announcements by diane II

Consider the following thought-provoking questions taken from "A Totally Unauthorized Reading Group Guide to Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali" by Janice Harayda:

1. Some of the practices that Hirsi Ali describes, such as female circumcision, have had wide publicity in the U.S. and may have lost some of their shock value. How did Infidel affect your view of them?

2. Did Infidel change your views of any other events that have had extensive media coverage in the U.S., such as tensions in Western Europe between longtime residents and recent immigrants? How did it affect your views?

3. One of the themes of Infidel is the liberating power of books. Hirsi Ali says that at the Muslim Girls’ Secondary School in Nairobi, she read books like 1984, Wuthering Heights and Cry, the Beloved Country. “Later on there were sexy books: Valley of the Dolls, Barbara Cartland, Danielle Steele [sic]. All these books, even the trashy ones, carried with them ideas – races were equal, women were equal to men – and concepts of freedom, struggle, and adventure that were new to me.” [Page 69] Some people might say women aren’t equal in the novels like those of Susann and Steel – that the goal of their female characters is above all to get a man. Is Hirsi Ali is accurately characterizing any of those books or authors that you’ve read?

announcements by diane I

Still Life with Rice Helie Lee March
Palace Walk Naguib Mahfouz April
Almost French Sarah Turnbull May
All the Pretty Horses Cormac McCarthy June

january 8, 2008

Atendees at AMaryliss's home
Amarillys, Doree, Nizla, Marika,Kyungmee, Miren.
THE GREAT GATSBY Scott Fitzgerald SCORED 3.15

book selection

FICTION
March Geraldine Brooks
The Other Boleyn Girl PHILLIPA GREGORY
A Painted House JOHN GRISHAM
A Thousand Splendid Suns KHALED HOSSEINI
The Road CORMAC MCCARTHY
The Alphabet Sisters: A Novel MONICA MCINERNEY
The Faraday Girls: A Novel MONICA MCINERNEY
Family Baggage: A Novel MONICA MCINERNEY
Atonement IAM MCEWAN
On Chesil Beach IAM MCEWAN
The Thirteenth Tale: A NovelDIANE SETTERFIELD
The Shadow of the Wind CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Book Thief MARKUS ZUSAK


NON FICTION
Poetry by Billy Collins
Poetry of Carol Ann Duffy
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India an Indonesia Elizabeth Gilbert
Letters to Sam: A Grandfather’s Lessons on Love, Loss, and the Gifts of Love Daniel Gottlieb
Death Is Nothing At All Canon Henry Scott Holland
The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World A.J. Jacobs
Good Poems Garrison Keillor
The Birth Order Book: Why You Are the Way You Are Kevin Leman
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books Azar Nafisi
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spirtiual Enlightenment Eckhart Tolle