October 2015 Bookclub News

Dear Bookclub,
Our December getaway to the 1906 Lodge on Coronado is on! Please make your reservation, if you haven't already, for Monday, November 30 - Wednesday, December 2. After the recent inquiry, plans for our group to go to the Huntington Gardens and Library will be better for spring.

October's selection, "Euphoria" by Lily King, has been a wildly popular, well-read, discussed and reviewed novel, noted for its recognition for being the winner of the 2014 Kirkus Prize, the winner of the 2014 New England Book Award for Fiction, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and a "Best Book of the Year for:  New York Times Book Review, Time, NPR, Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Newsday, Vogue, New York Magazine, Seattle Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, The Guardian, Kirkus Reviews, Amazon, Publishers Weekly, Our Man in Boston, Oprah.com, Salon. In a nutshell, you will enjoy this! (It really is good.)

Please check out the King interview from Vogue re: Margaret Mead....
http://www.vogue.com/872367/lily-king-margaret-mead-novel-euphoria/

Also, for further referencing about the nature of the anthropologists viewpoints, the Margaret Mead- Derek Freeman controversy cenetered around "Coming of Age in Somoa" is neatly described in the following excerpt from a Carnegie Mellon document that my googling produced:
http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/sc24/History/EnCultAntMead.pdf

Val has chosen a cheerful lunch on the Veranda, 12:30, October 7.

Happy reading!
LK

September 2015 Bookclub News

Dear Bookclub,

Big picture: Only a subset of our group (approximately 2/3 of us) was present today at our meeting and that group really liked "Dead Wake" for no other reason than we learned so much. I guess being ignorant of facts surrounding America's entry into WWI had us primed for page-turning Erik Larson's depiction of the Lusitania's demise. Admittedly, I have been obsessed with similar disasters since some childhood moment when I became aware of the Titanic (camp song?). The human element in the survival/death tales imbedded in Larson's heavily researched retelling of the events surrounding the sinking of the Lusitania drew me in. However, our big take-away was the baiting done to engage forces into combat, then and always.

Little picture: The individuals. From a Lusitania information website, http://www.rmslusitania.info/people/statistics/  :


How many people died in the Lusitania sinking?  How many survived? 

	Total	Survived	Died	Survival rate
Saloon (First Class)	290	113	177	39.0%
Second Cabin (Second Class)	601	229	372	38.1%
Third Class	370	134	236	36.2%
Deported Seamen (Third Class)	3	0	3	0.0%
Total Passengers	1,264	476	788	37.7%
Stowaways	3	0	3	0.0%
Band	5	3	2	60.0%
Deck Crew	69	37	32	53.6%
Engineering Crew	313	112	201	35.8%
Victualling Crew	306	139	167	45.4%
Total Crew (including Band)	693	291	402	42.0%
Total Complement (with stowaways)	1,960	767	1,193	39.1%

I have not yet done breakdown by nationality or age group, but those are worth considering for future updates.  Accounting for the four survivors who died not long afterwards, this becomes:

	Total	Survived	Died	Survival rate
Total Complement (with stowaways)	1,960	763	1,197	38.9%

 (Conclusion: be in the band)

Now it is time for some levity. Very nice wine at lunch....

Titles Terry recommended for consideration for upcoming read:
 "Purity" by Jonathan Franzen
"Among  the Ten Thousand Things"  by Julie Peirpont *chosen
"Go Set a Watchman" by Harper Lee
"The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Up next: "Euphoria" by Lily King

Happy Reading,
LK