Book Club 2015 – Page 2 – Plum Librarian LLC

Plum Dragon Book Club: Go Set a Watchmen

Harper Lee’s much anticipated release of Go Set A Watchmen has sold very well and received mixed reviews. I find myself very protective of Watchmen and I’ll tell you why. It’s true that the first half of the book is stronger than the second and that it’s not as technically sophisticated as Mockingbird. Yet, it’sContinueContinue reading “Plum Dragon Book Club: Go Set a Watchmen “

Staff book club: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

This month’s “genre” was nostalgia. The goal was to choose a book you feel nostalgic about – something you read long ago and that brought out a strong emotional reaction in you – and re-read it to compare your reaction. I chose Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig. I wasContinueContinue reading “Staff book club: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”

Staff book club for Feb: Architecture and Engineering

For February, the staff book club, which chooses genres instead of individual titles, chose to read about monuments. That was extended into architecture and engineering, and I re-read “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand.Mostly I re-read The Fountainhead because I wanted to spend book club time comparing and contrasting two buildings that I’ve worked in. TheContinueContinue reading “Staff book club for Feb: Architecture and Engineering “

Plum Dragon Book Club: Let’s Talk About Power and Madness

As promised, I read Karen Armstrong’s follow up to “Through the Narrow Gate” for the Plum Dragon book club. The book is titled “Beginning the World” and opens about two weeks after Armstrong’s initial memoir about life in a convent closes. I had a lot more trouble reading this title then I did the first one.ContinueContinue reading “Plum Dragon Book Club: Let’s Talk About Power and Madness”

BTBL book club title for February: Eat Cake by Jeanne Ray

This book was on the lighter side of what the book club reads. Rebecca, this month’s host, calls it “fluffy.” At first i kept expecting the book to get deep, as Rebecca is deep and she has an MFA. The book has hundreds of reviews on Amazon and a really high over-all rating. “Eat Cake”ContinueContinue reading “BTBL book club title for February: Eat Cake by Jeanne Ray”

Sex, Politics, and

Religion. My first staff bookclub read of 2015 was “Through the Narrow Gate” by Karen Armstrong. Armstrong entered a convent as a teenager, straight out of Catholic school, and left 7 years later. She was emotionally mistreated in the convent, medically neglected, and eventually her relationship with God, a relationship that never stopped being importantContinueContinue reading “Sex, Politics, and”

BTBL January: A Canticle for Leibowitz

So, the first read for 2015 at the Braille and Talking Book Library (BTBL) club was hosted by Bunny Rabbit Hat (fourteen guesses on how she got that nickname). I tried. I really tried to read this book. I read it for about an hour before I admitted I didn’t know what was going on,ContinueContinue reading “BTBL January: A Canticle for Leibowitz”