June thru November 2017 Book Clubs "The Book That Matters Most," "The Invisible Thread," "Kiss Carlo," "What Alice Forgot," "The Heart Mender: A Book of Second Chances," and "Below Stairs"
Volume
1, Issue 1 - January 2018
BUTLER WOMEN OF WISDOM
QUARTERLY
NEWSLETTER
The Spirits of the Last Six Months of Book Clubs Past
Bah, humbug, to me for not
being vigilant in book club updates. “Books are my business, the common welfare
of the book club is my business; reading, analyzing, quoting, and discussing
books were all my business!” Well, at least that is what I proclaim, but I am
mortal and liable to fall in my commitments, as a golden idol named Ike has
stolen my heart of a more than three years, and his welfare shall always come
first, let the truth be known.
To impart my wisdom on any
of the last six months of book clubs past would be to embark on a difficult
task. A simple summary of each, snippets of thoughts, and a quote here and
there are all I can render.
June 2017 introduced us to
Anne Hood’s The Book that Matters Most. This selection about a book club
made the list of my top favorites of the year. Although the tension I
felt while reading about Ava and her lack of true motherly concern for her
deeply troubled daughter Maggie set a negative tone. The drug addiction theme
is frightening and it bothered me to visualize scenes of Maggie shooting up
heroin and having no control of her own mind. The value of this book comes from
the lessons learned. When I think of all those drug addicts who skulk the
streets of Butler, I’m reminded of Hood’s quote, “Our lives are our own to ruin
or not… No one can do it for us.”
July 2017’s book choice
also made the list of my top favorites of the year, The Invisible Thread
by Laura Schroff. This book was serendipitous. An autobiographical memoir,
Schroff, a successful advertising executive, writes about a time in her life
when she befriended an 11 year old African American street kid named Maurice.
While I was reading this book, naturally I was astonished by the survivalist
lifestyle of the young boy, but I became even more caught up with Schroff’s
accounts of her own dysfunctional childhood. You see, her memories seemed to
mirror many from my own youth. Again, like in The Book That Matters Most,
I was forced to face images of a negative ilk. The timeliness of reading the
book during my stay at the Kripalu yoga retreat center in Massachusetts
coincided with an unexpected acquaintance I made with an African American man
after a journaling workshop. His interest in my responses during the class
prompted him to engage me in a conversation that developed into a full blown
therapy session of sorts for him. Through our discourse, I began to understand
the plight of Schroff’s Maurice from a new perspective. This man had, I
learned, lived the same life as Maurice. He was pinching himself that he was
even in a place as wonderful as Kripalu considering the poverty he once knew.
He shared with me horror stories of living in New York’s most contemptible
projects, a drug dealing brother, gangs and gun fights, an abusive father, and
a mother who worked herself to the bone to hold her family together. Our
encounter was fate. I showed him Schroff’s book and urged him to read it, it
was his story. When coincidences such as this one occur in my life, I always
search for reasons. Why did God have us meet? Maybe, as I was pondering too
much on my own past, in reading about Schroff’s, He instead wanted me to focus
my thoughts on the unbelievable determination of people to rise above the
ponderous chains that hold us down. Shcroff writes, “In life, there are many
different kinds of heroes, but sometimes you can be something more than a hero.
You can be a survivor.”
Who doesn’t love the author
of our August read, Adriana Trigiani? With five books under our belts by the
novelist, we never grow tired of her hard working characters who struggle to
survive between both historic and modern settings, Italian or American. Our
August read, Kiss Carlo, is set in Philadelphia in an Italian
neighborhood where Dominic Palizzini’s family flourishes in their two
businesses. Family ties are broken as a feud ensues between Dominic and his
brother Mike. Nicky, a nephew who drives a cab for his Uncle Mike, becomes
disillusioned with his family’s expectations and a future with his fiance
Peachy. When Trigiani presents him to the lights of the theater in
NYC during the advent of television, she weaves a clever story with allusions
to Shakespeare to jazz up the plot. This book did not find its way on my
list of this year’s favorites, but I do love Shakespeare and found the
backdrops of several of my most cherished Shakespearean comedies a bonus. Most
of all, the theme of the enduring strength of la famiglia makes it worth
the read.
Not a book to forget,
September’s book pick What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty is a winner.
The main character Alice has the experience of waking up without the memory of
the last ten years of her life. She is in disbelief when she discovers that she
has three school age children and that her perfect marriage is about to end. No
one and nothing is as she remembers, and she is not at all certain she likes
any of it, especially a boyfriend who knows her in ways that make her blush.
This book was an awakening for anyone who wishes to consider that our choices
today can have an affect on our future. Alice realizes that she had become too
absorbed in the things that didn’t matter and had ignored what was most
important, family. Life is too short to waste it on bad choices, “Back in 1998,
the days were so much more spacious. . . Days were so stingy now. Mean slivers
of time. They flew by like speeding cars. Whoosh!” What Alice Forgot
makes us think, what would we do differently if we could see the future?
The Heart Mender: A Book of
Second Chances by Andy
Andrews is the only book I haven’t read that is included in this newsletter.
Not something I like to admit, but they say honesty is a virtue, and I really
see no need to confess this transgression to Father Harry. All I can say about
this book is that we all deserve second chances, the Ebenezer Scrooge kind of
second chances. “Spirit, assure me that I may yet change these shadows, by an
altered life. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The spirits
of all three shall strive within me!”
I like a book that teaches
me something. That book was our last novel of 2017, November’s selection, Below
the Stairs by Margaret Powell. What did I learn? Specifically, about the
hardships of an era and a way of life, a life of service to the rich. Powell
tells first hand about life as a servant to the wealthy. In the book she
humorously narrates memoirs of her jobs as a cook during a time when cooking
was truly a chore. In fact, I would not have lasted a day preparing the meals
these aristocrats expected to be served. Painstaking preparation and cleanup
marked Margaret’s days which were hours long with few days off. Domestic duties
such as spring cleaning were done nothing like we do them today. Margaret had
no Hoovers, mechanical aids, modern detergents, nothing, to help with tasks
which would take up to a month to complete, unlike today where many people
can’t begin to understand the veritable meaning of the words spring cleaning.
Luckily, Margaret loved learning and chose to rise from the dreariness of her
situation. What I love about Powell is how she attributes her ability and
success to academics, to her school days, “... the great thing about school in
those days was that we had to learn… We were forced to learn and I think
children need to be forced. I don’t believe in this business of ‘if they don’t
want to do it, it won’t do them any good’. It will do them good. Our teacher used
to come around and give us a mighty clump on the neck or box on the ears if she
saw us wasting our time. Believe me, by the time we came out of school, we came
out with something. We knew enough to get us through life.” Amen.
The
Spirit of January Book Club Future
“No space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused” - Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol. Have no regrets, come to book club, and even make an attempt to read the book! We will meet at Natilie’s Pizzeria on Thursday, January 18, to discuss Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple, Lori’s pick! “And it was always said of them, that they knew how to keep book club well, if anyone alive possessed the knowledge. May that truly be said of us, and of all of us!
God bless us, everyone!
Tammy
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