Tonight we had our June meeting for the Portsmouth Book Club where we discussed, The Reader, by Bernhard Schlink. Our book club now has over 150 members! We have been growing like crazy. Who knew that we had that many fierce book lovers in Seacoast New Hampshire? I finally took a picture of one of our meetings with a few of our members who came this evening. It is a bit fuzzy. I am kneeling in the front row in blue.
I have not seen the movie yet (which stars Kate Winslet), and I hear that the movie does justice to the book, but for me I was not really compelled to endorse this book as a "Becca Fav". I was too hung up on the inappropriate relationship between a young boy and a fully grown dominant woman. I understand the hormone level of young adults, all too well, yet I couldn't get over how aggravated I was, and angry. So it did not do it for me. And even though WWII and Nazism is a huge focal point for me, and something I love to study, I was not at all drawn into the post-war Nazi trial of Hanna. It failed to move me as most of those trials did and some of the books written about them (Eichmann in Jerusalem, ie?). Maybe I just need to see the movie.
Still, we had a very powerful discussion, great feedback and varying opinions. I may not personally have enjoyed the book too much, but it proved to be a perfect book club discussion book.
Our July pick is, Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.Here is a brief synopsis of the book from the publisher:
One day in 1993, high up in the world's most inhospitable mountains, Greg Mortenson wandered lost and alone, broken in body and spirit, after a failed attempt to climb K2, the world's deadliest peak. When the people of an impoverished village in Pakistan's Karakoram Himalaya took him in and nursed him back to health, Mortenson made an impulsive promise: He would return one day and build them a school. Although he was a homeless "climbing bum" living out of his aging Buick in Berkeley, California, Mortenson sold what few possessions he had to launch one of the most remarkable humanitarian campaigns of our time." "Three Cups of Tea traces Mortenson's decade-long odyssey to build schools, especially for girls, throughout the region that gave birth to the Taliban and sanctuary to Al Qaeda. While he wages war with the root causes of terrorism - poverty and ignorance - by providing both girls and boys with a balanced, nonextremist education. Mortenson must survive a kidnapping, fatwas issued by enraged mullahs, death threats from Americans who consider him a traitor, and wrenching separations from his family." Today, as the director of the Central Asia Institute, Mortenson has built fifty-five schools serving Pakistan and Afghanistan's poorest communities. And as this real-life Indiana Jones from Montana crisscrosses the Himalaya and the Hindu Kush fighting to keep these schools functioning, he provides not only hope to tens of thousands of children, but living proof that one passionately dedicated person truly can change the world.
I hope you can make it!
The Portsmouth Book Club
July 14, 2009
7:00pm
McMenemy's Restaurant & Pub
177 State St Portsmouth, NH 03801
603-436-4747
