A Fresh Start!
Sadly the book club that inspired the start of this blog has disbanded but I am still reading and still getting asked for book suggestions so I have decided to revive the old blog with a new name.  Reviews and books suggestions coming soon!

A Visit to a Special House and Cute Blue Booties!

After reading "Loving Frank" the book babes decided to visit the Allen-Lambe house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright! It was nice to see inside after driving by for so many years. In many ways we found out that Frank was a man who was ahead of his time and who had a great care for details, Except for the very small bathtubs I think I could move in.

Don't we look cute in our little blue booties? In case anyone is wondering, YES I did finish the book and even finished the next one as well. I can't wait to discuss "Love Walked In."

Book Selections

Yahoo! We were finally able to meet and have now selected the titles until June!!

December 19th-"The View From Mount Joy" NOT Pleasant as I may have led you to believe earlier...I should know better than to try and rely on my memory.

January 16th-"Devil in the White City"

February 20th-"Pirate's Daughter"

March 13th or 27th-"Three Cups of Tea"

April 17th-"Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society"

May 15th-"The Glass Castle"

June - Loving Frank



We have lots of great reading in store!

The Big Read

The Book Club is finally back! I hope you are enjoying the Big Read selection of "My Antonia" by Willa Cather. I was certainly glad to have the warm fall sun shining on my shooulders while reading about the cold Nebraska winter. The way that Willa Cather describes the landscape and the characters gives me such a clear picture of the setting and who they are. Make sure to check out some of the other resources available from the public library listed on their website at http://www.bigreadwichita.org/

Watermark books is also hosting a group discussion of the book on Wednesday, October 28th at 7:00 just in case you can't wait for our discussion later in November. Look for more information soon about our field trip to the Art Museum to view the Prairie Landscape exhibit. Although it isn't quite a prairie I am enjoying the view from my deck while enjoying the fall sunshine and reading "My Antonia." Like the Big Read buttons I've seen around town have ask, "What page are you on?"

Will I Finish???

Yikes, book club is only days away and I haven't even started If You Could See Me Now. I'm hoping that it is a quick read and now that I am finished with the endless wallpaper stripping, bathroom painting project I think it is time to sit and read for awhile. (The triple digit temps are also pretty good motivation!)


I did finish Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich. A quick, light read for sure. While I do enjoy reading about bounty hunter Stephanie Plum I just wonder how much longer she (Evanovich) can keep it up. The stories are getting a bit tired and in case you were wondering after my last post...nope, no stunning ending! At least for once there was not really any grave bodily injury or damage to Stephanie.

A Good Ending?

I just finished Bille Letts' latest novel, Made in the USA. Although more serious and darker than her previous novels, it was still filled with her trademark humor and character development. She does such a wonderful job of creating characters that you care about them, feel you know them and wonder what happens to them after the book ends. Ms. Letts even confessed that these characters stay with her after she is done writing also and that she has been tempted at various times to write sequels to her previous books. I'm not sure if I feel this is a good idea or not. What if she gets it wrong...or at least doesn't end things the way I think they should end?



And speaking of ending, it seems that many authors have a difficult time ending things! I don't mind if everything isn't neatly tied up at the end, as a matter of fact sometimes that is the problem with the ending. I even enjoy a good twist at the end, even when I didn't see it coming as long as it makes sense with the rest of the story. The last book club book (The Art of Mending) had a very abrupt anticlimactic ending that didn't seem to go with the build up during the entire rest of the story. Then there is my other recent read, The Blood of Flowers (LOVED the book) that was wonderful up until the end. It almost seemed like an "and they lived happily ever after" ending which would seem to be the last thing you would expect. I got the same feeling from the end of Made in the USA. Then there are the authors that seem to hit their page limit and just suddenly wrap up the whole story in just a final page or two.



Of course now I am wondering how I am going to end this post so I guess I can see the problem!
Ending can be hard in novels and in life and beginnings aren't always a piece of cake either!
(Ending with cake seems like a good thing!)

Billie Letts

I have been a fan of Billie Letts since Where the Heart Is first came out. (In fact I even picked it for the book club long before Oprah picked it for hers but I don't think my choosing it is what made it a bestseller!) So I was excited to have the chance to hear her speak last night, even though I still don't understand her fascination with WalMart, which shows up once again in this latest novel. This small framed, very thin older woman stepped up to the microphone and had the crowd enthralled! What a wonderful storyteller with a great mix of humor and serious passion for writing and for children. Her newest book, Made In The USA, combines these two as she looks at the way that children are becoming disposable in our society. Although I haven't read the book yet I bet that she manages to have strongly developed characters and is able to combine humor along with a serious message. By the way, she has apologized for the language that some of her characters use. She assured us that those were her character's words, not her own and even though she did her best to control them it didn't always work!