So glad to see all for our annual children's book wrap and final Christmas Jar donations.  We all gathered at Claudia's home to share good food and pleasant conversation.  Mary brought a homemade smoked salmon spread made by her son the everyone loved.  

Our book this month was "Frozen River" by Ariel Lawhon.  Lawhon writes historical fiction based on real events.  This book was a bit different for her because the story was inspired by real events by not based on it.  75% of the story closely follows historical records, although Lawhon took liberties with the dates to keep the book within a six month timeline.  

The book focuses on the life of Martha Ballard, a midwife in the late 1700's.  Martha kept a day book with factual entries each day as opposed to personal opinions.  Lawhon selected events that she found interesting  and constructed these into an intriguing story.  Interesting to note that Martha Ballard was the great aunt of Clara Barton (founder of the American Red Cross) and also the great great grandmother of Mary Hobart (first US female physician).  We all found this story to be filled with details of daily life in the eighteenth century, which inspired much comparison and conversation.  In Lawhon's own words, "Every story moves like a river from source to mouth, so let this one flow."

Deja Vu - Almost

 Another pleasant evening at Esther's home where we all enjoyed butternut soup and other treats as well as stimulating, shared friendships and conversations.  The book for this month was "A Fever In the Heartland" by Timothy Egan.  We have read other books by Timothy Egan and have found them to be well researched.  Many of us did not want to read this book as we didn't want to read details of lynchings in the South.  We found that the Ku Klux Klan was against more than blacks and had a reach far beyond just the South.  They closed the door on anyone they considered inferior - "not of strict Nordic stock".  This included Jews, Polish, Italian, Irish, Greeks, Asians, Catholics and the list goes on.  They wanted complete Americanism - the absolute superiority of one race and one religion, and the inferiority of all others.  They considered themselves the law itself and had police and politicians in their back pockets.  They had one prominent leader who thought he was "the embodiment of Napoleon".  We found it hard to imagine that so many would join and follow such an organization.  "These people needed to hate something smaller than themselves as much as they needed to have faith in something greater than themselves."  It is obvious that nothing that is going on in our nation politically today wasn't first done almost 100 years earlier.  "What if the leaders of the 1920's Klan didn't drive the public sentiment, but rode it."  We have to be strong and vigilant to not let these things happen again.

An Impromptu Evening

 We enjoyed a "special" gathering at Esther's home last Wednesday to spend some time with member and friend Chris Peek before she heads south again in October.  The meal shared was wonderful as was the conversation.  We discussed "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho, one of Esther's two book selections.  A tale of a young man in search of his personal legend.  We discussed moments in our lives when we followed our instincts and have been all the better because of it.  We also discussed thought-provoking philosophy on religion and the universe.  "...all people who are happy have God within them.  And that happiness could be found in a grain of sand...because a grain of sand is a moment of creation, and the universe has taken millions of years to create it."  "...The winds know everything.  They blow across the world without a birthplace, and with no place to die.  I have inside me the winds, the deserts, the oceans, the stars, and everything created in the universe.  We were all made by the same hand, and we have the same soul."

Written

 Lovely to enjoy a "picnic" gathering at Chris M's homesite.  So nice to get a tour as final steps are finished for certification of occupancy.  Great home and wonderful views!  Thanks to all for the shared foods.  As always, delicious!

This month's read was an adventurous memoir "Written in the Waters" by Tara Roberts.  A history of African slave trade, expeditions of sunken slave trade ships and a deeply personal search for home and self.  Beautifully written, you end up feeling like you know the different locations visited as well as having an understanding of history that you were never taught in school.  

The author gives you the opportunity to see life from a different view, not from that of a privileged American background.  While she was trying to find a send of home, she learned that she had to change how she defined herself in this global world.  We all have to reckon with the legacy of colonialism and the history of slave trade.  "Are you looking for Utopia?  Where in the world is there a place where those things are not happening?"  One needs to go beyond the anger, pain, guilt and shame.  "Africa was never static; it continued to change and evolve culturally....there are new possibilities for imagining the present and the future as a dynamic group - a moral home rather than a physical one."  "I have begun to think of my journey as one that travels a wavy path.  The design of my life doesn't run narrow and straight."  "All my life, I've been shaping myself like water, writing myself within her waves."  "I realize just how much of our stories have been written in her (Yemaya) waters: lives lost but also lives started, all those lines of connections that we are just beginning to see and understand."  

Very Intriguing

 We enjoyed a Boston themed meeting at Maureen's home.  As always a delicious array of items shared.  Our read this month was "The Woman In the Library" by Solari Gentill.  Ms Gentill wrote the Rowland Sinclair mystery series and has won the Australian Crime Writers Best Fiction award.

This was written as a story within a story; an author is writing about an author writing a mystery.  It has many layers, twists and turns and everyone becomes a suspect at one point or another.  There are many implications and the author leaves the ending to the reader's interpretation.  One point we found interesting was the statement that "all books are romance books."  Much to think about.  Quite a read!

A Happy Wander!

An enjoyable time for all at Mary's home.  We feasted on pasties, green pizza,  salads and strawberry shortcake.  Reflecting our movie theater theme, Judy Bell brought Milk Duds and I brought popcorn.  Nobody went home hungry!

Our book was "Virgil Wander" by Leif Enger, a captivating and whimsical novel which took us to small town upstate Minnesota.  Full of humor, it viewed several aspects of life; its meaning, its heartaches, its second chances for redefinition, its forgiveness.  Life not unlike that here in Entiat.  The small town movie theater was a replica of the Ruby Theater in Chelan; this story seemed so familiar.  I wrote several pages of quotes in my notebook and found this novel left me full of optimism for mankind.  

"...I admire....your solitude.  I never imagined such luxury."

"The surface of everything is thinner than we know.  A person can fall right through, without any warning at all."

"Your tribe is always bigger than you think."

"Everyone wants to start again....Why are we here if not to grow!"

Enjoying the "Luck of the Irish"

We enjoyed a lovely meal and evening at Judy Bell's home, complete with Irish music in the background.  The one day everyone gets to be Irish and enjoy green and Irish cream!  Chris brought a photo album of an Irish adventure to help us "set our scene".  A delightful time with pleasant conversion.

Our read this month was "The Library at the Edge of the World" by Felicity Hayes-McCoy.  It is "an empowering story about the meaning of home and the importance of finding a place where you truly belong".  About a whole community that connected in a web of mutual support.  One of those fell-good stories which we all enjoy, filled with lovely prose.  

"But a librarian should know better than anyone how written words, moving through time and space, could change a person's life.....for millennia, written words had conveyed dreams, visions and aspirations across oceans and mountains....She was part of a process that stretched across distance and time."

Judy shared this St Patrick's Day blessing:  "May your pockets be heavy and your heart be light; may good luck pursue you each morning and night."