March 2011 - Theme: supernatural

Here is a list of the books discussed this month.

The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen
Juliet Naked by Nick Hornby
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
Great House by Nicole Krauss (not highly recommended)
Spun by Sorcery by Barbara Bretton
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
The Stand by Stephen King
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Ill Wind by Rachel Caine
American Indian Ghost Stories of the Southwest by Antonio R. Garcez

And we discussed some old favorites like the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, and Game Change.

The theme for April will be Classics (with or without a twist).

Salute to Menopause

I started experiencing the symptoms of perimenopause much earlier in my life than most women do. So after 8 years now of hot flashes, mood swings, forgetfulness, and many other symptoms I finally decided to read up on the subject. The following is a list of the books I looked at and my impressions of them.

• The Wisdom of Menopause by Christiane Northrup - lots of emotional support, not the information I was looking for, good for women embarking on spiritual journeys.


• The Only Menopause Guide You'll Need by Michele Moore - brilliant layout of information, first 3 chapters very helpful, rest of the book goes into detail about different treatment options.


• What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Menopause by John R. Lee - table of contents scared me away, 22 chapters and over 400 pages.


• Living Well With Menopause by Carolyn Chambers Clark - 60 pages of introductory information, 150 pages of holistic approaches, 40 pages of "creating your menopause plan", NOT for me.


• The New Menopause Book by Mary Tagliaferri, Isaac Cohen, and Debu Tripathy - wonderful reference book, organized by symptom, lots of information on western medicine, herbal medicine, and traditional Chinese medicine


• The Everything Menopause Book by Ramona Slupik with Lorna Gentry- excellent presentation of information for those of us with short attention spans or short bursts of time for reading, but repetitive if read from cover to cover.

The books listed above were all checked out from the King County Library. The one I had to buy because the library didn't have it was Menopause Sucks: What to Do When Hot Flashes Make You and Everyone Else Miserable by Joanne Kimes and Elaine Ambrose. I bought it based on the title alone and have saved it for last. I will start reading it tomorrow, or tonight if the insomnia strikes again. Happy Flashing!

What I Read This Month

Alone by Lisa Gardner
Decked by Carol Higgins Clark
Sink Trap by Christy Evans
Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin
Lead-pipe Cinch by Christy Evans
Postmortem by Patricia Cornwell
Hide by Lisa Gardner
Knitting Bones by Monica Ferris

For the catagory of Supernatural:
The Devil’s Hearth by Phillip DePoy
Don of the Dead by Casey Daniels

supernatural - reading for march

any book you want to read about supernatural people, places, or things.

The Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Idea:  Have a book club meeting and tea at the Panama Hotel in the ID.

What we read this month

The Garden of the Beasts by Jeffrey Deaver
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Blessed Are the Cheesemakers by Sarah-Kate Lynch
Hunting Unicorn by Bella Pollen
Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris
The Tiger - A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant

The Great Good Thing

What do you think happens when you close the cover of a book?  Most of us are self-centered enough to think that nothing happens in the book while we are not reading it.  But according to Roderick Townley's The Great Good Thing when we close the book the stage lights go off, the back-up lights come on, and the characters go about their lives until the next time the book is opened.  When we open the book again the characters all scramble to get to their places and act out what we are reading.  Some characters don't do much between readers, after all they can only behave how they were written.  But our heroine Princess Sylvie has many adventures and begins by breaking the first rule:  Don't look up at the reader!  This was a fun, light-weight read with some complex life questions thrown in and reinforced my belief that well-behaved women rarely make history.
Enjoy!