Books-N-Wine Book Club

Susan got bitten by the Hunger Games bug.  We will meet on August 20th to discuss the trilogy.  As

Hunger Games

was our selection in February, there remain

Catching Fire

and

Mockingjay

for our August selections.

World Hunger

by Brian Kenneth Swain. It's an excellent novel about what could happen when a company goes too far with genetically modified organisms. We will be talking with the author that evening (via phone).

At our July 23rd meeting, five of us had the pleasure of talking with Brian via FaceTime as he joined in on our club meeting for an hour and a half.  He continues to be involved and interested in Genetically Modified Organism research and is considering if there is a sequel to World Hunger.  He is invited to be on some upcoming panel discussions on GMO.

Brian noted that using the term "World Hunger" as his title has the benefit on Amazon that his book appears near the top of this common search term.  He said he chooses titles that have multiple meanings.  For World Hunger there are three meanings:

1) WH in the literal sense of hungry people who could be fed with the help of Vanguard's products.

2) WH in the sense of Vanguard's hunger or profits and market domination.

3) WH in the sense of the GM insects eating everything they come into contact with.

This was an especially interesting thing to learn from the author.  Another book of his is "

Alone in the Light

" which also has a title that takes on multiple meanings.

Our shared bottle of wine was from South Eastern Australia called "The Little Penguin."  It was a pleasant wine to share and it has a cute picture.

(I don't know why this is rotated to the left.  The picture is vertical in the original.)

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Flew_Over_the_Cuckoo's_Nest_(novel)

Description from Amazon: Boisterous, ribald, and ultimately shattering, Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is the seminal novel of the 1960s that has left an indelible mark on the literature of our time. Here is the unforgettable story of a mental ward and its inhabitants, especially the tyrannical Big Nurse Ratched and Randle Patrick McMurphy, the brawling, fun-loving new inmate who resolves to oppose her. We see the struggle through the eyes of Chief Bromden, the seemingly mute half-Indian patient who witnesses and understands McMurphy’s heroic attempt to do battle with the awesome powers that keep them all imprisoned.

Written just after WWII in 1949, this book introduced "Big Brother" to our common vocabulary.  Allusions appear in the

Hunger Games

that were introduced in

1984

.  Most of the group has not read this book, so we chose it for our May club meeting.

Biography:

George Orwell (whose real name was Eric Arthur Blair) was born in 1903 in India and then went to Eton when his family moved back to England. From 1922 to 1927 he served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, an experience that inspired his first novel, Burmese Days (1934). He lived in Paris before returning to England, and Down and Out in Paris and London was published in 1933. After writing The Road to Wigan Pier and Homage to Catalonia (his account of fighting for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War), Orwell was admitted to a sanatorium in 1938 and from then on was never fully fit. He spent six months in Morocco, where he wrote Coming Up for Air. During the Second World War Orwell served in the Home Guard and worked for the BBC. His political allegory Animal Farm was published in 1945 and it was this novel, together with Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), which brought him worldwide fame. George Orwell was taken seriously ill in the winter of 1948 49 and died in London in 1950.

Susan is a big fan of DeMille.  She especially likes his portrayal and development of characters.  We decided to read a DeMille book for April.  It is called "Up Country" and is set in Vietnam.

DeMille also wrote "The General's Daughter" which was made into the movie with John Travolta.  He is former military and often his books are detective mysteries.

This month we return to the classics with

To Kill a Mockingbird

by Harper Lee.  The book was released in 1960.  The movie with Gregory Peck was released in 1962, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

This month's connection to Stephen King: "I’ve written thirty-five [novels] … On the other hand … there is Harper Lee, who wrote only one book (the brilliant

To Kill a Mockingbird

)

… [names other authors who wrote few books] … I always wonder two

things about these folks: how long did it take them to write the books

they

did

write, and what did they do the rest of their time? . .

. I’m probably being snotty here, but I am also, believe me, honestly

curious. If God gives you something you can do, why in God’s name

wouldn’t you do it? (

On Writing

, Page 118)"

This book is published by Scholastic, so it is Young Adult.

A reason for our selection is that it has won several awards and was reviewed by Stephen King who wrote the book we just read in January.  Further, several of us have children who have read it, so we want to see what it is about.

Praise for

The Hunger Games

#1

New York Times

Bestseller

A

Publishers Weekly

Bestseller

A

Horn Book

Fanfare

A

Publishers Weekly

Best Book of 2008

A

School Library Journal

Best Book of 2008

A

Booklist

Editors' Choice

A

New York Times

Notable Book of 2008

A

Kirkus

Best Book of 2008

A

New York Times

Book Review Editors' Choice

USA Today

Bestseller

"[

The Hunger Games

is a violent, jarring, speed-rap of a novel that generates nearly

constant suspense... I couldn't stop reading." — Stephen King,

Entertainment Tonight

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Released in November 2011, this book was selected as one of "

The Best Books of 2011

" by Amazon's editors.  We selected it for our January 2012 meeting.

For those of you worried that it's the gory, bloody Stephen King, do not worry. This is quite different and very intriguing. From the moment you pick it up, you will have a hard time putting it down.

A 1956 Ford Sunliner.  The protagonist, Jake, drives one of these buying it twice for $330 and $300.  He loved this car.

Three Men in a Boat

(To Say Nothing of the Dog...) by Jerome Jerome is a travelogue of a boat trip up the Thames River in the late 1800's.  There are many misadventures and hilarious scenes as three friends travel up the river from London to Oxford.  It includes history lessons as they proceed past towns and locations such as Magna Carta Island.

One of our members found a really nice, illustrated edition at McKay's.

House

by Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker is a Christian Literature Novel.  It is strange and dark for most of the book with two couples trapped in a house that has been possessed by a demon.  We thought it a good selection for around Halloween.