NOVEL SPIRITS: May 2016

Saturday, May 28, 2016

WHAT CHIEF AND BOSS HAVE BEEN READING

Chief recently completed a young adult book with a local setting. SERAFINA AND THE BLACK CLOAK is set at Biltmore Estate.

SERAFINA is, in the words of Chief, "good" and "mysterious." He said it is in at least his Top 30, which is saying something because he has read quite a few books. Chief is currently reading TWILIGHT COMPANY, a book about Star Wars.

Boss has recently been reading books with a baseball theme. One was about Jackie Robinson and another was about Jackie Mitchell, a 17-year-old female pitcher who struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in succession at an exhibition game.

We've also been reading THE HOBBIT at night together and listening to the ORIGAMI YODA book series on CD in the car. Now that they're out of school, our youngest members will have even more time to catch up on their reading.

Saturday, May 21, 2016

GUESTS ON EARTH BOOK DISCUSSION

It's pretty fitting that this ended up being the book we discussed on Mother's Day, considering that one of the recurring themes in the book was motherhood in some form or fashion. Evalina's relationship with her mother, who was a "lady of the night," Evalina's loss of her own child, Dixie giving up her child for adoption, Ms. Fitzgerald's distant relationship with her daughter, and so on. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

The premise of GUESTS ON EARTH is that the narrator, Evalina, will tell the reader about a fire that occurred at Highlands Hospital, a psychiatric facility, taking the lives of several female patients, including Zelda Fitzgerald, the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Thus, this is a fictional novel that grew around a real event.

As always, it was interesting to read a book with a local setting. While the premise of the book is the fire, the content is focused on the tragic life of the narrator. Evalina came to Highland Hospital after her mother killed herself after Evalina's baby brother died. And that, in a nutshell, sets the stage for the "tone" of the book. This is a story with quite a body count. While Highland Hospital is a psychiatric facility, most of its residents, at least as described, seemed not to have mental illnesses as much as tragic circumstances with which they were struggling to cope. Evalina managed to have a fairly normal childhood, under the circumstances, and the hospital proved to be a nurturing place where she developed healthy relationships (including her first crush - who goes on to kill himself). Evalina manages to get a music scholarship and goes off to college, where she proceeds to make terrible choices. She quits school, runs off with an opera singer who cheats on her and knocks her up, then leaves him to live with carnies until she has the baby - who dies. Evalina returns to Highland Hospital after this tragic course of events, where she makes new friends and proceeds to make more terrible choices. She turns down the opportunity to join her childhood friend's wildly successful band and turns down a marriage proposal from a doctor and genuinely kind and good man for a man who was a feral child and who is apparently banging every girl at the hospital. After the fire that the whole book is about, Evalina returns to her birthplace in New Orleans where she finds a basement lair to wait for the feral man.

If you think the above summary is harsh and depressing, read the book. I'm pretty sure I left out over half of the deaths and some of the more depressing parts. One of the more disturbing aspects of the book was the discussion of the methods for treating mental illnesses at that time, including insulin shock therapy, lobotomies, electroshock therapy, etc.

All that being said, the author, Lee Smith, did a great job of making the characters realistic and sympathetic. I, for one, thought her portrayals of southern Appalachian people was much more three dimensional and accurate than a writer who shall not be named. (This was probably because Ms. Smith is from Grundy, Virginia, and knows that we aren't all rednecks and hillbillies. Take notes, Mr. Grisham. Oops, I named the writer!) The writing was compelling to read, but as Baron pointed out, there wasn't much of a plot. It just kind of followed the narrator from horrible life choice to horrible life choice. Also, there were a couple of loose ends - Evalina's relationship with Ms. Carroll, the owner and operator of the hospital's wife who taught Evalina piano; Jinx, a character I didn't include in the summary above, who disappeared without explanation after the fire and who some believed to have shot a man (there's another for the body count) and was suspected of starting the fire.

There were a couple of other interesting points that we discussed in our meeting. First, there was the implication in the book that F. Scott Fitzgerald stole Zelda's work. Brave JB said he has read some of her work and it was a very difficult read. Second, I'm not quite sure who pointed this out, but it was noted that the title was a very fitting description of people who struggle with mental illness.

Personally, while I would not choose to read this book again, I thought it made for great book club discussion. I'll close with a quote from the book that was highlighted by both Baron and Cat (great minds think alike!) and really summarizes the book well: "Why do we do the things we should not, and not do the things we should?" Yes, why Evalina? WHY?

MAY MEETING NOTES

Howdy Spirits, here is the post for the business portion of our May meeting. Since my last post was really long, I'll tone this one down, I hope.

This meeting took place at Indy's Lodge and she made tons and tons of food. Really good food too. You had me at barbeque! <3 And there were even different BBQ sauce options. The bacon and cheese filled potato skins were yummy. And I apologize to everyone because I had more than my alloted proportion of those almond/caramel crunchy toffee kind of things. I felt an addiction to those developing. There was also some great chocolate cake and delicious Derby pie. I had never heard of Derby pie but found out it is a pecan pie with a few extras: chocolate chips (which improves 99.4% of everything its added to) and bourbon! So from that I used my Holmes-like deduction skills to figure out that's where the name came from (like the Kentucky Derby). And I think the Kentucky Derby was raced sometime very close to our meeting maybe? Enough about the food I guess. But that is one of my favorite subjects to talk about.

This meeting fell on the actual Mother's Day, and we have a few mothers in the group. So the non-mothers made some customized coffee mugs for the mothers. Thanks to Pinterest, we were able to use alphabet letter stickers, Sharpie oil paint pens, ceramic coffee mugs (microwave and dishwasher safe of course) and one conventional oven to create these gifts for the mamas. Each mug had the owner's book club secret squirrel code name on it, with some artistic embellishments added for some POP!

Boss read HOP ON POP by Dr. Seuss. He keeps getting better and better at reading.

Now look about the shirts: Apparently the Spirits showed a rare moment of compassion by not chastising Deuce about the shirts this time. It seems as if the company who is printing them keeps making excuses for why the shirts are being delayed. Printers keep breaking, computers keep crashing. have to keep up with The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, etc. Keep pulling us around and the Spirits will unleash our own zombie apocalypse on this guy! He obviously doesn't know who he's dealing with. Anyway, we should have our shirts by the June meeting. Oh yeah! Additionally, we discussed having Novel Spirit book bags made for our 2-year anniversary coming up this August. Sounds like a good reason to meet up and have some wine right?

By the way: what's the deal with zombies? Everyone is absolutely wild about zombies. I just don't get the obsession. I think I prefer mutants, who's with me?!?!?

Archimedes, Chief, Boss and I attended the Lee Smith book signing event on April something. She read from her new book and was a very good speaker. Her new book is about her life growing up in Grundy, VA.

Cat and JB attended the Sharyn McCrumb book signing event on May something. She also read from a new release of hers. Cat and JB reported that she also was a very good speaker. It's pretty cool to have (and be able to go see) these successful local authors from our region.

Book submissions: Okay, we are all fixed up with our next round of book submissions except for one person O_O You know who you are! They are posted in the slideshow gadget but here is the list anyway:

Baron: 1984, already completed. No need to elaborate on THAT
Archimedes: CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
Diesel: THE TALE OF THE DUELING NEUROSURGEONS: THE HISTORY OF THE HUMAN BRAIN AS REVEALED BY TRUE STORIES OF TRAUMA, MADNESS, AND RECOVERY by Sam Kean. Jeez Diesel, did you Google: "What book has the longest title ever created?" to pick your book???? And Neurosurgeon is a very hard word to spell.
Cat: SON OF THE WILDERNESS: THE LIFE OF JOHN MUIR by Linnie Marsh Wolfe
JB: KING'S MOUNTAIN by Sharyn McCrumb
Indy: GO SET A WATCHMAN by Harper Lee
Deuce: ................. O_O

Next book: GO SET A WATCHMAN, next location: Cat and JB's Mountain Retreat on Sunday June 12th at 2pm.

I'm excited about Indy's challenge to us: Read the Hamilton biograpy. I definitely want to.

Has anyone started or finished GO SET A WATCHMAN? I'm about 68% complete.

See you in a couple weeks Spirits,

Baron

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

APRIL MEETING NOTES

Howdy Spirits, once again I have to apologize for the very tardy blog post but I guess you're used to it by now so let's just let that lessen the blow a bit. Before I get started with the notes from the business portion of our April meeting (the one about *gasp* 1984), I'd like to bring your attention to a momentous moment, an eventful event if you'd like (as the Brits say): we have over 100 posts on this blog! I intended to make either my post or Archimedes's post the actual 100th but I procrastinated like a champ, as per Baron SOP (standard operating procedure). So I get number 103 for my tom foolery. But I think that's a cool thing right?!? We are almost 2 years old, have a still operational blog, and almost everyone has made at least one post, and we're over 100 now. I feel like the book deal offers are just around the corner Spirits! Congratulations to all, and again I'd like to express my gratitude for this club. I enjoy hanging out with everyone at our "meetings", the food just keeps getting better and better, and I enjoy reading all the books, even though none of us would probably ever read the others' submissions under any other circumstances. But that's a part of my "literary intellectual development" (I am going to trademark that term so back off corporate America scum!!). I am so much more critical of books now (in a good way). I never analyzed books nearly as much as I do now that I am in the club. Now I think about why I either liked it or didn't like it. What writing style I prefer and all that. Whoah, there was another tangent. It's like a disease! Sorry, let me get on with the meeting notes:

This doozy of a meeting came right out of the gates with a double chastisement of Archimedes and me for not paying dues. Oops, but I can now report (over a month later) that we did pay our dues sometime afterwards.

Old Business:

1. Shirts - and I quote the notes "small skirmish between Indy and Deuce". So the way this small skirmish plays out in my mind is like it was UFC 198! Indy in the red corner, Deuce in the blue corner, locked in a cage ready to go at it like Rhonda Rousey vs. Holly Holm! And if you're thinking that I escalated this "skirmish" too quickly, you fail to consider that we are the Novel Spirits. We raise the bar on just about everything. A small skirmish to the Spirits is just about at UFC Main Event level and don't try to deny it! So anyway, Deuce said "My Bad", got chastised as per Spirits SOP and we moved on.

2. Gilligan - Diesel reported that Gilligan made it safely to Vietnam and has a job! Win-Win! I don't mean the first "Win" like "Yea Gilligan is finally gone!" I mean it like "We're glad he made it safely to Vietnam" just so there's no confusion. She also said he is moped-ing around. So Gilligan, Moped it like you stole it, as they say.

3. Races - Diesel completed the Crumley House race. Archimedes and Chief completed the Autism Awareness race. No literary themed races have yet been found. There must be a fairly low correlation between people who enjoy running and people who enjoy reading. Maybe there has been some scientific study performed on that topic? I'll see what John Oliver has to say about that. Diesel will continue to keep an eye out for literary races and "we will wear shirts". Good plan.

New Business: (Sadly, I am not a business man, so I really never know what differentiates old business from new business. I mean, you'd think I could make a reasonable assumption based on the difference between "old" and "new" but I seriously still haven't figured this stuff out!! As always, I am a little slow on the uptake.

Cat's "soft" book submission was made "firm". Cat doesn't play around with books folks! She's going with SON OF THE WILDERNESS: THE LIFE OF JOHN MUIR by Linnie Marsh Wolfe. I'm hoping she is not related to Thomas Wolfe, but that's just my opinion and you know what they say about opions...

I apologized and grovelled before the group for such a (nother) depressing book submission. Please see Archimedes's book discussion post for more info.

Our next book was chosen. Surprise!! It is GUESTS ON EARTH!! Which we have already read and had a subsequent meeting on. Once again I refer you to my perpetual tardiness. "Indy read APEX, good". I can't remember that discussion and I just did a quick search on Amazon for a book called APEX. So I either mis-read that writing or Indy is really into computer programming. Good on you Indy for your motivation to learn a new skill! Alternatively, there is a science fiction book called APEX so maybe Indy is finally coming over to the dark side!!! Welcome Indy, Welcome! So, I'm sorry for not properly documenting the book Indy mentioned at the meeting.

Cat read FAITHFUL PLACE. No other details on that. Chief read DIVERGENT, and I can report now (over a month later) that he also read the sequel INSURGENT. He liked them but he didn't go straight on to the third book ALLEGIANT yet. He is now reading another Rick Riordan book THE RED PYRAMID. He has read and enjoyed many of the Rick Riordan books. That dude (talking about Chief not Rick Riordan) is really impressive. I think he has read more books in his life than I have read in mine. I got sort of a late start, but I am trying to make up for lost time.

JB read PURITAN WITCH, which (haha do you see what I did there?) he said is about one of his relatives. So we have witches in the family! That is pretty awesome!! It makes me proud. He said it is a novel and takes quite a bit of creative license. But don't we all really?

I reported that I read THE MAZE RUNNER by James Dashner and I really enjoyed it. More science fiction/dystopian alternate reality type of stuff. And I can report that I am currently reading the sequel THE SCORCH TRIALS and enjoying it just as much. Actually I wish I could read it more often but unfortunately I have to return to reality from time to time in order to make myself feel like I am moderately contributing to society in some form or fashion.

Another momentous moment: It was very cool that we all went to see the live theater version of 1984 together as a group. Thank you Spirits for letting me jump in line with my book submission so we could time it with the play. And your consolation can be that I won't have another book submission for at least 7 more months! I thought that was book club money well spent and I look forward to our next field trip wherever and whenever that may be, "after you shower of course. Of course." There's my movie quote for this post. It was from NATIONAL LAMPOON'S CHRISTMAS VACATION. You might have heard of it.

So, that's it for the April meeting, and look at that, we've already had the May meeting. Yall just keep raising the bar on hosting meetings. The food and drinks are outstanding!

Important things: Next book is Indy's submission: GO SET A WATCHMAN by Harper Lee. So good timing for this one since it is a fairly new release by a legendary author. Next meeting date is June 12, 2016 at Cat and JB's place of residence. I can't remember what term of endearment we have for their living quarters, sorry.

Until next time Spirits,

Baron

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

1984 BOOK DISCUSSION

Hi there, Spirits! Great meeting today at the Lodge. I have finally recovered enough from this book and play to finally do the blog review! Let's hope blogging about it doesn't give me flashbacks to the depression I suffered after finishing this book.

Indy recommended a Vanity Fair article about the author, George Orwell, which gave her some insight about the author of this soul crushing book. From there, Baron led us off with some though-provoking discussion topics. The first launched right into the heart of the debate by asking whether we believe the government should restrict personal freedoms to decrease violence? The consensus of the group was that we would prefer more freedom, but less security. However, at least in the context of 1984, I thought this was a false dichotomy, because the society was still violent, the only change was the direction of violence. Instead of the citizens being violent toward each other, the government was violent toward the citizens to "keep them in line."

Someone made the observation that in some ways it would have been better to have been a "prole," since they at least had their humanity and feelings. Winston believed the proles were the only hope for society, while O'Brien said they would never revolt. These aren't necessarily mutually exclusive ideas, but I believe the consensus was that an uprising was inevitable.

A central theme of the book is the constant surveillance. Indy commented about having worked in a position in which she was constantly on camera, and how uncomfortable it made her. Likewise, Cat had experienced a similar situation where her emails and phone calls were monitored by her employer. Baron said that it brought to mind the scene from The Book Thief, when the father slapped the little girl for saying something negative about Hitler - it was forbidden to even think forbidden thoughts.

Another theme in the book was Newspeak and the elimination of language. For most of us, this was a horrific thought, especially because the purpose of eliminating language was to eliminate thoughts. Baron, who recently read Brave New World, remarked that in that book, there was information overload, which achieved the same end of preventing intelligent thought. Cat commented that the "mind control" element brought to mind one of Chief's books, The Capture (the one about owls).

We discussed the use of doublethink throughout the book, and I hope I wasn't the only Spirit who struggled to comprehend the contradictions. The book explained how "war is peace," in that the country united against external forces and the people were all kept busy. Meanwhile the three major countries could never do more than skirmish with each other for some outlying territories.

Eventually we got around to Room 101. Cat commented that the concept reminded her of Boggarts (a creature in Harry Potter that turns into the thing you fear most), and Indy noted that some hotels had no Room 101 due to the book. I, for one, was really disturbed by wondering whether I would sacrifice my loved ones if I was faced with my worst fear. To be fair, though, it didn't really seem like what Julia and Winston had was really "love." Still, it was disturbing that the one thing he thought Big Brother could not take away from him, the way he felt for her, was taken in the end.

Overall, 1984 got high marks all around, with 3 being its lowest mark (from Deuce) and 5 being its highest (from Baron and Cat). This was an impressive book, if for nothing else, for its foresight of the potential dangers of technology. It was very well written and full of insights. However, as we concluded at the end of our meeting: "but DANG."

I hope this blog post doesn't trigger the nightmares! Sorry for the long delay in completing this blog entry. Until next time!

100 Recommended Books by Goodreads (Amazon)

"To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee
"Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen
"The Diary of Anne Frank" by Anne Frank
"1984" by George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J.K. Rowling
"The Lord of the Rings" (1-3) by J.R.R. Tolkien
"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White
"The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien
"Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott
"Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury
"Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte
"Animal Farm" by George Orwell
"Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell
"The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger
"The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak
"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain
"The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins
"The Help" by Kathryn Stockett
"The Lion, the Witch, and the Wadrobe" by C.S. Lewis
"The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck
"The Lord of the Flies" by William Golding
"The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini
"Night" by Elie Wiesel
"Hamlet" by William Shakespeare
"A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle
"Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck
"A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens
"Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare
"The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams
"The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett
"A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens
"The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
"Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling
"The Giver" by Lois Lowry
"The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood
"Where the Sidewalk Ends" by Shel Silverstein
"Wuthering Heights" Emily Bronte
"The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green
"Anne of Green Gables" by L.M. Montgomery
"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain
"Macbeth" by William Shakespeare
"The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larrson
"Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley
"The Holy Bible: King James Version"
"The Color Purple" by Alice Walker
"The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas
"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith
"East of Eden" by John Steinbeck
"Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll
"In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote
"Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
"The Stand" by Stephen King
"Outlander" by Diana Gabaldon
"Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" by J.K. Rowling
"Enders Game" by Orson Scott Card
"Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy
"Watership Down" by Richard Adams
"Memoirs of a Geisha" by Arthur Golden
"Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier
"A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin
"Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens
"The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway
"The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (#3) by Arthur Conan Doyle
"Les Misérables" by Victor Hugo
"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling
"Life of Pi" by Yann Martel
"The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
"Celebrating Silence: Excerpts from Five Years of Weekly Knowledge" by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
"The Chronicles of Narnia" by C.S. Lewis
"The Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett
"Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins
"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl
"Dracula" by Bram Stoker
"The Princess Bride" by William Goldman
"Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe
"The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd
"The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel" by Barbara Kingsolver
"One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel García Márquez
"The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger
"The Odyssey" by Homer
"The Good Earth (House of Earth #1)" by Pearl S. Buck
"Mockingjay (Hunger Games #3)" by Suzanne Collins
"And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie
"The Thorn Birds" by Colleen McCullough
"A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving
"The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls
"The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot
"Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy
"The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien
"Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse
"Beloved" by Toni Morrison
"Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut
"Cutting For Stone" by Abraham Verghese
"The Phantom Tollbooth" by Norton Juster
"The Brothers Karamazov" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
"The Story of My Life" by Helen Keller

Carl Sandburg and Flat Rock NC

Monday, May 9, 2016

Hi Everyone! As I mentioned, Gilligan successfully made it to Vietnam. To follow on his most excellent adventures please check out his blog: https://viettomsite.wordpress.com

Until next time spirits!
-Diesel