadow of The Wind, which I did request.

The other choices are:

• Empire Falls
• Inheritance of Loss
• Memory Keepers Daughter
• Blessing
• Middlesex
• Atonement
• Snow Flower and The Secret Fan
• Glass Castle
• Suite Francaise
• Devil In The White City

Since it is the library, there are no guarantees books will be available in the order we are reading them, but it is still worth considering. I'm not familiar with all of these books but Bookreporter.com does review each of them. Also, if you're not using the Carnegie Library system you might want to give it a try. You can apply for a card, request a book to be sent to your local library and be notified when the book is available- all online, it couldn't be easier and it's free.

Book Selections

It seems like just yesterday that we choose our last three books and here we are already choosing the next three. A few of the girls next door have mentioned that they would like to see different types of books and styles of writing to mix things up a bit for the next three months. With hundreds of genres to choose from there are endless possibilities in fictional writing. We could read a popular short story, anthologies, poetry, a mystery or a graphic novel. We can go back to the classics, target books made into movies, or read Pulitzer or Nobel Prize winning novels. Of course, we are not limited to just fiction, we can choose biographies, travelogues, motivational books or even a cookbook.
If you're not sure what to recommend The New York Times Book Review has lists of best sellers and countless reviews; not only will it help you choose your recommendation but it will help you sell it to the rest of the girls. Another good site is Bookreporter.com , in addition to reviews this site has bookclub guides, lists of award winners and release dates of movies from books .
So you can see there are many choices, just so little time.

Victorian Christmas at the Frick

I am pleased to announce that, based on our on-line poll, The Girls Next Door Book Club members will be visiting the Henry Clay Frick Mansion for a "Victorian Christmas" on Saturday, December 15. And "thanks" to Dode who has agreed to host a post-Frick holiday celebration at her house immediately after our tour. The itinerary is as follows:

• Meet at Dode's (2700 Miles Avenue, Dormont, 15216) at approximately 2pm on Saturday, December 15
• Bring an appetizer, covered dish, or dessert with you for our holiday celebration which will begin after our trip to the "Frick." Dode will store it for you at her house while we are gone.
• Bring a used book that you love and would recommend to others with you for a "book exchange" - please wrap it so we can have some fun with this!
• Take 3 or 4 cars (depending on who all can make it) to the "Frick" for the mansion tour
• The tour is $12 and will take approximately 2 hours
• Return to Dode's house after the tour (about 5pm) to enjoy food and drinks - remember to BYOB
• Have a "book exchange" based on rules that we will discuss at the November meeting

I think that we will have a wonderful time and I hope that most people can make it since it seems to be the only date that will work for most people. I will try to get a "head count" at the November meeting so we know how many spots to reserve and Dode will know how many to plan for at our holiday celebration!

NOVEMBER MEETING

The November meeting will be held at 7pm on Tuesday, November 27 at Debby's house at 1506 Greenmount Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15216 (next door to Patti's apartment). Sally will facilitate the discussion for this month's book Love in the Time of Cholera, a love story that spans decades and explores the idiosyncracies of human thoughts and behavior. I am almost done with the book and I can't wait to have a lively discussion about this one. And I hope that some of us can make it to our "movie date" on November 20 to see the film version of the book. Remember to BYOB.

ALSO, as discussed at our last meeting, be prepared to nominate new books at our November meeting. Per our discussion at the October meeting, we will select three new books to read for the February, March, and April meetings. We will use the flip chart again to record nominations and will then vote with our stickers so please follow the guidelines that we discussed:

• There is no obligation to nominate a book unless you want to.
• If you decide to nominate a book, know the book title, the author, and enough about the book so that other people can make an informed voting decision.
• The three people who have already nominated books that were selected (Kathy, Patti, and Honey) cannot nominate a book for this selection cycle.

Hope that everyone can make it - I am really looking forward to our meeting!

October Meeting Notes About "Bad Monkeys"

The October meeting at Dode's house was a great success - lots of lively discussion, insight, unusual interpretations, and absolutely great refreshments. Thanks to Dode for hosting such a wonderful event. Also, thanks to Kathy who kept the discussion going with her excellent facilitation of the book discussion. Some of my observations regarding the discussion follow . . .

Most readers found the book, Bad Monkeys, interesting and intriguing but were more and more unsettled as they got closer to the end of the book. All agreed that it was a real "page turner" but that the ending was somewhat disappointing after the great set up and manipulation of the reader to believe that there was going to be some resolution of the puzzle and mystery that was described by the lead character Jane Charlotte. Of course, there never was a resolution of anything - only more questions as the narrative ended.

Some readers did not particularly like this genre of book but still felt that the writer did a great job with the narrative storytelling and that the movement, tempo, and description in the book kept the reader engaged and interested in the story. Several readers felt that the book became too fantastical and full of improbable and unbelievable action sequences near the end when the story moved to Las Vegas and the casino scene - especially with the entrance of the "Scary Clowns" and the "good" and "bad" Jane. At least one reader felt that there were strong religious references and that the book was very derivative of spiritual and theological themes. Another that the end became a "bad LSD trip" and another that the whole adventure was in the mind of the psychiatric patient, Jane Charlotte.

What do you think? What other things were mentioned and debated? Any final thoughts about this book? Let us know what you think by posting additional comments to this subject.

#2 Meeting

Our second meeting of "The Girls Next Door" was a great success. The conversation was very enthusiastic . As we sat around the huge table at Dode's, it dawned on me how truly lucky I am to know so many great women. So many different ages, so many different nationalities, so many different hair colors(alot of us who would certainly be grey or white in years gone by).

Bad Monkey Book Reviews

From The New York Times Book Review, August 26, 2007:

Bad Monkeys is something of a science-fiction Catcher in the Rye. The protagonist, Jane Charlotte, tells her life story to a psychiatrist. She cracks wise and doesn’t quite fit into society, and the heart of her story is, seemingly, about a tragic younger brother. She’s a female Holden Caulfield, except she kills criminals with the equivalent of a ray gun.
Along with the Salingeresque details, Ruff has animated Bad Monkeys with the spirit of Philip K. Dick, and he’s borrowed a little seasoning from Jim Thompson and Thomas Pynchon. The ray gun is, naturally, pure Dick, and the fact that you root for Jane even though it becomes clear she’s a sociopath is a classic Thompson touch. (See The Killer Inside Me and Savage Night.) And I felt Pynchon-like flourishes out of The Crying of Lot 49 in Ruff’s elaborately conceived secret societies. The real debt is to Dick, though, in the way Ruff expertly plays with notions of what is real and what is illusion.
Bad Monkeys, allusions aside, is highly entertaining. It moves fast and keeps surprising you. There are also some exciting and hallucinatory action sequences that are so skillfully written I felt as if I was watching the first “Matrix” movie, which I unabashedly loved. Then I snobbishly thought: “Am I reading a screenplay?” But I probably only had that thought knowing I was going to write a review and might have to produce clever, negative things to say. And why shouldn’t movies influence books? The reverse has certainly been true.
Along with making Bad Monkeys a page turner, Ruff dabbles with going deeper, exploring good and evil to a certain degree, and there are characters named Wise, True and Love. But he doesn’t go too deep, which is a good thing (not an evil thing), as it would take away from his delightful and swift storytelling. Throughout the book, you feel as if you’re trying to solve a mystery before the writer gives away his final clue, although Bad Monkeys isn’t so much a “who-dun-it?” as a “who-is-it?” Who is Jane Charlotte? I wasn’t able to solve this book’s riddles before the end, but I had a lot of fun guessing, trying to unravel it all, racing against the clock.
Now here’s a real quibble. I was completely absorbed in the book and felt it ended quite satisfactorily, which is a hard thing to pull off with a science-fiction mystery thriller (a trifecta of genres!). Then I turned the last page, hoping there might be some kind of mad epilogue. But instead I stumbled upon Ruff’s elaborate acknowledgments. He mentions some celebrities and also thanks Philip K. Dick, which seems unnecessary: the novel itself is a generous thank you, a nod to the beyond.
I can see nonfiction writers who have done a lot of research thanking numerous people, but novelists should put brief acknowledgments at the front of a book. I was savoring my last moments with Bad Monkeys, the reading equivalent of post-coital happiness, and then was yanked out of the book’s spell, which I would have liked to stay under for a little while longer, like a dream—or an illusion—I didn’t want to be woken from.
— Jonathan Ames
Copyright 2007 The New York Times

October Meeting

We will be meeting October 23 at 7 p.m. at Dode's to discuss "Bad Monkeys". Even if you're unable to finish the book please come to the meeting.



Some discussion topics may include "good vs evil", the significance of the names Love, Good and Wise and "bad monkeys". Bring your questions and opinions to the meeting and remember BYOB!

Road Trip Suggestions

We have a new poll with the suggestions for future road trips. You may vote more than once. After we get an idea where people are interested in going we will get costs and dates at our next meeting. If you have any other ideas hit comment at the end of this post and add your suggestion. To see the other comments just hit the heading of the blog.

Hope everyone is enjoying the books! Sue sd she tried to get "Love in the Time of Cholera" from the library and there are already 18 holds.

We Picked It First!!!

Oprah Announces Next Book Club Pick
Oct. 5, 2007, 12:41 PM EST

Oprah Winfrey has picked "Love in the Time of Cholera," the epic love story by Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, as her next book club selection.
"If you love love, this book is the best love story ever," Winfrey said Friday on her daytime talk show.
The novel by the Colombian-born Garcia Marquez was published in 1985. Set on the Caribbean coast of South America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it tells the tale of a woman and two men, and an unrequited love that spans 50 years.
"It is so beautifully written that it really takes you to another place in time and will make you ask yourself how long could you or would you wait for love," Winfrey said.
Garcia Marquez, 80, won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1982. His most famous work, "One Hundred Years of Solitude," was a selection in 2004 for Winfrey's book club.
"He's truly one of our greatest living literary giants," she said.
Winfrey noted that a film adaptation of "Love in the Time of Cholera" is scheduled for November release. The movie starring Javier Bardem and Benjamin Bratt was directed by Mike Newell ("Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire").
"If you're like me, you'll want to read the book before you see the movie," Winfrey said, but suggested book clubs could hold their next meeting at the movie theater.
Vintage Books, a paperback imprint of Random House Inc., announced a new printing of 750,000 copies for the novel, and an additional 30,000 for the original Spanish-language text.

If you plan to order from the library do it soon. It's going to become very popular, very quickly.

The Votes Are In! And The Winner Is.......

Ideas for road trips!

For those unable to attend our first meeting, it was decided that we would take a "road trip" in December instead of reading and discussing a book. During conversations at the meeting and afterwards we have had a few suggestions. Sally is checking out The Frick for program information. It was also suggested that we go to the movies, maybe Love in the Time of Cholera. Or maybe Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice performed by PICT. It was also suggested just going out for a nice dinner to talk and get to know each other better. Over the next two meetings we will discuss the possibilities but let's have some discussion online.
To comment, just hit comment, where it says choose an identity hit other and add your name. In the box type in your comments, hit publish and you're on the blog.
Looking forward to hearing from you!

The Rules

At our first meeting those present drafted rules for the club. It was agreed that we would re-evaluate the rules at our January meeting. If there are any questions please comment on the boards. Once again, a big thank you to Patti for being our secretary.

1. Turn off cell phones.
2. Show tolerance and respect for others opinions.
3. Don't "hog" discussions.
4. Everyone should attempt to participate.
5. Don't interrupt a person's comments.
6. Minimize "side bar" conversations.
7. Try your best to be on time (social time from 7:00pm-7:30pm; discussion of book from 7:30pm to 9:00pm)
8. No guests (at least for now).
9. Try your best to finish the book.
10. Limit discussions with book club members about books in advance of the meeting.
11. Keep distractions to a minimum (examples: dishwasher, TV, music, children, pets, boyfriends/husbands, etc.)
12. Bring your own bottle to meetings.
13. Host only if you want to - no obligation.
14. Meetings will be held on 4th Tuesday of the month except for December when we will have a field trip TBA.
15. Limit members to fifteen (until we reassess in January).

The Shadow of The Wind

Our January selection

"Shadow is the real deal...a novel where even the subplots have subplots... If you thought the true gothic novel died with the nineteenth century, this will change your mind... this is one gorgeous read." - Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly, May 21, 2004

"Gabriel García Márquez meets Umberto Eco meets Jorge Luis Borges for a sprawling magic show." - Richard Eder, The New York Times Book Review

"…rush right out to the nearest bookstore and pick up The Shadow of the Wind. "
Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

"Wondrous... masterful... The Shadow of the Wind is ultimately a love letter to literature…" Entertainment Weekly, An Editor’s Choice, rated A

There are several titles which are similar; the book we are reading is by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.
Copies on Amazon.com as low as $2.04 plus $3.99 S&H 468 pages

Bad Monkeys

Our October selection

"Excellent book. Don't want to put down! Very creepy to imagine that people know what you have done in your past and your thoughts!"
— Jaymee (Camano Island, WA)
"Bad Monkeys is unusual, entertaining and thought provoking. You’ll keep turning the pages to see what happens next, you can’t help yourself."
— Vicki (Longview, TX)
"An interesting, strange book that has a deeper meaning than it first appears. Wanting to find out why Jane killed the wrong person and who that person was, kept me reading. Jane's strange world, with 'eyes only' everywhere watching reminded me that indeed, 'big brother' is watching us today with traffic camera to Google Maps. Twists and turns kept me guessing what really was going on until the end."
— brenda (San Jose, CA)

230 pages

Least expensive: Amazaon $12.64 and $3.99 S&H

Love In The Time of Cholera

Our November selection

“A rich, commodious novel whose narrative power is matched only by its generosity of vision.” --The New York Times

“A love story of astonishing power and delicious comedy . . . humane, richly comic, almost unbearably touching and altogether extraordinary. –Newsweek

“The greatest luxury, as in all of García Márquez’s books, is the eerie, entirely convincing suspension of the laws of reality . . . the agelessness of the human story as told by one of this century’s most evocative writers.” --Anne Tyler, Chicago Sun-Times Book Week

“Revolutionary in daring to suggest that vows of love made under a presumption of immortality—youthful idiocy, to some—may yet be honored, much later in life when we ought to know better, in the face of the undeniable. . . . . a shining and heartbreaking book” –Thomas Pynchon, The New York Times

Copies on Amazon.com as low as $1.70 plus $3.99 S&H
368 pages

The meeting was called to order...

The first meeting of The Girls Next Door Book Club met at Patti’s house on Tuesday September 18, 2007. It was a lively and eclectic group of women spanning several decades (yikes!) all of us excited by the prospect of sharing an intellectual journey together. For me the best part of the meeting was during introductions when no one described herself as only a mother or wife but instead as an exciting and vital woman making her own way in the world. It was fun listening to women who didn't know each other a few hours before laughing, talking and making plans for the future together. It seems that we have a truly auspicious beginning to our club. A few potential members were unable to attend but promised to be at the next meeting.
At the meeting a few basic ground rules were decided and these will be addressed in a separate post. We also voted on the first three books to be read and opened up the floor for ideas for our December ‘road’ meeting. A few ideas discussed were books to movies such as Love in the time of Cholera opening in November or Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen performed by the Pittsburgh Irish Classical Theatre. Sally is also researching a series of talks at the Frick Museum. It was agreed to keep costs at a minimum.
Patti volunteered to be our secretary and will keep track of meetings and members. Dode graciously will host the next meeting and Kathy agreed to lead the discussion of the first book.
This forum is for all of us to keep in touch with each other and to share information. Please, please, please comment on boards, keep the dialogue going, ask questions, disagree, it’s all about communicating.