Talk About a Good Book: Strayed

Showing posts with label Strayed. Show all posts

October 27 - Rules of Civility

At today’s bookgroup, we discussed Wild by Cheryl Strayed. We had granola and trail mix with lemonade for refreshments. Overall, the bookgroup members liked Strayed’s writing style and enjoyed the book.

Next meeting will be Monday, October 27^th at 3pm in the Turner Room. The book to be discussed will be Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. Discussion sheets are available in the library or online. In addition, the book can be discussed in the online book forum for LME Library on GoodReads.

Summary: “Set in New York City in 1938, Rules of Civility tells the story of a watershed year in the life of an uncompromising twenty-five-year- old named Katey Kontent. Armed with little more than a formidable intellect, a bracing wit, and her own brand of cool nerve, Katey embarks on a journey from a Wall Street secretarial pool through the upper echelons of New York society in search of a brighter future.

The story opens on New Year's Eve in a Greenwich Village jazz bar, where Katey and her boardinghouse roommate Eve happen to meet Tinker Grey, a handsome banker with royal blue eyes and a ready smile. This chance encounter and its startling consequences cast Katey off her current course, but end up providing her unexpected access to the rarified offices of Conde Nast and a glittering new social circle. Befriended in turn by a shy, principled multimillionaire, an Upper East Side ne'er-do-well, and a single-minded widow who is ahead of her times, Katey has the chance to experience first hand the poise secured by wealth and station, but also the aspirations, envy, disloyalty, and desires that reside just below the surface. Even as she waits for circumstances to bring Tinker back into her orbit, she will learn how individual choices become the means by which life crystallizes loss.

Elegant and captivating, Rules of Civility turns a Jamesian eye on how spur of the moment decisions define life for decades to come. A love letter to a great American city at the end of the Depression, readers will quickly fall under its spell of crisp writing, sparkling atmosphere and breathtaking revelations, as Towles evokes the ghosts of Fitzgerald, Capote, and McCarthy.”

September 29 - Wild by Cheryl Strayed

At our August 25th book group, we discussed Someone by Alice McDermott. Although everyone understood the writing style chosen by the author, most felt it was distracting and made the reader less inclined to connect with the characters. For treats we had Beth's favorite pasta salad, tomato/pepper/onion salad, and veggies with dip.

In September, we will be reading Wild: From lost to found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed. We will meet at 3pm in the Turner Room on September 29th. Discussion sheets are available in the library or online. In addition, the book can be discussed in the online book forum for LME Library on GoodReads.

Summary: In the wake of her mother's death, Cheryl Strayed's family scattered and her marriage was destroyed. Four years later, twenty-six years old with nothing to lose, Cheryl made the decision to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert to Washington State - alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker and the trail was little more than an idea. But it was a promise of piecing back together a life that had come undone.

Talk About a Good Book

October 27 - Rules of Civility

September 29 - Wild by Cheryl Strayed

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