November's Book: The Zookeeper's Wife, a War Story by Diane Ackerman

After a few months off we are finally ready to start the book club up again! Our next selection is The Zookeeper's Wife. The rules have changed a bit.. so check your email for the scoop. Our 'welcome back' book for November is The Zookeeper's Wife, by Diane Ackerman.

Synopsis: A true story — as powerful as Schindler's List— in which the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands.

When Germany invaded Poland, Stuka bombers devastated Warsaw — and the city's zoo along with it. With most of their animals dead, zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski began smuggling Jews into empty cages. Another dozen guests hid inside the Zabinskis' villa, emerging after dark for dinner, socializing, and, during rare moments of calm, piano concerts. Jan, active in the Polish resistance, kept ammunition buried in the elephant enclosure and stashed explosives in the animal hospital. Meanwhile, Antonina kept her unusual household afloat, caring for both its human and its animal inhabitants — otters, a badger, hyena pups, lynxes.

With her exuberant prose and exquisite sensitivity to the natural world, Diane Ackerman engages us viscerally in the lives of the zoo animals, their keepers, and their hidden visitors. She shows us how Antonina refused to give in to the penetrating fear of discovery, keeping alive an atmosphere of play and innocence even as Europe crumbled around her.

synopsis taken from : http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=9780393061727

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

Synopsis:
This brilliant epic novel set in New York and Prague introduces us to two misfit young men who make it big by creating comic-book superheroes. Joe Kavalier, a young artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdiniesque escape, has just smuggled himself out of Nazi-invaded Prague and landed in New York City. His Brooklyn cousin Sammy Clay is looking for a partner to create heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit America the comic book. Inspired by their own fears and dreams, Kavalier and Clay create the Escapists, The Monitor, and Luna Moth, inspired by the beautiful Rosa Saks, who will become linked by powerful ties to both men.--Source

"Get you Thinking" Questions on Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

1. What was your overall opinion of the book? Would you recommend it to others?

2. Which section of Elphaba's life did you find most interesting: childhood, teen/college years, or adult life?

3. Was there anything we can learn about Elphaba's relationship with Glinda?

4. Evil came up a lot throughout the story, questioning what it was exactly or if it really existed. What is your opinion of Evil?

5. Frex and Turtle Heart had an interesting relationship... do you think there was any sexual tension there? Why do you think Frex loved Turtle Heart?

6. What was your feelings on Elphaba's family members: Frex, Melena, Nessarose, Shell, and Nanny?

7. How in the world did Elphaba not know she birthed her son, Liir, after the death of Fiyero?

Selection for April: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire

April's selection will be Wicked. This book I am sure will have some great discussion points. It is a truly wonderful book and I hope you all enjoy it!!
From Publishers Weekly:
Born with green skin and huge teeth, like a dragon, the free-spirited Elphaba grows up to be an anti-totalitarian agitator, an animal-rights activist, a nun, then a nurse who tends the dying?and, ultimately, the headstrong Wicked Witch of the West in the land of Oz. Maguire's strange and imaginative postmodernist fable uses L. Frank Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a springboard to create a tense realm inhabited by humans, talking animals (a rhino librarian, a goat physician), Munchkinlanders, dwarves and various tribes. The Wizard of Oz, emperor of this dystopian dictatorship, promotes Industrial Modern architecture and restricts animals' right to freedom of travel; his holy book is an ancient manuscript of magic that was clairvoyantly located by Madam Blavatsky 40 years earlier. Much of the narrative concerns Elphaba's troubled youth (she is raised by a giddy alcoholic mother and a hermitlike minister father who transmits to her his habits of loathing and self-hatred) and with her student years. Dorothy appears only near novel's end, as her house crash-lands on Elphaba's sister, the Wicked Witch of the East, in an accident that sets Elphaba on the trail of the girl from Kansas?as well as the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman and the Lion?and her fabulous new shoes. Maguire combines puckish humor and bracing pessimism in this fantastical meditation on good and evil, God and free will, which should, despite being far removed in spirit from the Baum books, captivate devotees of fantasy.

http://www.amazon.com/Wicked-Life-Times-Witch-West/dp/0060987103

Selection for March, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

This month I decided to reach down to more of a "classic" from 1953 and picked Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.

Amazon.com Review:
In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's classic, frightening vision of the future, firemen don't put out fires--they start them in order to burn books. Bradbury's vividly painted society holds up the appearance of happiness as the highest goal--a place where trivial information is good, and knowledge and ideas are bad. Fire Captain Beatty explains it this way, "Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs.... Don't give them slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy."

Guy Montag is a book-burning fireman undergoing a crisis of faith. His wife spends all day with her television "family," imploring Montag to work harder so that they can afford a fourth TV wall. Their dull, empty life sharply contrasts with that of his next-door neighbor Clarisse, a young girl thrilled by the ideas in books, and more interested in what she can see in the world around her than in the mindless chatter of the tube. When Clarisse disappears mysteriously, Montag is moved to make some changes, and starts hiding books in his home. Eventually, his wife turns him in, and he must answer the call to burn his secret cache of books. After fleeing to avoid arrest, Montag winds up joining an outlaw band of scholars who keep the contents of books in their heads, waiting for the time society will once again need the wisdom of literature.--Neil Roseman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

I hope everyone enjoys a little scifi this month! Happy reading! :)

Short Review of Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Special Topics In Calamity Physics.. hum.. what can I say about this book? My advise to those of you reading and getting annoyed (I was getting annoyed)? Hang in there! The ending is really good, and worth trudging through the wordy beginning and annoying citations. The citations were cute at first, but got a little distracting. I admit this one went slow for me.. the other books we have chosen I finished very quickly. It's slow because of the writers style.. which is quirky and sometimes overdone in my opinion. The plot is really very interesting, and the story kept me moving, even if I was reading at a snails pace. The last hundred pages were much better, the ending is pretty thrilling, and the plot really takes off at the end. Let me know what you all think.. I am dying to hear some reviews of this one! Were you annoyed like me or did any of you LOVE the writers style?

Autobiography

Okay, so I've only started reading this month's book but it got me thinking about autobiographies for some reason. I guess it's because she mentions them in the first page or 2, but I was thinking maybe it would be a good idea to write one. Just to keep, not to publish, of course. The content will not be interesting enough for the average Joe, but maybe my future children or grandchildren will find it somewhat interesting how we lived back here in the "stone age."

I would start now, and lay it out in parts. Part 1 would be as far back as I can remember through graduating collage. Then Part 2 could be life after collage through my childrens' graduations from whatever, then Part 3 could be life again without kids and retirement. :) See, I figure I can remember more about my past if I start now, then, add to it as my life progresses, so it's more like me at that time and not an old kook looking back at life. So, I guess it would be a diary of sorts, but no daily entries. It would have stages-of-life entries, the 3 parts.

I don't know, is this dumb? Would my future family even care? I do wish I knew more about my family, so I'm hoping my opinion passes through my bloodline. :)