Females are best in the olive grove
as they are “wise in the feet and wild in the head.” Some of us might have a
future in olive harvesting!
17 Bookers met at the home of Patty Evans to discuss
this month’s selection, a debut contemporary women’s fiction, set in a house in
an olive grove in Northern California that brings to life five generations of
women, including the unforgettable 112-year-old matriarch of Scot-Irish descent,
Anna Davison Keller, who is determined to break all Guinness longevity records.
As the story unfolds, we learn of the secrets and lies that divide the women
and the love that ultimately ties them together.
Welcome KK Mitchell to her first
“official” meeting although she’s been on the email list for a long time. We’re
glad to have you in person and hope you enjoy our time together. Also, new to
the Pinnacle Women’s Club and to Bookers, Suzanne Potter, has joined the group
as well as Fran Farmer. We’re happy to have all of you!
Beverly Dossett, our discussion leader,
offered a short summary and opened it up for the group to comment.
One of Bookers’ rules (and we only have
two) is the book must foster discussion. This one did not disappoint. Sixteen
read the selection, four liked, but the rest either disliked or rated it so-so.
The common complaints focused on the abrupt ending (did they journey to
Australia?), lack of character development, the difficulty of keeping the
numerous characters straight…although the main characters were in alphabetical
order (Anna, Bets, Callie, Deborah, Erin), the storylines seemed scattered and
in some cases useless information failing to drive the story forward, some
parts read as though an editor might have removed chunks of the text, the
author relied heavily on clichés, some regarding the writing sophomoric
especially for a university creative writing teacher, the change of viewpoints
made it difficult to follow, and we never learned what Carl, Deborah’s husband,
really did to deserve six bullets…although the location of those bullets
probably answered that question. The secondary story about the theory of aging
lost some momentum with the dissertations of the geneticist, Dr. Hashmit, whose
study of the “superagers” saw a clear disparity between chronological age and
biological age – those individuals having physical, psychological, and social
lives of people one-half there ages. His theory was since they stop or slow
senescence (the condition or process of deterioration with age within the body)
his mission was to find the genetic mutation in the Keller family’s first-born
females that was responsible for defying longevity norms.
On a more positive note, the story of the
schoolteacher, Miss Dupont, who survived the fire that killed twenty-six
children including Violet, Anna’s little sister and the first child born at
Hill House, was heartwarming as she wrote letters on each anniversary of the
tragedy to the parents of those who died imagining what he or she would be
doing that year if they had lived. Also, the biblical meaning of roots of the
olive tree is told in Romans 11:17 saying that Christians are spiritually
grafted into the ancient olive tree of Israel…with faith not standing alone but
supported by that tree. Those familiar with the olive trees of Israel realize
that these old trees can live hundreds of years and are wonderful pictures of
stability, endurance and fruitfulness. Ms. Santo adeptly used this imagery and
analogy to create the characters, their relationships to each other, their
strengths and weaknesses, and the richness in their lives. Anna’s character was
the spiritual graft – the roots that held the Keller family together for
generations.
On the business
side:
Thank you to those who have already sent
me book recommendations for the committee to consider. If you have not done so
yet, please email your thoughts as soon as possible.
Bonnie Magee, our food czar, will be
coordinating the offerings a little early this year for our Wine & Cheese
evening meeting as she will be traveling (maybe) and will have surgery in May.
Please respond directly to her and again, thanks to everyone for their support.
Our first batch of new books from BookTrib
should arrive at the end of this month so we’ll have them to pass out next
month.
Easter is almost upon us and Patty Evans
needs volunteers to help coordinate the outdoor activities for the kids. Please
contact her directly (pevans@thirdring.net) if you can tap
into your inner “bunny” and help with the project.
The new and gently used bookstore, Bookish,
in Malakoff, 211 S. Terry, will celebrate the grand opening with a ribbon
cutting at 11:00 am, Saturday, March 21, 2020 to kick off a full day of
events in partnership with local merchants. Bookish will provide snacks and
Cappuccinos throughout the day with author’s book signings and short
presentations. (Mine is 11:15 or 11:30); HF Family Table will be selling book
themed box lunches; Sunrise Point (the new luxury cottages and event venue) will
be offering tours all day; Malakoff Junction antique store will be open as well
as Artful Thinking and the Vault House; Bookish and Sunrise Point will be
hosting a giveaway at 2:00 pm – enter for a chance to win dinner for two at HF
Family Table and a two night stay at Sunrise Point; Take a historic tour of
Anding House B&B, originally the Flagg family home built in 1920 by Mr.
Flagg, the President of First State Bank and owner of a drug store, dry goods
and grocery stores.
COLOR
CODING SYSTEM
WHITE: LIGHT READ
PINK: MODERATELY
CHALLENGING
RED: CHALLENGING
April 14: Beloved
by Toni Morrison
In honor of the late
Nobel Prize laureate’s finest achievement which stares unflinchingly into the
abyss of slavery transforming history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as
intimate as a lullaby…filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope.
RED
Home
of Beverly Dossett
Discussion
Leader: Katherine McDonald
May 12: The
One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood
One-hundred and four-year
old Ona tells the eleven-year-old unnamed boy who has been helping her out
every Saturday morning, “The story of your life never starts at the beginning.”
A heartwarming tale of love, loss, and friendship.
PINK
Evening
Wine & Cheese meeting
Home
of Melanie Prebis
Discussion
Leader: Jean Alexander
Bonnie
Magee will again coordinate our menu
Summer
reads: The Giver of the
Stars by JoJo Moyes and
The
Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson
Much
has been made of the similarities of these two books, some calling it
plagiarism. They were published five months apart; they both take place in
Kentucky and deal with the Pack Horse Library Project tasked with bringing
books to remote areas of Appalachia between 1936 and 1943.
Bookers
is reading both because of the controversy…will be a fun meeting in September
2020.
With the power of storytelling the minds
of younger generations will absorb the rich history of their ancestors…if they
listen.
They
might even learn that the narrative of your life is not the same as the truth
of your life.
Happy Reading,
JoDee
