Here's the schedule for bookgroup from October 2010-January 2011

October 25 THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL Philippa Gregory
RSA Cat link (includes reviews)
BOOK SUMMARY: Two sisters are competing for the greatest prize: the love of a king. When Mary Boleyn comes to court as an innocent girl of fourteen, she catches the eye of Henry VIII. Dazzled by the king, Mary falls in love with both her golden prince and her growing role as unofficial queen. However, she soon realizes just how much she is a pawn in her family’s ambitious plots as the king’s interest begins to wane and she is forced to step aside for her best friend and rival: her sister, Anne. Then Mary knows that she must defy her family and her king, and take her fate into her own hands.

November 29 SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS Guterson, David
RSA Cat link (includes reviews)Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award American Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award.BOOK SUMMARY: San Piedro Island, north of Puget Sound, is a place so isolated that no one who lives there can afford to make enemies. But in 1954 a local fisherman is found suspiciously drowned, and a Japanese American named Kabuo Miyamoto is charged with his murder. In the course of the ensuing trial, it becomes clear that what is at stake is more than a man's guilt. For on San Pedro, memory grows as thickly as cedar trees and the fields of ripe strawberries--memories of a charmed love affair between a white boy and the Japanese girl who grew up to become Kabuo's wife; memories of land desired, paid for, and lost. Above all, San Piedro is haunted by the memory of what happened to its Japanese residents during World War II, when an entire community was sent into exile while its neighbors watched.

December NO MEETING – HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

2011
January 31 THE OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA: A NATURAL HISTORY OF FOUR MEALS Pollan, Michael
RSA Cat link (includes reviews)
BOOK SUMMARY: Pollan explores the ecology of eating to unveil why we consume what we consume in the twenty-first century. "What should we have for dinner?" To one degree or another, this simple question assails any creature faced with a wide choice of things to eat. Anthropologists call it the omnivore's dilemma. Choosing from among the countless potential foods nature offers, humans have had to learn what is safe, and what isn't-which mushrooms should be avoided, for example, and which berries we can enjoy. The cornucopia of the modern American supermarket and fast-food outlet has thrown us back on a bewildering landscape where we once again have to worry about which of those tasty-looking morsels might kill us. A society of voracious and increasingly confused omnivores, we are just beginning to recognize the profound consequences of the simplest everyday food choices, both for ourselves and for the natural world.