October 07 Meeting

First of all, a flash-back to the September meeting, which I did not attend. The book was The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan. As reported by one who did attend, there was general agreement that the book's combined fictional and detailed realistic history, with constant switching between the two, made it difficult to read. I did read the very beginning of the book and found the history overly detailed for what I had in mind. I had somehow thought that the books was a fictional work--clearly I wasn't paying attention!

Well, moving on. On October 25 we went to Joanne's house to discuss Fortunate Son by Water Mosley. But first, the food. We ate at Demaris Bar-B-Que to fill up on MEAT!!! Delicious. We saved ourselves for Joanne's dessert--scrumptious value-added brownies. I'm so glad that Joanne is going through a baking phase with her rediscovered Mixmaster.

At the discussion there was some disagreement about the book. Layne especially thought that the story was unrealistic and the characters throughly disagreeable. She found it difficult to listen to (on audio recording) such a depressing book. Others agreed.

The other team (those who liked the book) did not think that Mosley meant for the book to be realistic--it has a mythical feeling about it. The two "brothers" are very different and have very different life trajectories. The assumption is that Eric, the beautiful, almost fatally charismatic guy, is the fortunate son of the title. Then there's the revelation that the title really describes Thomas (a.k.a. Lucky) who has a deep feeling for others and survives every accident and hardship that comes his way.

The rest of the meeting was spent deciding on the books we would read for 2008. Donna. . .?