July's Meeting - Thursday the 22nd 2010

Several members are going to be taking some vacation, or out of town for other reasons in June and July. Our meeting will be Thursday July 22, 2010.



We are all reading "Clock Without Hands" by Carson McCullers. I finished it a couple of weeks ago, and am now reading "The Optimist's Daughter" by Eudora Welty. Fun fact: the email client "Eudora" was written by a programmer who liked Ms. Welty's writing and her name, so he named it after her. I don't know if she got any royalties. The poet / ex-professor Stella Nesanovich (www.Nesanovich.com) met her and has an autographed first edition of "The Optimist's Daughter."



We hope everyone is enjoying this hot weather. Our topic is now "Scandinavian Authors."
Louis Hemmi - www.Hemmi.us www.SacredCodes.com

New Technology - KNO may be a Kindle,Sony eBook Reader, Nook slayer

A company called KNO has debuted a device that has two 14" touch screens and is in color. I don't know too much about it yet, but think it's got great potential if it is affordable and if the company can make a decent profit on it.


Click here for the link to KNO.com

I'd sure love to see this. Huffington has this new to share about it:

Link to Huffington Post's article

May 2010 Meeting

We discussed A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. This farcical work wasn't as well thought of by the book club members as I had hoped. Three members disliked it so much that they couldn't suffer to read the whole book. I think you have to be in the mood for a book like this. I caught myself on many occasions laughing out loud; this behavior is so unlike me.

The story is set in New Orleans, where I spent Easter of 2010. Here's a photo of Louis the webmaster at the Café du Monde.


Buddy, Barbara, and Sam hosted the meeting with terrific Mexican food, consisting of fajitas of both beef and chicken, fresh fluffy tortillas, chile con queso, pico de gallo, rice, beans and a plenitude of wine. We ate and discussed the book, then went outside to see Barbara's new addition to her house.

Jessica then directed our attention skyward, as the exact moment that the space shuttle would be over Houston was at hand. We saw it!!

All in all, it was a lovely evening, and I look forward to next month when the meeting will be at Linda's.
Cheers!
Louis

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith

I finished the book club selection (my selection) of A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. I am forbidden to discuss my views, according to our bylaws, so as not to prejudice our meeting's discussion.

I just finished Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith last Saturday. It started out intense,and grew more so in the next 400+ pages. This novel is set in Stalinist Russia, 1953. Communism gives killers an easy time of it, as there is always someone to blame their crimes on.

This is a powerful story, well told. I liked it so much that I've now ordered Tom Rob Smith's second book 'a Secred Speech." His characters invite either your sympathy or contempt, without being too stereotypical.

This one rates five jalapeños!

Next Meeting Date Established for May's Meeting

The next meeting will be held at the home of Ms. Barbara's. on
Thursday 20 May, 2010.

Barbara has a gorgeous dog who (unfortunately for the next door neighbor) has a taste for Easter bunnies. Buddy is the blackest-furred dog I've ever seen. Really, a name like "Satan" would be so perfect for him. The other dog is nice too. The cats are indifferent to us, and I to them. Ms. Barbara always lays a good spread of victuals and accompanying libation.

See you there!

Pondering on a Sunday Afternoon

I've not yet started the current selection by Southern writer Charlaine Harris, but am just about through with The Hunt for Confederate Gold. It gave me a lot of ideas I'd like to use some day. Southern writers tend to be more gothic (dark), connected to the role of religion in their lives and those of their communities, ancestor worship, tradition and understanding of the quirks, foibles and pecadillos of men and women of whatever station in life.


I find I'm increasingly more interested in buying a Kindle. Linda R. loves hers, and she's not easy to please. Now that they are under $300, the Kindle is becoming affordable. However, I think it's still too much to pay when you can get closer and closer to the price of a laptop for which there are far more uses. Once the Kindle price falls to $199 I think that's when I'll bite and make a needlepoint case for it (you laugh, but my grandmother made a lot of things out of needlepoint like eyeglass cases, Kleenex dispensers, belts, vest fronts, etc.).

Netbooks are very close now in price to the Kindle, and they do a lot more than the Kindle can. I like the ASUS EE netbooks, and would consider one if I didn't already have a desktop (Starship Lord Fu XI has 8 GB RAM, 2 TB disk space, Windows 7), a laptop (personal) and a laptop from work.

Louis Hemmi - HoustonBookClub.com
Send Louis Hemmi an e-Mail
Cheers!

After discussion of "Rain Gods" by James Lee Burke

The new book club selection, the third in the topic "Southern Writers" is called "Dead Over Heels" and is an Aurora Teagarden  mystery written by Charlaine Harris. That's all I can tell you, as I've not yet started :)

Our last meeting was at Jessica's and we discussed the book club selection "Rain Gods." Several members opined that it did have some similarity to "No Country for Old Men." I'd not thought about it, but had to agree.

Another point of discussion was whether the selected book really  was "Southern" rather than "Western." I think it qualifies as both. True, it is distinctly different in tone than works typically thought to qualify as "Southern" but I think that the genre is evolving, and this is Southern writing in the teens.

I think it's safe to say that our consensus is that this was a good, fun read with some original twists on popular themes.

John R was not feeling well, and we hope he is better. We're not sure of where the next meeting will be, but we are able to coordinate well by email and perhaps a phone call or two.