Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Hello Bookbabe Bloggers, Kate here. On Feb 6., Megan, Bridget, Heidi, Betsy, & Brookes met at my house to discuss Special Topics in Calamity Physics. Joan, alas, had to play Florence Nightengale at home. The rest of us dined on mince and slices of quince (see "The Owl and the Pussycat," Edward Lear, 1871), or the modern equivalents: Thai corn fritters and peanut dipping sauce. For the recipes, go to elliemay.com and look under "appetizers."

I had suggested Calamity Physics because I had a strong & mixed reaction (admiring & annoyed) to it, and I wanted to see what the group would think. Everyone agreed that the narrator, Blue van Meer, and probably the author, Marisha Pessl, are major show-offs. The main thing that bugged me was the style, especially the verbing of nouns, as in "Her fingers windmilled a cigarette," which I find forced and pretentious but everyone else seemed to like. I do give Pessl kudos for inventiveness and erudition, though. Who wouldn't? I think we also agreed that it will be interesting to read her next novels to see if the irksome things about this one persist or if they're merely quirks of the teenage character, Blue. Some found this novel long and hard to get into, but I think that, on the whole, we couldn't help but be impressed and would recommend it to Amy, Lili, Suse, Kim, and all other Bookbabes errant who are looking for an absorbing read. At the very least it's nice to be in the know about a book touted as one of last year's best.

Having covered all this and much more, we shared the latest in our lives. Here are some innocuous (I hope) highlights: Heidi's not only doing vital work with the SB schools but also decorating her aunt's home; Bridget & Tom continue to enjoy foster baby M.; Megan is getting a kick out of Amelia, who's now talking in complete and adorable sentences; Betsy and Chris are looking for a condo in Evanston; and I'm going great guns with my lamps. The only person we didn't hear much from was Brookes, so Brookes, let's start with you next time.

Speaking of which, Heidi volunteered to host and so will choose the book. Stay tuned for details, and thanks everyone, for making last Tuesday such fun! K.

P.S. Amy, if you're out there, I finally responded to your post, so look for it below.

On Beauty (Brookes hosting)

In attendance:
Suse
Heidi
Bridget
Megan
Brookes

MIA:
Betsy
Kate

Bibliófila en Madrid

A warm hello to the ladies back in South Bend!

Sam and I are settling into life and work here in Madrid. We have a very cute, very small flat right in city center near the Prado, Thyssen-Bornemisza, Retiro Park, the biblioteca and more. We got lucky. We have been well-cared for by Sam's relatives and our friends here. Sam's aunt and cousins actually found us the flat and had everything lined up before we even got here. Spoiled rotten, I tell you.

I finished Tipping the Velvet while camping in Wyoming and absolutely loved it. I was sad to say goodbye to Nan; I really liked her character. Sam read The Line of Beauty during this part of our camping trip. Imagine us, after having come out of our week in the back country, sitting in the lodge with all the cowboys who had already enjoyed scoffing at what they had to carry in for us on their pack horses (couscous, olives and eight bottles of wine were among the eyebrow raising items....we're no barbarians) and Sam and I are side by side on one of the leather couches heavily engrossed in the last pages of our respective gay novels, waiting for dinner. Now imagine that one of the cowboys, in a room pretty full of not the most liberal men, asks us what we're reading. The room falls silent and we have everyone's attention. I was very happy to share with these men what my book was about, and their expressions were priceless. Some men just looked down at their boots. I think the response from the man who asked me in the first place was, "Oh. Okay. Sounds interesting." I asked him if he wanted to borrow it since I was just about finished yet he politely declined. Too bad. We might have had an nice addition to the book club, though he would have had to join via satellite or email. His name, incidentally, was Cowboy. Just Cowboy. I want a name like that.

I hope you are all well. I'm checking the blog to stay posted on what you're reading. I will be reading Shadow of the Wind next. I figure I ought to read it while I'm in Spain.
Kate, did you make it onto Antique Roadshow? I've been wondering...

Thinking of you all.

Besos y Abrazos,
Amy
P.S. Check out our blog: amagomundi.blogspot.com

08 August 2006 (Megan)

• "The Falls" by Joyce Carol Oates
• Bridget brought a sleepy Mateo with her.
  

October 2004 - Present

Alright ladies, this is what I've come up with so far. Please go through and create a new post for the times that you hosted. (You can make the date retro active by going to "post & comment options at the bottom of the compose box next to keyboard shortcuts.) Let's let Lili post for "The Waiting Years" as she hasn't hosted yet. Once the original post is made, anyone can add their own two cents by posting a "comment."

2 May 2006 (Kate)

• "The Complete Stories of Truman Capote"

no March meeting due to conflicts

11 April 2006 (Betsy)

• The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi (March 2006)
• Announcements: Brookes goes to Brazil for 7 weeks, Amy goes to Spain for 1 year, Suse goes to Germany for 1 year

21 February 2006 (Bridget)

• The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
• Kate’s first meeting
• Kim's last meeting
• Surprise visit from Liz Peralta

19 January 2006 (Heidi)

• “A Million Little Pieces” by James Frey
• Kim’s last meeting
• Bridget let’s us know about her international student

12 December 2005 (Brookes)

• Movie Night – Born into Brothels
• Amy Amago’s first meeting

22 November 2005 (Fiddler’s Hearth)

• “How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents” by Julia Alvarez

20 October 2005 (Kim)

• “The Line of Beauty” by Alan Hollinghurst
• Last meeting at Camp Madron – we got to meet Bill!
• Lili’s first meeting

22 September 2005 (Betsy)

• Handful of summer suggested reads: “Let’s Don’t Go to the Dogs Tonight,” “Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini
• Megan had baby Amelia!

Time off for the summer

May? April?

10 March 2005 (Suse)

• What the heck did we read?
• Liz’s last meeting complete with southern themed dinner food. I think the highlight was the peanut butter pie that Liz brought that never quite set.

8 February 2005 (Megan)

• What book was this?
• All I remember is the baked brie Megan served. Delicious!

January? (Did this meeting exist or did we just fly into Feb?)

• Sleep Toward Heaven, by Amanda Eyre Ward

2 December 2004 (Brookes?)

• Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi

4? November 2004 (Kim)

• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night by Mark Haddon

7 October 2004 (Bridget’s old house)

• Confederacy of dunces - John Kennedy Toole
• Brookes’ first meeting

A little history . . .

This group of women started gathering long before I (Brookes) arrived on the scene, in fact even before I came to South Bend. Members have come and gone and like the books, they are remembered fondly in our hearts and on our shelves.

Today, after I sent the girls the preliminary blog and a draft for the next post, Kim shot me back an email:
"I went through my bookshelf and came up with this list of books – I know this is a crazy list – but since Liz and Cleo and I started the bookclub these are books from way back then – unfortunately I can’t remember the dates - sorry:"

Books read before October 2004:
Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri
Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides
Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert
O Pioneers! Willa Cather
A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving
You are Not a Stranger Here, by Adam Haslett
Devil in the White City
The Danish Girl
The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
The Prodigal Summer – Barbara Kingsolver
Disobedience – Jane Hamilton
Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
White Oleander – Janet Fitch
Daughter of Fortune – Isabel Allende
The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood
The Short History of A Prince – Jane Hamilton
The Red Tent – Anita Dramant
Stone From the River – Ursula Hegi
Shopgirl – Steve Martin
The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd
The Hours – Michael Cunningham
I Know This Much is True – Wally Lamb
She’s Come Undone – Wally Lamb
Interpreter of Maladies – Jhumpa Lahiri
Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
Oscar and Lucinda – Peter Carvey
Bastard Out of Carolina – Dorothy Allison
Bel Canto – Ann Patchett
The Map of Love – Andaf Sorreif
House of Sand and Fog – Andre Dubus III
Angle of Repose – Wallace Stegner
Empire Falls – Richard Russo
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain – Robert Olen Butler

We have arrived!

This is us.

In order to remeber all the fun we have together and the books that have marked our lives, we have begun a blog.

Born Into Brothels - not us, the film

So, it was my second time hosting the girls during Christmas nonetheless. This time, we decided that due to our overscheduled holiday lives, we couldn't possibly fit in time to read a book, but would instead squeeze in three or four hours to chit chat and eat with one another.

Everyone brought food over. I made some goi cuon - cold vietnamese spring rolls, Suse brought some delicious German Christmas cookies and Heidi slaved all afternoon over some according-to-her-sister "simple" crab cakes. Megan brought mushrooms stuffed with meatless sausage - very tasty, but you'll never fool the few of us who do still eat meat.

Amy made her first appearance to the club and was celebrated with much drinking of wine. This was followed by stories of how some group members had met her husband before Amy while he was still pining away for she-who-was-not-yet-in-the-lovely-state-of-Indiana.

There was quite a lot of debate over which movie we would actually watch. Betsy had brought over "Talk to Her" which she loves and despite having seen it who knows how many times previously, would watch it again. Kim, while not in attendance, was really pulling for "What the Bleep Do we Know." She had watched it at the Vickers in Three Oaks, MI, raved about it at the October meeting and no one else had watched it. So we started off with that, but after five minutes of our spontaneous reinactment of Mystery Science Theater 2000, we knew it had to go. Sorry Kim. (Apparently, all of the club's dirty little secrets will be revealed on the blog)

We then moved on to Born into Brothels which proved to be a winner. A truly amazing film. Put it on your Netflix queue asap.

The premise sounds cheesy - white go-getter, photographer woman risks dangers of India to give cameras to kids of prostitutes in the redlight district of Calcutta. Kids embrace woman and cameras, woman moved by strength of kids, woman promotes kids through their photos thus changing their lives.

But seriously, it's wonderful.