Novel Ideas Book Club meets the 1st Thursday of every month at 6:30pm. Books should be read by the discussion date. The next meeting date and book selection is:

  • Thursday, June 3rd - The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

    It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .

    Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau. This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.

    Australian author Markus Zusak grew up hearing stories about Nazi Germany, about the bombing of Munich and about Jews being marched through his mother’s small, German town. He always knew it was a story he wanted to tell. At the age of 30, Zusak has already asserted himself as one of today’s most innovative and poetic novelists. With the publication of The Book Thief, he is now being dubbed a ‘literary phenomenon’ by Australian and U.S. critics. Zusak is the award-winning author of four previous books for young adults: The Underdog, Fighting Ruben Wolfe, Getting the Girl, and I Am the Messenger, recipient of a 2006 Printz Honor for excellence in young adult literature. He lives in Sydney.

    Click here to read more about Markus Zusak and his novels at http://www.randomhouse.com/features/markuszusak/.

Upcoming book club meetings & picks:

  • Thursday, July 1st - The Women by T. C. Boyle

    The Women is T. C. Boyle's twelfth novel and twentieth book of fiction overall.

    From T. C. Boyle's website: 'The Women' hearkens back to The Inner Circle (2004) and The Road to Wellville (1993), in that it centers around the life of a historical figure, Frank Lloyd Wright, who, like Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey and John Harvey Kellogg, protagonists of the aformentioned books, was one of the great twentieth century forgers of our culture. The book is narrated by Tadashi Sato, an invented character who was a member of the Taliesin Apprenticeship in the 1930s. He provides three long introductions to each of the major sections of the book, and these move his own story forward even as the three sections take us backward in time. Each section is devoted to one of Frank Lloyd Wright's inamorata: Olgivanna, Miriam and Mamah. The text, purportedly written by Tadashi in collaboration with his Irish-American grandson-in-law, goes deeply into the points of view of these women (as well as that of Frank Lloyd Wright's first wife, Kitty, whom he abandoned when he ran off to Europe in 1909 with Mamah Borthwick Cheney, wife of one of his clients), and provides footnotes as a running commentary on the action and on the architect's ouevre. It is my hope that the reader will not only enjoy the ride--there is humor abounding here, as well as disturbance and horror (always a splendid mix, at least from my point of view)--but come to appreciate more deeply the character and career of the architect as well. I should add that while I was personally affected by the work of both Kinsey and Kellogg, as all of us who have engaged in sexual relations and spooned up cornflakes have been, my connection to Frank Lloyd Wright is even more intimate, as I have been privileged to live in his first California house for the past sixteen years.

    Coraghessan Boyle is the author of twenty books of fiction, including, most recently, After the Plague (2001), Drop City (2003), The Inner Circle (2004), Tooth and Claw (2005), The Human Fly (2005), Talk Talk (2006), The Women (2009), Wild Child (2010) and When the Killing's Done (2011). He received a Ph.D. degree in Nineteenth Century British Literature from the University of Iowa in 1977, his M.F.A. from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1974, and his B.A. in English and History from SUNY Potsdam in 1968. He has been a member of the English Department at the University of Southern California since 1978. His work has been translated into more than two dozen foreign languages, his stories have appeared in most of the major American magazines and he has been the recipient of a number of literary awards. He currently lives near Santa Barbara with his wife and three children.

    Click here to read more about T. C. Boyle and his novels at http://www.tcboyle.com/.

Here's a list of our past bookclub picks:
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