August 23rd meeting - The Shadow of the Wind

Last night Leann hosted us and we welcomed new member Ann Perry and welcomed back Tracy Falls. While we waited for dinner and chatted, Darla showed up her list of like 100 books to read she had culled from the archives of CurledUp.com. (You have to check out the archives to see just what a daunting and obsessive task this was.)

Leann served us a delicious dinner of broccoli-mushroom quiche, Mexican broccoli slaw, Cesar salad, and cucumbers & vinegar, and topped it off with strawberry-rhubarb pie. Yum! We forgive you for not serving soup, Leann. :-)

Throughout dinner, we talked about The Shadow of the Wind, which we all loved. First Darla entertained us by reading the quotes she had taken down out of the book. Then we discussed Daniel's pal, Fermin, who was a favorite. We felt that Nuria was a tragic figure. The major plot surprise that Julian and Penelope were half-brother and half-sister was summed up by Becky, who said, "Yuck!" There was some feeling among the group that Daniel was self-absorbed and should have gotten over himself (and stopped whining that he was a coward), but we cut him a little slack for being a teenager through most of the book. In discussing the atmosphere in Barcelona after the Spanish Civil War and WWII, Lisa said it echoed our times. When Nancy tried to protest, she gave up, because she ended up supporting Lisa's point [and being called a Republican for her trouble ;-)].

Book Soup Time

• Darla recommends Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears.
• Tracy recommends The King of Lies by John Hart .

Lisa had brought the latest Bookmarks magazine for us to flip through (Shadow of the Wind was listed in the "Perfect 10" section!). Apparently there is a book group mentioned in the issue that consists of one man and a bunch of women who call themselves Dick & the Bibliotarts. Don't know why that's significant, but I wrote it down, so here it is.

Next Book & Meeting
We meet next at Becky's on September 20th. Book: The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier. (This was one of the NPR's summer reading series, "Caution: These Books May Make You Skip Work.")