WINE CHARM IDEAS

Well Novel Spirits, I must say it feels more like we are Ordinary Spirits right now. Why is no one voting on the ONE SECOND AFTER poll? Time to put your game faces on Novel Spirits!! Ok, well now I feel bad because it seems like I am always scolding one or more people on posts. Maybe I'll focus on more positive things. Like Indy's ideas: while reading THE ROAD TO WELLVILLE, don't forget to make a note of some favorite quotes or sections of the book so you can share with us at the next meeting. Another positive: there is always great food and wine at the meetings. Ok, I'm starting to feel a little better now.

So, the point of this post (surprisingly was not to belittle the Novel Spirits) is to put forth an idea from Archimedes and Diesel. They found a few ideas for wine charms from Etsy that we might want to purchase for our club members. Let me use this opportunity to make another positive comment then. Thank you Archimedes and Diesel for researching and contributing this great idea. After all, I think we've all noticed how Deuce "accidently" takes large gulps from everyone's wine glasses because she "forgets" which wine glass is hers. I'm on to you Deuce! So here are a couple of links for you all to check out and see what you might think about these charm ideas. Right after this post, I'll put up another poll so you can vote on the ideas.

First link: Book-lovers wine charm set

Second link: Customized favorite book charms

Lastly, how is everyone's progress on THE ROAD TO WELLVILLE so far? My update: I started reading it last night but fell asleep at page 4. I hope the reason is just because it was 1:00 am rather than any other reason. But I'm sure its a great book.

Ok, please vote on the two polls Novel Spirits!!!

ONE SECOND AFTER DISCUSSION

Keeping in mind that this blog is a work-in-progress, and that we are still working out all the wrinkles, here is our post discussing our most recent book, ONE SECOND AFTER, by William Forstchen. 

Also, please note the poll on the right of the blog to allow you to vote on this book from a scale of   1-10 stars. Please participate in the poll by giving your star rating for the book. The poll closes on the the date of our next book club meeting, at which time we will post a new poll on that book. 

Summary: This book takes place in the present time, in a small North Carolina town in the Appalachian mountains (FYI, if you live in that particular region of the country, it is pronounced "App-uh-la-chun", not "App-uh-lay-shun"). But anyway, a quasi-local, retired military officer, widowed father of two girls lives in Black Mountain, NC and teaches history at the local college there. One day the entire town loses all forms of energy. Cars, appliances, phones don't work and electricity is all gone. They don't realize it until later, but the United States has been attacked by a nuclear bomb detonated several miles above Kansas. The resulting explosion caused an "electro-magnetic pulse" (EMP) which rendered all devices in the country completely inactive. The book goes on to describe how individuals in this small community react to this catastrophe in an effort to survive as individuals and as a community. How do the people of Black Mountain deal with the absence of food, law, medicine and protection??? Spoiler Alert: its not all rainbows and lollipops... 

Since that summary was probably way too wordy, I'll try to be brief from here on out. I think most of the group agreed that this book was indeed quite thought provoking by giving this disaster possibility. The U.S. definitely has people who hate us and would love to attack us with such a far reaching EMP. The author presented the idea that our country is not only very unprepared for such an attack, but also highly at risk to one. Personally, I don't think we are at such a high risk as the author, but I could agree we are not prepared for this type of attack. But I think when the nation's geniuses get together and figure out what we're most vulnerable to, this probably doesn't rank very high. I would guess its a very low probability event, with a very high destruction rate. There are probably many other threats with higher probabilities. 

So now some issues we had with the book. Maybe not everyone feels the same but it seemed to me like a general consensus, but we shall see if any comments come in cursing the low down dirty name of Baron and putting a thousand hexes on his grandchildren. One issue was the main character's role in the book. It seemed like his values and ethics were selectively utilized. For example, there were times in the book where he stopped some inhumane actions from happening because he didn't want himself and his community to become "less American" or primal or whatever fancy professor stuff he was spouting about. But he did some stuff that people might consider primal, inhumane or what we might refer to as "bad". But whatever. Another example is how he (or anyone else really) were deemed to be decision-makers on certain things (like food rations). Brief aside: so he pressured the pharmacist to give him a stash of insulin for his 12-year old diabetic daughter (which meant some other diabetics would die quite soon). But a parent probably won't judge him too much for that, except that he told the police chief to confiscate all the food and medicine in the town and ration it out equally. No exceptions... not until later at least. If that doesn't seem hypocritical enough for you, then how about this: two young men got caught stealing medicines from the nursing home to get high. The local authorities, who had declared martial law, decided that the two men needed to be shot and killed. (Caught me off guard for sure). So the main character (John) got nominated to shoot the guys for stealing medicine. But Hark! What's this? Wait just a second! That's strikingly similar to what  John did for his daughter. And of course, prior to shooting those dudes, John gave an eloquent speech about being noble, maintaining order, and above all, staying American.... Here's what I heard: "Blah, blah, blah, I'm a stinking hypocrite for saying one thing and doing the opposite, Go Me!" I'm not buying it. 

Another issue we discussed was the timeline of events. Some of us thought that maybe the timeline of the people's downfall into chaos and anarchy was a little too fast. People started losing "humanity" pretty quickly after the EMP. 

Sorry for the too long post. On the whole, I don't want to trash the book as crap, but there were some issues we/I had with it. But overall, there were some exciting parts and it kept my attention throughout. I did get attached to some of the characters and the writing was pretty good.

Please feel free to leave comments on your thoughts. And book club members have access to create their own posts so I encourage them to do that as well.

And vote on this book too!

Where'd You Go Bernadette & In Cold Blood - follow up

I realize that now the book club blog is going to be hopelessly out of order (at least for the pre-blog books), but I want to try to redeem my poor note taking performance.  :)

WHERE'D YOU GO, BERNADETTE

Our first book, Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple, will always have a special place in my heart as the beginning of Novel Spirits.  We had talked about having a book club for some time, but, like so many things, it just hadn't happened.  Bernadette just happened to be the first book that three of our members all read around the same time.  Helpfully, it had a book club guide with thought provoking questions to guide the conversation in the back of the book, so it was the perfect book club beginners book!

This book is a cleverly told comedy/mystery/mother-daughter tale about an eccentric, semi-retired architect (Bernadette) and the events surrounding her sudden disappearance.  The author tells the story through emails, notes, and other documents that have been assembled by Bernadette's daughter, Bee, in an effort to decipher what led up to Bernadette's disappearance and where she may be.

We all really liked this book, and thanks to the helpful book group guide our conversation led us to new insights about the characters, who were complex, relatable, and at times hilarious, and their relationships throughout the story.  This book hooked us from the beginning and was a quick, enjoyable read.  This book has gotten rave reviews, and not just from the fledgling Novel Spirits.  I've seen it listed on many "best reads of 2014 lists," and would highly recommend it!

Recently, the movie rights have been acquired, and while there is very little information available yet, it appears that a movie adaptation of this book may be in the works.  Looks like the perfect opportunity for a book club field trip!

IN COLD BLOOD

Our second book was agreed upon by all of us throwing out books on our "to be read" list and we finally agreed on this one.  We must have been in the mood for something a little more intense after the lighthearted comedy of Bernadette and boy did we get it.

Truman Capote's In Cold Blood chronicles the true story surrounding the murder of a Kansas farming family in 1959 and the process of tracking down, trying, and executing their murderers.  Not exactly warm and fuzzy...  However, we gave kudos to the book for managing to treat such a grisly subject without going into too much gory detail as to make it unreadable.

Since this book is a classic, we were able to find some book club discussion guides online, and used some of the questions from them to guide our discussion.  One of the interesting, and somewhat controversial, things about the book is the borderline sympathetic portrait that is painted of the two killers.  This book is known as the first "true-crime" novel, which is now a genre of its own right.  In Cold Blood certainly read like a novel, and even though we knew what was going to happen, the book still managed to keep us interested.

Indy offered up the translation of a quote at the beginning of the book:

"Brothers that live when we are dead, Don't set yourselves against us, too.  If you could pity us instead, Then God may sooner pity you."

-from Ballad of the Hanged by Francois Villon.

While we all agreed that this book was a well written and a compelling read, we were ready for something a bit lighter and more uplifting after reading this book!

UNDER ONE ROOF DISCUSSION

Archimedes here.  I really resent the chastisement by Baron, who, might I add, I motioned to be allowed in the group!  I admit that I didn't write down every comment of the book discussions, but that is just a testament to how interesting the discussions were!

Seriously, though, the blog was a recent idea.  It's a miracle that we even have notes from those first meetings!

True to form, my notes have one line:  Overall, we did not like this book.

It's true.  We gave it a one star rating.

The book is about the relationship that develops between the general foreman of a construction site and a little old lady living near the construction site, who refused to sell her home to the construction company.  The foreman becomes more and more involved, eventually taking on the role of her caretaker.

We all (Deuce, Diesel, Indy, and Archimedes) felt that, while the plot line had potential, the book failed to deliver.  The first issue was the writing.  It was very repetitive.  Also, the author repeated himself.  (See what I did there?)  We were also irked about how the foreman seemed to sacrifice his time with his own family to be with a perfect stranger.  While this may be noble in theory, the way the story played out, it seemed as though the foreman may have had ulterior motives.

On the positive side, it did make for some good book club discussion.  It brought up the topics of the caregiver/caregivee (?)  roles and the challenges and rewards of each.  Indy brought up some of the better passages of the book:

"I hadn't really a moment to consider that here's this woman, well into her eighties living a pretty solitary existence, and still going to the trouble of getting her hair done on a regular basis.  It says something about her and her generation, I guess.  For some reason I remembered those pictures you see of men at baseball games, years ago, in shirts and ties and fedoras.  There was something a little more proper and formal about the way they went around in the world; it seemed like a measure of respect for each other and for themselves, I guess that's kinda been lost as time goes by." - pages 48-49

"As I walked out I happened to notice the picture of Edith holding the clarinet she said Benny Goodman had given her sitting on the table with that lamp from my childhood.  It felt so odd.  These little physical objects, a table, a lamp, a clarinet; so meaningless really.  Just dumb stuff.  But in another way, they were what tied us all together.  Edith and her cousin - if he really was her cousin - connected by that clarinet.  Edith and her mother by those little Red Rose tea figurines. ... No wonder people become hoarders.  It's all about what you throw away and what you keep forever." - page 237

-Under One Roof by Barry Martin with Phillip Lerman

Sadly, this book is one of the things that I am not going to keep forever.  We did, however, have shortbread cookies at our meeting, which Edith, the little old lady in the story, liked.

If any of you have any additional comments on our discussion or remember any other points raised, please feel free to add them or comment.

MEETING #4 (01/18/2015)

Club business:

Deuce volunteered to have shirts made for our group. This is a good morale booster and pride builder. We're using the logo created by renowned local artist, Baron to put on the shirts. Pictures to follow when shirts come in :-)

Baron was voted/ordered to be the person in charge of maintaining the blog. He dubbed the blog Baron, hence the codename "Baron". Even though Baron is charged with maintaining the blog, all club members have been given authorship access so they can all create posts as well.

Squid was chastised once again for not showing up to the meeting. He is still an ohfer. Therefore, Diesel nominated Squid to host the next meeting, whether he participates or not. Although it was not clear who is supposed to notify him.

Since we have been rotating meeting hosting duties, we briefly discussed the possibility of bringing a gift to the host of each meeting since they go to the trouble of fixing food, and providing wine. Although, events so far have received  unofficial BYOW designation, because we all bring our own, and we share with everyone. Perhaps, at some point we can incorporate wine tasting into the meeting in the same manner we are trying new books and discussing them. Maybe we can propose that in the next meeting.

Once again, the squared away Indy had some random questions for us. This time it was library-related trivia questions. This was a successful activity and we all enjoyed it. Perhaps another item we can permanently add to the agenda. That was enjoyable.

Then the discussion of the current book, ONE SECOND AFTER, by William Forstchen. The next post will cover this.

And now the next randomly selected book from our list... THE ROAD TO WELLVILLE, by T.C. Boyle...

Meeting #3 (12/7/2014)

Club business first:

Logo drawing was finalized. The artist was praised. However, I feel like it wasn't quite as much praise as it should have been. But, like most exceptional artists throughout history, he will probably not be fully appreciated until several years after his death. Oh well.

Follow-on discussion about previous book. Apparently a detective disputed Truman Capote's version of the real crime from which IN COLD BLOOD was based. Sadly, no further details about this discussion. Sounds like it had potential for some drama though.

Archimedes introduced a motion for Baron to be invited into the club. The club unanimously voted Baron in. But Archimedes recused herself from the vote, which quite frankly hurt Baron's feelings. He later reported that he was completely vexed by her action.

The group then discussed the current book, UNDER ONE ROOF, which will be posted in not much detail in the next blog post.

And lastly, the next book to read from our list was randomly selected, and it is.....
ONE SECOND AFTER, by William Forstchen...

IN COLD BLOOD DISCUSSION

Once again, I apologize for the very weak note-taking performance of our Secretary, Archimedes:

"Book was well-written, interesting and disturbing.. [Consensus star rating:] 3.5-4 stars [out of 5]."

One thing we will work on is a better way to document our discussions in order to make these blog posts more informative, and hopefully, thought-provoking. Possibly, we can update the blog in real-time during the meeting so the discussion can be documented for completely, losing as little of the talking points as possible.

Once again, Archimedes will be punished. I'm thinking something like what happened to William Wallace in BRAVEHEART.

MEETING #2 (10/19/2014)

Club business first:

We discussed creating a logo for our group. After some discussion and brainstorming, we came up with a concept design and a potential artist to commission to do the work. Ok the artist part is a real stretch because he is me, and he/I is not a professional artist, not even a real good amateur one. But I'm free. The logo we came up with is the same logo that is on the front page of this blog, right under the title.

Indy also shared an inspirational story about a muscle-bound, macho, male football player in Atlanta who joined a book club full of not muscle-bound, not macho, female not-football players. They all seemed to get along well. We were all inspired by Indy's story.

Diesel introduced a motion for Squid to be invited into the club. The motion was seconded by Deuce and the subsequent vote was unanimous. Welcome to The Novel Spirits Squid!!

Indy also had a good idea for us to take notes of meaningful passages within the stories we read, as well as any new words we learned. These can provide good talking points for discussions on the book.

The club then discussed the current book. The next post will summarize the club's discussion of IN COLD BLOOD, by Truman Capote...

WHERE'D YOU GO BERNADETTE? DISCUSSION

I'd like to take this opportunity to publicly shame our secretary, Archimedes. SHAME! We will need to educate her on the proper way to take notes at book discussions. But, we are brand new and a work in progress, so please forgive us since this first book discussion summary doesn't have a whole lot of meat to it. Here goes:

"We all like this book and thought it was funny. The book was written in letters and emails and we all liked this format. [Rating given:] 3.5-4 stars (out of 5)."

That is all. Archimedes will be punished.

INAUGURAL MEETING (08/30/2014)

First meeting of the book club! Here's a brief summary of the meeting:

First we brainstormed ideas for our club name. Here are some of the ideas thrown out for consideration: "Reading between the Wines", "Happy Bookers", "Litwits", "Novel Spirits". After some polite discourse quickly broke down into some rather ugly name calling and later to MMA style fighting, our strongest member (who submitted "Novel Spirits") caused the rest of us to tap out and we officially became THE NOVEL SPIRITS.

Next came the election of officers. Deuce was voted President, Archimedes was voted Secretary and Diesel was voted Technological Coordinator.

Then we created a tentative schedule for how each meeting will be conducted:
1. Wine and Food (that was a unanimous decision FYI)
2. Club business. The non-fun logistics and what not. ZZZZZzzzz
3. Discussion of book that was just read. The person who nominated the current book will act as the moderator of the discussion.
4. Selection of the next book to be read. Here's how that process works: each club member nominates two books of his/her own choosing. All nominations are put into a hat and selected randomly. When a person's book is selected, he/she doesn't get to replace a submission until all books are read. At that point, we'll start the process over and everyone resubmits. Hopefully, this method is fair to all club members.

Next order of business was the selection of the next book to read (which ironically, is out of order of the tentative schedule decided on only just before now). Go figure. And the next book is: IN COLD BLOOD, by Truman Capote!

Then, the discussion of the current book. However, please see side note below:

Just as a side note, at least initially we might break up each meeting blog post into two posts: one with all club business and logistical stuff, and one with the actual discussion of the current book. This might be easier for anyone who is just interested in the book discussion and analysis rather than our club shenanigans. We'll see how that goes, we can always change it.

So this concludes the summary of The Novel Spirits' first meeting (the business portion anyway). Next post will be the discussion of WHERE'D YOU GO BERNADETTE? by Maria Semple, our inaugural book.

WELCOME!!

Welcome to the "Novel Spirits" blog! This blog serves as the online journal of our book club. Our mission is fairly simple: 1. Read books. 2. Get together to discuss the books. 3. Eat good food and drink good wine while discussing the books. 4. Provide our thoughts, emotions, etc. and summaries of our meetings here on this blog. We welcome any civil comments, advice, critiques, encouragement here. No trolls please. We have a strict "No jerks" policy and we like to keep all content of this blog friendly and useful. It's just for fun and to be able to communicate with others who share our love of books and wine. We hope you enjoy what you see here