March, April, & May 2024
In March, we read Michael Pollan's This is Your Mind on Plants. The first two chapters were OK but the last one on mescaline didn't seem to fit. We felt the book would have been better if the last chapter was on alcohol.
At our April 29th meeting, we discussed This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger. We had a great discussion (discussion sheets available here) and everyone enjoyed the book. We felt it was similar (found family, journey, coming of age) to another book we recently read and loved: The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles.
Our next meeting is on May 20th at 3pm. We will be discussing Vanderbilt by Anderson Cooper. Copies of the book are available at the library desk and the discussion sheets are available for pickup or online.
Summary of Vanderbilt: Drawing on never-before-seen documents and told from a unique insider's viewpoint, the CNN anchor tells the story of his legendary family and their remarkable influence.
March 25 - This is Your Mind on Plants
At our February 26th meeting, we discussed The House of Lincoln by Nancy Horan. Everyone learned something new about Springfield, IL and all would recommend the book.
Our next book group meeting is Monday, March 25th at 3pm in the LME Library's large meeting room. The book this month is This is Your Mind on Plants by Michael Pollan. Copies of the book can be picked up at the front desk and the discussion sheets are also available for pickup or can be viewed online.
Book summary: Of all the things humans rely on plants for-- sustenance, beauty, fragrance, flavor, fiber-- surely the most curious is our use of them is to change consciousness: to stimulate or calm, fiddle with or completely alter, the qualities of our mental experience. Pollan dives deep into three plant drugs-- opium, caffeine, and mescaline-- and explores the cultures that have grown up around these drugs. He examines the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants, and the equally powerful taboos with which we surround them. The result is a unique blend of history, science, memoir-- and participatory journalism--Adapted from jacket.
Meeting January 31, 2011
October 2010-January 2011
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.
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