Updates

If you look at the "Pages" menu to the left, you will note that I have added a new page, "Lit Links," which is a work in progress borrowed from the old links on Lori's original Readers Roundtable blog. I have been going through and testing all her old links,  updating them when possible, and adding new ones that you have told me about or that I have come across myself in my meanderings across the internet.

I have also updated the "Coming Up!" and "Booklists" pages to reflect the books we are going to read and the books we have already read. Please let me know if anything needs correction.

Saturday, July 14, 2012, at 2 p.m.

Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston

 

From Peggy:  There will be two book groups for Farewell to Manzanar on Saturday.  RRTable will be in Conference Room B, so take note. Lori has offered to bring cookies for our group so come wanting dessert! Thank you Lori! She will also have some surveys and sign ups sheets we will need to fill out for the grant reporting.  

Meet the Author?

It isn't listed on the library calendar, but under "California Reads" it definitely says that Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston will be at the library at 2:00 today to kick off the California Reads program and talk about her book, Farewell to Manzanar. At this point, I am fully intending to be there.

California Reads 2012

Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston

California Reads is sponsored by Cal Humanities (formerly the California Council for the Humanities), in partnership with the California Center for the Book, and the California State Library. California Reads is similar to The Big Read, which we participated in earlier this year, in that it promotes a list of books and encourages people to come together to discuss those books. This year at the San Leandro Library, the selected book is Farewell to Manzanar, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston's memoir of growing up in a World War II internment camp for Japanese Americans. Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston will be at the San Leandro Library next week, Saturday, June 30, 2012, at 2 p.m. to talk about the book. Below is a video excerpt from the Cal Humanities website of her talking about writing the book.



Here is another brief documentary video I found on YouTube about the internment. Many of you will recognize one of the scenes from the video.

Saturday, May 5, 2012, 2 p.m.

The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford

Most readers will be aware that The Pursuit of Love (along with its sequels, Love in a Cold Climate, and Don't Tell Alfred) uses as a starting point, Nancy Mitford's own life and uses her eccentric, aristocratic family (seen at left) as fictionalized characters.

From the official Nancy Mitford website:

'If one can't be happy one must be amused don't you agree? ' Nancy wrote to a friend. It could stand as the motto for her life. She hid her deepest feelings behind a sparkling flow of jokes and witty turns of phrase, and was the star of any gathering.

The one Mitford sibling still alive is the youngest, Deborah (Victoria in the novels), who is now the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire (what a great title), now in her 90s and still making headlines. From January 2011:
"90-Year-Old Duchess Gets Restraining Order Against Suitor." The following is a brief interview on YouTube, in which the Dowager Duchess is plugging a book of her memoirs, Wait for Me.

Also on YouTube, you can find the entire 2001 television series based on The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, which was entitled "Love in a Cold Climate," and which I believe I saw the very end of. As is customary on YouTube, it is split up into small chunks, seven for episode 1 and eight for episode 2. Embedding is disabled for this video, but you can start part 1 of episode one by clicking on this link.

I still prefer Monty Python's version.

Saturday, April 7, 2012, at 2:00 p.m.

Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey

Well, I was going to post all kinds of preparatory and supplementary information about Parrot and Olivier, especially about Alexis de Tocqueville, the real-life French political philosopher and historian on whom the character of "Lord Migraine" is (apparently very, very loosely) based. However, my own computer melted down early this week, so I have only very limited access to a borrowed computer. For those of you with some curiosity about Alexis de Tocqueville, here is a link to a site about all things de Tocqueville, which includes further links to excerpts from Democracy in America (de Tocqueville's great work on the subject), also a link to his journal of the trip. I think that, there, we might find some of the famous passages that Carey said he borrowed and buried in Parrot and Olivier.

I scanned a few reviews, and the question that at least one of them thought was central to the book was, "Are art and democracy compatible?" which is a good question and one that we might raise at the meeting. Another question that occurred to me is: Among the few European languages that I have tried to learn, English is unique in that it has only one level of the second person. Every other that I know of (granted that my knowledge is not that broad), has a formal "you" (vous, usted) and an informal "thou" (tu). Throughout the the book, you'll notice that Olivier is perpetually irritated with Parrot for "tutoyer-ing" him. So when the English speaking world decided to simplify things by using only one form, "you," why did they choose the formal "you," instead of the brotherly "thee" (as the Quakers would have had it)?

The Big Read

"The Big Read," according to the National Endowment for the Arts' mission statement, is a program, "designed to restore reading to the center of American culture." The San Leandro Library is a NEA grant recipient again this year, and the book they have selected is Sun, Stone and Shadows: 20 Great Mexican Short Stories, edited by Jorge Hernandez. If you were at last month's Readers Roundtable meeting, you had the opportunity to sign up for "The Big Read" and get your free copy of the book. If not, you can attend the Library's kickoff event tomorrow, Saturday, March 3, 2012, at 2:00 in the Karp/Estudillo rooms and hear readings from the story, "The Cooking Lesson," by Rosario Castellanos (both in English and in Spanish), see a cooking demonstration, enjoy some light refreshments, sign up for the program, and receive your free book.

We will be discussing Sun, Stone and Shadows at next week's Readers Roundtable. Be there or be cuadrado.