A Voyage Long And Strange: The Bookies Re-Cap!

If you don't know the Bookies, you should! The Bookies is our library's own book group. We met recently to discuss Tony Horwitz's non-fiction title A Voyage Long & Strange. We all enjoyed the author's sense of humor but we were split over whether or not we liked the book. Many Bookies felt it was too long and could have used better editing. Others genuinely liked it and did not find it too long.
It was mentioned that Tony Horwitz is the husband of Geraldine Brooks, a fantastic writer in her own right, who has written the following HIGHLY recommended titles:
A Year of Wonders
March
and
The People of the Book

Others favorite titles that were mentioned during our discussion (and are related to this title in some way or another) were:
Doris Kearns Goodwin's title Team of Rivals - this title has been ALL OVER the media lately b/c of the current political situation here in the U.S. - is the Obama administration going to be a "team of rivals"?????
Another title - The River of Doubt by Candice Millard about Theodore Roosevelt's exploration of the Amazon basic in South America.
Several other Bookies mentioned the title Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick - this particular title came HIGHLY recommended by your fellow Bookies!
Others said that in reading A Voyage Long & Strange they were reminded of the book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond.
Some other thoughts from our reading of A Voyage Long & Strange - we wished we had a better idea of what motivated these different groups of explorers. The chapters (or encounters) were so brief because there were so many. We were all appalled by the cruelty of the Spaniards, but others pointed out that this was a cruel time. We were viewing their behavior through our own modern bias ...

We discussed our next few meetings and talked about taking a trip to Florence to see the Frank Lloyd Wright home there. Vicki H. and Katie will work on travel arrangements. This would be a day trip and probably later in January or early February. Look for more details at our December meeting!!!!

I also forgot to mention that we will be hosting a Great Books discussion series here at the library. This series will focus on the Great Books Foundation's course of readings. We will follow a set list of readings and meet once a month in the evenings. If you are interested, please join us for the organizational meeting which will be Monday night, December 8th at 6:30 pm here at the library.

Please try to stop by the library on Sat. December 6th from 2-4 pm. My department will be hosting an "Open House" (not that our "house" is really ever closed ....) we will have hot chocolate, cookies and door prizes. In addition, from December 1st-12th, every time you check out a book drop your receipt off at the front desk or upstairs and you will be eligible to win one of 2 really great Holiday Gift Baskets! Holley and I personally stuffed these baskets to groaning with all kinds of goodies - so check out books early and often for a chance to win!

Just a reminder, next month we will meet on December 9th at 10:00 am for our annual Holiday Party. Please bring a dish - ANY KIND! from your favorite cookbook, or just your favorite recipe. Also, please bring the cookbook or recipe with you. I will make copies for everyone so we can take home a little "Bookies" cookbook - you could call it a "cookbookie"
hahahahaha!

Take care everyone!
km