Bookgirl's Nightstand | When I'm not reading books, I'm making them.

Another Book Group Night

iliana Nightstand November 6, 2007

Tonight I met with my foreign authors book group, (we’ve been meeting for 13 years – that’s a lot of years of good books!) and we discussed The Sewing Circles of Herat by Christina Lamb. I also count this book as one of my books for the Armchair Travel Reading Challenge.

I wish I could say I loved the book. I feel like it did open my eyes a bit more into the history of Afghanistan and it was interesting, it just wasn’t exactly what I expected to read. I thought it was going to focus more on the human interest stories but to me it felt like it was more about the background. Which is not bad, it’s just not what I expected.

Anyway we also saw the list for our 2008 books and these are the ones that made the cut:

Ines of My Soul by Isabel Allende
The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad
Zeno’s Conscience by Italo Svevo
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang
Out of Egypt by Andre Aciman
Madame by Antoni Libera
The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar
The Accidental by Ali Smith
In the Empire of Genghis Khan by Stanley Stewart
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Chess Machine by Robert Lohr

A good list don’t you think? We still have another meeting in early December where we’ll discuss A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian by Marina Lewycka. I’m looking forward to it.

And, stay tuned because next post I have a treat – a Q&A with an author. A first for Bookgirl’s Nightstand.

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Mystery Monday

iliana Nightstand November 5, 2007

Tonight was my Murder on Mondays book group and we discussed Murphy’s Law by Rhys Bowen (link takes you to my review). I think most of the group found the book enjoyable more so for the character development and period detail rather than the mystery itself. I like historical novels so I will probably read another in the series.

We also chose books for the upcoming months and we will be reading the following books: A Thousand Bones by P.J. Parrish, A Corpse in the Koryo by James church and Dope by Sara Gran.

I’ve got another book group tomorrow night and aside from looking forward to the discussion we also find out which books we’ll be reading next year. Can’t wait.

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Good Stuff

iliana Nightstand November 4, 2007

We had such a great weekend filled with a lot of laughter and happiness. To celebrate our anniversary we went out for a yummy seafood lunch and then we spent the afternoon at the Continental Gin Open Studios event. We saw all kinds of art and dreamt about one day having our own studio (not just a part of the living room). My husband can do his calligraphy over on his side and I can do my bookbinding on mine. I think that would be perfect.

I also went to the Craft Guild’s Art Show Sale and wanted one of everything. Speaking of the Craft Guild, I’m very excited because this week I start a bookbinding course. Yay. More on that later.

Oh and I did make it out the Bookworm Bash book sale and sadly my Bookgirl credibility is going to be shot. I bought two books. I just didn’t find many books that I couldn’t live without. I did get The Apothecary Rose by Candace M. Robb and The Northbury Papers by Joanne Dobson.

Perhaps I didn’t buy more because I realize my stacks of unread books are overwhelming. I need to do a bit of book culling soon. In the meantime, even though I had said no new challenges until the new year, I am contemplating the From The Stacks Challenge. It would definitely help with those stacks. I’m going to think about it some more but I’ll keep you posted.

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