It looks like Amazon is going to make a series based on The Underground Railroad! I have to be honest, I don't know if I could handle watching it if it follows the book. However, I think its great that this material will get a wider audience.
https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/27/amazon-moonlight-barry-jenkins-the-underground-railroad-series/
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Sunday, March 26, 2017
More pertinent info for the Spirits
Hey Spirits,
FYI, there will be a new show about Zelda Fitzgerald coming out. Figured I'd pass on this info since we read a book about her. GUESTS ON EARTH, is that the one?...
Saturday, March 11, 2017
BOOK DISCUSSION - LIGHTNING ROUND!!
My wonderful, patient, merciful Spirits,
It seems appropriate, with this weekend being daylight saving time, that we hit the reset with our book club's blog which has been long neglected. So, without further ado, welcome to the book summary lightning round:
ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE
I'll start with the ratings: Archimedes, Baron, JB - 4.5; Cat, Indy - 5; Deuce - 4.75. As you can see, this book was well liked and, in our opinion, well written. Apparently, we have good taste, because this book won a Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, a Carnegie Medal for Excellence, and probably a slew of other awards. What stands out in my memory was the great writing - descriptive without going overboard - and the interwoven stories. The characters were complex and interesting. This is one of those books that stays with you long after you finish it. Unfortunately, I can't give our deep and interesting discussion of the themes, symbolism, and implications of the story their full due in this lightening round, so I'll just say that this complex book made for a great read and an even better book discussion.
THE CURIOUS CHARMS OF ARTHUR PEPPER
This book had a wider range of ratings: Baron - 5; Cat - 4.5; JB - 4; Deuce & Archimedes 3.2; Indy - 2. Apparently, A MAN CALLED OVE is to blame for Indy's low rating. She had just read OVE before PEPPER, and the writing in PEPPER just couldn't compare. Those who rated the book highly liked the main character's development over the course of the book, the comedic situations he found himself in, and the overall positive message of the book.
THE CHRISTMAS TRAIN
Apparently we were all a little Grinch-y around Christmas (some more than others), based on our ratings: Diesel, JB, & Cat - 3.5; Deuce & Indy - 3; Archimedes & Baron - 1. No need to re-live what the biggest Grinches didn't like. This was a rare bit of fluff for the book club, appropriate to the Christmas season and everyone's hectic schedules. I think everyone agreed this was Hallmark channel fare, which made us all think about jumping on a cross-country train for an adventure.
CATCH 22
This meeting was our first attempt at the new, more standardized rating system (see Baron's meeting notes blog entry): Indy, Archimedes - 4; JB, Cat, Deuce, Baron - 3.5; Diesel - 3. This was a funny book with MASH-like humor. As a veteran, Baron recognized many of the personalities satirized by the story. The group's biggest gripes were the repetitiveness and the treatment of women throughout the book. I, for one, was glad to have finally read this literary classic.
THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
This was another of the Novel Spirit's "greatest hits": JB, Cat, Baron, Archimedes - 4.5; Indy & Deuce - 4. This book was hard to read at times due to the stomach-turning subject matter. It certainly isn't a pleasure read. However, especially in these troubling times, I think it's important to read things that make you uncomfortable from time to time. While this is a fiction novel, it is well-researched and doesn't flinch away from the very real brutality of slavery.
Thanks for playing Novel Spirits' Book Discussion Lightning Round! I really hate to give such short shrift to our book discussions, especially because almost without fail they make me see a different perspective and think about the book in a different way. Hopefully, now that Baron and I are caught up, we can have a fresh start and will keep the blog up to date. *Fingers crossed* Thanks for your patience and forgiveness. :)
Thursday, March 9, 2017
STILL TRYING TO CATCH US UP ON MEETING NOTES :/
Ok, Spirits, almost there. Let's do this thing! (Ratatouille quote, I'll just get it out of the way right out of the gate). More notes from the plethora of meetings we've had since my last posts, oooops:
Okay folks, here it is; my piece di resistance (said in a heavy french accent btw), my Eiffel Tower, my Rachainoff's Third, my Pieta. This is the Cohibas baby, the Cubans, the Montecristos. (Ironman 2 quote, sorry I can't stop sometimes). I, Baron von Blogger, son of JB, late of Bristol, Commander of Legions... yeah right whatever. So I had a good idea. Perhaps I just over-sold it a bit but here it is. We usually start the meetings around 2pm. But sometimes we can't always make it right on time, which is no big deal but maybe some people feel a little pressure about deadlines. So to alleviate that problem, I figured we'd just say from 2-3pm is the cocktail hour. So you can show up whenever, fashionably late if you wish, so to speak. And the host can just sip wine until we all show up. So in a nut shell: drink wine, no pressure. I call that a Win-Win.
We decided to record everyone's book ratings from now on, in order to have data on everyone's ratings. This way we can possibly see what type of books we prefer over others. And we can try to improve our own individual rating abilities. But I think we also made sure to protect everyone's right to select whatever book they want whatever the consequences. It's each of us's month to be the King/Queen of the book club. I've punished all of you with the likes of 1984 and THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY after all. I loved both but get a slight feeling maybe you all didn't. Call it a sixth sense, this talent I have. Anyway, moving on...
More chastising of Baron and Arhimedes... nothing to see here.
Literary festival on February 25th, its possible we didn't attend that.....
But hey!!! Here's one we haven't missed yet: Literary Festival in Burnsville, NC on September 8,9,10. I didn't miss that deadline!! #winning
Boss has been continuing his "Either extremely loveable or extremely deadly animals" book reading series for us all and he is doing very well. In this month's installment he read about snakes. He has read several books about snakes and he taught Archimedes and I that some Anacondas can eat Jaguars, can you believe that!?!?! Just a little tid-bit for you at your next cocktail party at the country club. You're welcome.
We're still throwing around the idea of doing a club sanctioned painting class. Continue to marinate on that Spirits but remember that food and drinks are allowed!
In an effort to undermine all that is holy and pure in our club, Indy introduced a motion to give people accolades. This is to counteract the avalanche of chastisements we like to do. Seriously though, I think accolades is an excellent addition to our club meetings and thank you Indy for the idea. And she led by example by commending JB on his book selection THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, which won the 2016 Book of the Year award. Also, Archimedes for participating in our American judicial system, and Chief and Boss for participating in the book club by reading or submitting books. Well done Indy!
Lastly, we threw out the idea of getting Chief in on our book selection rotation. He is at a level now where he can certainly participate in our books (in my opinion at least. But I know I'm biased). So instead of maintaining the "Chief's Bonus Book" section of the club, we would just include him in our monthly book selections and discussions. Less pressure on him that way since he was having to provide a book each month, whereas we only have to submit a book every 7 weeks or so. But, just think about that, no pressure. We don't have to if the club doesn't want to.
Okay, well there was a brief, if not concise wrap-up for the business portions of the past two to seventeen meetings, depending on how you keep count.
Hope everyone is doing well. Shout out to Diesel for doing an excellent job on the note taking, miss you. And I continue to thoroughly enjoy this book club. I love hanging out with everyone, and in my own mind at least, I feel like I have become smarter and more analytical (probably more mature) due to book club, so thanks folks.
Baron
Okay folks, here it is; my piece di resistance (said in a heavy french accent btw), my Eiffel Tower, my Rachainoff's Third, my Pieta. This is the Cohibas baby, the Cubans, the Montecristos. (Ironman 2 quote, sorry I can't stop sometimes). I, Baron von Blogger, son of JB, late of Bristol, Commander of Legions... yeah right whatever. So I had a good idea. Perhaps I just over-sold it a bit but here it is. We usually start the meetings around 2pm. But sometimes we can't always make it right on time, which is no big deal but maybe some people feel a little pressure about deadlines. So to alleviate that problem, I figured we'd just say from 2-3pm is the cocktail hour. So you can show up whenever, fashionably late if you wish, so to speak. And the host can just sip wine until we all show up. So in a nut shell: drink wine, no pressure. I call that a Win-Win.
We decided to record everyone's book ratings from now on, in order to have data on everyone's ratings. This way we can possibly see what type of books we prefer over others. And we can try to improve our own individual rating abilities. But I think we also made sure to protect everyone's right to select whatever book they want whatever the consequences. It's each of us's month to be the King/Queen of the book club. I've punished all of you with the likes of 1984 and THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY after all. I loved both but get a slight feeling maybe you all didn't. Call it a sixth sense, this talent I have. Anyway, moving on...
More chastising of Baron and Arhimedes... nothing to see here.
Literary festival on February 25th, its possible we didn't attend that.....
But hey!!! Here's one we haven't missed yet: Literary Festival in Burnsville, NC on September 8,9,10. I didn't miss that deadline!! #winning
Boss has been continuing his "Either extremely loveable or extremely deadly animals" book reading series for us all and he is doing very well. In this month's installment he read about snakes. He has read several books about snakes and he taught Archimedes and I that some Anacondas can eat Jaguars, can you believe that!?!?! Just a little tid-bit for you at your next cocktail party at the country club. You're welcome.
We're still throwing around the idea of doing a club sanctioned painting class. Continue to marinate on that Spirits but remember that food and drinks are allowed!
In an effort to undermine all that is holy and pure in our club, Indy introduced a motion to give people accolades. This is to counteract the avalanche of chastisements we like to do. Seriously though, I think accolades is an excellent addition to our club meetings and thank you Indy for the idea. And she led by example by commending JB on his book selection THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, which won the 2016 Book of the Year award. Also, Archimedes for participating in our American judicial system, and Chief and Boss for participating in the book club by reading or submitting books. Well done Indy!
Lastly, we threw out the idea of getting Chief in on our book selection rotation. He is at a level now where he can certainly participate in our books (in my opinion at least. But I know I'm biased). So instead of maintaining the "Chief's Bonus Book" section of the club, we would just include him in our monthly book selections and discussions. Less pressure on him that way since he was having to provide a book each month, whereas we only have to submit a book every 7 weeks or so. But, just think about that, no pressure. We don't have to if the club doesn't want to.
Okay, well there was a brief, if not concise wrap-up for the business portions of the past two to seventeen meetings, depending on how you keep count.
Hope everyone is doing well. Shout out to Diesel for doing an excellent job on the note taking, miss you. And I continue to thoroughly enjoy this book club. I love hanging out with everyone, and in my own mind at least, I feel like I have become smarter and more analytical (probably more mature) due to book club, so thanks folks.
Baron
MMMMUUNNNIIINNTTEMBERARY MEETING NOTES
Well, hello again Spirits, it has been quite a while hasn't it? So just to get caught back up real quick: Happy Halloween, Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Birthday Deuce, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Birthday Chief, Happy MLK Jr Day, Happy Birthday Indy, Happy Valentine's Day, Happy Birthday JB, and Happy Presidents Day Weekend! I hope I didn't miss anything. I should really make greeting cards for Hallmark. I can really streamline cost savings and grow their profit margins. It kind of reminds me of the Colonel in CATCH-22 who wrote the same standard letter to every person back at home: Dear Mr. Mrs. Miss. Ms. father, mother, husband, wife...etc.
Well let me try to catch us up on the business portions of the past few months' worth of meetings. Let's see, there was probably some chastisement here and there, some food being eaten, some wine being drunk (drank?), some discussion of books, and some fires. I can remember fires at both Indy's lodge and Archimedes' and my castle (in the fireplaces I mean). Here's a few highlights from the past few months:
Deuce came through in the clutch with a winning spinach dip.
Something about chastisement for Baron and Archimedes for not updating blog. I won't waste your time with all the minutiae about all that. Blah, blah, blah, ciencia, ciencia, ciencia, Grande! Well, now I've certainly diverted your attention away from our chastisement by confusing you with that random quote. So here's the story on that: one day, a long time ago, we decided to watch a movie in which we were very familiar, in Spanish. And we are very familiar with the movie Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, as we have watched it over 34 times I'd bet. So we just turned it on the Spanish option and watched the movie to see if we could understand anything at all. The answer to that question was a definite "no" but it was hilarious none-the-less. So anyway, to sum up all this ridulocity (not sure if that's a word) I just provided you with a Spanish quote from the movie Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs in order to distract you from chastising us for neglecting the blog. Ha!
Indy didn't provide us with an "Off the Grid" segment; JB and Cat failed to provide us Italy pictures at some point. Wow Spirits, we are just dropping the ball all over the place.
I see a note that Chief discussed how he just finished POINT BLANK by Anthony Horowitz (same dude who wrote MORIARTY that we read). POINT BLANK was the second book in that series, which is funny because now we are almost finished with the ninth book in the series. My how time flies when you're a lazy blogger right???? Details.
We had a discussion about providing more of a standard to our book rating. Indy, who is always on the ball with reading and preparing, gave a tentative standard of criteria to rate books: 1/3 based on the skill of writing, 1/3 based on the story and characters, 1/3 on entertainment and education/enlightenment.
And here is another legendary note from Diesel, without any alterations: "Baron then attempted to shed in the fire." Classic Diesel? Capital work, simply Capital!! No need for me to try to improve on that at all.
Deuce proposed downsizing the amount of food that was prepared and brought to the book club meetings. Baron subsequently started throwing furniture, appliances and children across the room in a John McEnroe style tantrum for the ages. If not for the raw strength and cat-like relexes of Archimedes and the rest of the group, poor Deuce may have been seriously injured. However, after Baron was restrained in a straight jacket and Hannibal Lecter-like hockey mask, the group unanimously agreed on the following law: only the host for each meeting prepares the food, a simple, light meal. All the others may bring drinks (that would have been too much for Baron). So it is said, so let it be done.
Since this is getting long, I'll stop this and give you a version 2 for the remaining missing meeting notes. I hope to have us back up to speed by the day after tomorrow. Meeting was changed to Saturday btw, take care now, bye bye then
Baron
Well let me try to catch us up on the business portions of the past few months' worth of meetings. Let's see, there was probably some chastisement here and there, some food being eaten, some wine being drunk (drank?), some discussion of books, and some fires. I can remember fires at both Indy's lodge and Archimedes' and my castle (in the fireplaces I mean). Here's a few highlights from the past few months:
Deuce came through in the clutch with a winning spinach dip.
Something about chastisement for Baron and Archimedes for not updating blog. I won't waste your time with all the minutiae about all that. Blah, blah, blah, ciencia, ciencia, ciencia, Grande! Well, now I've certainly diverted your attention away from our chastisement by confusing you with that random quote. So here's the story on that: one day, a long time ago, we decided to watch a movie in which we were very familiar, in Spanish. And we are very familiar with the movie Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, as we have watched it over 34 times I'd bet. So we just turned it on the Spanish option and watched the movie to see if we could understand anything at all. The answer to that question was a definite "no" but it was hilarious none-the-less. So anyway, to sum up all this ridulocity (not sure if that's a word) I just provided you with a Spanish quote from the movie Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs in order to distract you from chastising us for neglecting the blog. Ha!
Indy didn't provide us with an "Off the Grid" segment; JB and Cat failed to provide us Italy pictures at some point. Wow Spirits, we are just dropping the ball all over the place.
I see a note that Chief discussed how he just finished POINT BLANK by Anthony Horowitz (same dude who wrote MORIARTY that we read). POINT BLANK was the second book in that series, which is funny because now we are almost finished with the ninth book in the series. My how time flies when you're a lazy blogger right???? Details.
We had a discussion about providing more of a standard to our book rating. Indy, who is always on the ball with reading and preparing, gave a tentative standard of criteria to rate books: 1/3 based on the skill of writing, 1/3 based on the story and characters, 1/3 on entertainment and education/enlightenment.
And here is another legendary note from Diesel, without any alterations: "Baron then attempted to shed in the fire." Classic Diesel? Capital work, simply Capital!! No need for me to try to improve on that at all.
Deuce proposed downsizing the amount of food that was prepared and brought to the book club meetings. Baron subsequently started throwing furniture, appliances and children across the room in a John McEnroe style tantrum for the ages. If not for the raw strength and cat-like relexes of Archimedes and the rest of the group, poor Deuce may have been seriously injured. However, after Baron was restrained in a straight jacket and Hannibal Lecter-like hockey mask, the group unanimously agreed on the following law: only the host for each meeting prepares the food, a simple, light meal. All the others may bring drinks (that would have been too much for Baron). So it is said, so let it be done.
Since this is getting long, I'll stop this and give you a version 2 for the remaining missing meeting notes. I hope to have us back up to speed by the day after tomorrow. Meeting was changed to Saturday btw, take care now, bye bye then
Baron
Sunday, March 5, 2017
The Inevitable.
Dear spirits, it is with a heavy heart that I report I will not be at our next meeting on the 12th. We will be headed to Indiana to help our youngest son move to his new home. Quite frankly the meeting would be much more fun but being parents comes first. The fact that Bruce's 41st birthday is that weekend also plays into it. I think he may have planned it that way on purpose. This is the first meeting I have not attended so believe me when I say I will miss not being there for the lively discussion and good food and drink (not to mention the fabulous company). I will text Laura with my rating for the book. Just know that I had tons of knowledge to impart at this meeting. That will keep you in suspense for our next meeting. See you in April! Indy
Sunday, January 29, 2017
JB PICKED A WINNER
Hey Spirits,
I saw that our current book for this month, THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, won an award for best fiction in 2016. So JB made a good pick.
Looking forward to meeting and discussing with everyone
Baron
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