2015 books read
The next book club is Wed November 11, 2015, meeting at Lentil As Anything.
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
A direct and fundamentally optimistic indictment of the short-sightedness and intellectual arrogance that has characterized much of urban planning in this century, The Death and Life of Great American Cities has, since its first publication in 1961, become the standard against which all endeavors in that field are measured. In prose of outstanding immediacy, Jane Jacobs writes about what makes streets safe or unsafe; about what constitutes a neighborhood, and what function it serves within the larger organism of the city; about why some neighborhoods remain impoverished while others regenerate themselves. She writes about the salutary role of funeral parlors and tenement windows, the dangers of too much development money and too little diversity. Compassionate, bracingly indignant, and always keenly detailed, Jane Jacobs's monumental work provides an essential framework for assessing the vitality of all cities.
October 2015
Leviathan (Leviathan #1)
Prince Aleksander, would-be heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, is on the run. His own people have turned on him. His title is worthless. All he has is a battletorn war machine and a loyal crew of men.
Deryn Sharp is a commoner, disguised as a boy in the British Air Service. She's a brilliant airman. But her secret is in constant danger of being discovered.
With World War I brewing, Alek and Deryn's paths cross in the most unexpected way…taking them on a fantastical, around-the-world adventure that will change both their lives forever.
Hardcover, 440 pages
Published October 6th 2009 by Simon Pulse
Wednesday August 18th 2015, 7:00 pm (ish)
A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes #1)
In the debut of literature's most famous sleuth, a dead man is discovered in a bloodstained room in Brixton. The only clues are a wedding ring, a gold watch, a pocket edition of Boccaccio's Decameron, and a word scrawled in blood on the wall. With this investigation begins the partnership of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Their search for the murderer uncovers a story of love and revenge-and heralds a franchise of detective mysteries starring the formidable Holmes.
Paperback, 108 pages
Published (first published 1887)
original titleA Study in Scarlet
ISBN 1420925539 (ISBN13: 9781420925531)
edition language English
Next book club is on Wednesday July 8th 2015, 7:00 pm (ish)
by Amy Poehler
In Amy Poehler’s highly anticipated first book, Yes Please, she offers up a big juicy stew of personal stories, funny bits on sex and love and friendship and parenthood and real life advice (some useful, some not so much), like when to be funny and when to be serious. Powered by Amy’s charming and hilarious, biting yet wise voice, Yes Please is a book is full of words to live by.
Hardcover, 329 pages
Published October 28th 2014 by Dey St.
ISBN 0062268341 (ISBN13: 9780062268341)
edition language English
Wednesday May 28th 2015, 6:30 pm (ish) start at Kathleen's house.
The Narrow Road To The Deep North
A novel of the cruelty of war, and tenuousness of life and the impossibility of love.
What would you do if you saw the love of your life, whom you thought dead for the last quarter of a century, walking towards you?
Richard Flanagan's story — of Dorrigo Evans, an Australian doctor haunted by a love affair with his uncle's wife — journeys from the caves of Tasmanian trappers in the early twentieth century to a crumbling pre-war beachside hotel, from a Thai jungle prison to a Japanese snow festival, from the Changi gallows to a chance meeting of lovers on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Taking its title from 17th-century haiku poet Basho's travel journal, The Narrow Road To The Deep North is about the impossibility of love. At its heart is one day in a Japanese slave labour camp in August 1943. As the day builds to its horrific climax, Dorrigo Evans battles and fails in his quest to save the lives of his fellow POWs, a man is killed for no reason, and a love story unfolds.
Hardcover, Commemorative Edition, 467 pages
Published 2014 by Random House (first published September 23rd 2013)
ISBN13 9780857987921
Louise - 5, Kathleen - 5, Kerry - 5
Next book club is on Wednesday April 1th 2015, 6:30 pm (ish) start at Kathleen's house.
Cadence by Emma Ayres
Memoir, intercontinental cycling adventure, music guide, CADENCE is the debut book by ABC Classic FM's Emma Ayres. In her provocative, intelligent, surprising and funny memoir Cadence, Emma cycles her way from England to Hong Kong with a violin she calls Aurelia strapped to her back. But it is also a journey through the keys, and the music that inspired, shaped and provided refuge for Emma throughout her travels with music.
Kindle Edition, 288 pages
Published April 1st 2014 by ABC Books (first published January 1st 2014)
ASIN B00H1GC52M
edition language English
Next book club is on Wednesday March 7th 2015, 6:30 pm (ish) start at Louise's house.
Selections from Norton Anthology of Poetry:
Geoffrey Chaucer - The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale
William Shakespeare - Sonnet 18
John Donne - A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
George Herbert - Easter Wings
Andrew Marvell - To His Coy Mistress
Thomas Gray - On the Death of a Favorite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes
William Wordsworth - Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour.* July 13, 1798
John Keats - Ode on a Grecian Urn
Emily Dickinson - selection
Gerald Manley Hopkins - As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
Robert Frost - Mending Wall
Wallace Stevens - Thirteen Ways Of Looking at a Blackbird
William Carlos Williams - The Red Wheelbarrow
e.e. cummings - the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
Langston Hughes - Theme for English B
Ogden Nash - Columbus
Kenneth Koch - Variations of a Theme by William Carlos Williams
The Norton Anthology of Poetry
by Arthur M. Eastman, Alexander W. Allison (Editor), Arthur Japheth Carr (Editor), Herbert Barrows (Editor), Caesar R. Blake (Editor), Hubert M. English,Jr. (Editor)
Long the classic anthology of poetry in English, The Norton Anthology of Poetry, Fifth Edition, adds to its wealth of known and loved poems a rich gathering of new poetry. Beginning with Beowulf, newly represented by selections from Seamus Heaney's dazzling translation, and continuing to the present day, The Norton Anthology of Poetry includes over 1,700 poems by 340 poets in the Regular Edition. Many major figuresfrom Chaucer and Shakespeare to Ashbery and Walcotthave expanded sections, and a range of outstanding younger voices have been newly added. Concise annotations, biographical sketches, an Essay on Versification by Jon Stallworthy, and, new to this edition, an Essay on Poetic Syntax by Margaret Ferguson help readers understand and enjoy the poems. (less)
Paperback, 1344 pages
Published February 1st 1975 by W. W. Norton & Company (first published 1970)
original title The Norton Anthology of Poetry
ISBN 0393092453 (ISBN13: 9780393092455)
edition language English
Next book club is on Wednesday January 7th 2015, 6:30 pm (ish) start at Kathleen's house.
"On the day after humans disappear, nature takes over and immediately begins cleaning house - or houses, that is. Cleans them right off the face of the earth.They all go."
Alan Weisman looks to the future to discover what the world might be like, and how it would change, if humans disappeared right now, for good. In the current age of anxiety over our impact on the earth's climate and environment, this timely book offers an intriguing glimpse of what the real legacy of our time on the planet may be.
How would the natural world respond if it were suddenly relieved of the burden of humanity? Would the climate return to where it was before we fired up our engines? Could nature ever obliterate all traces of human civilization? How would it undo our largest buildings and public works, and could it reduce our myriad plastics and synthetics to benign, basic elements? And what about architecture and art? What will be our most enduring legacy?
This ground-breaking book examines areas of the world that have been abandoned or never occupied by humans to see how they have fared without us and looks beyond to discover whether, and for how long, our largest cities, biggest achievements and most devastating mistakes will last after we are gone. In doing so it wrestles with some of the key concerns of our time and reveals a picture of the future that is both illuminating and terrifying.
Hardcover, First Edition, 324 pages
Published July 10th 2007 by Thomas Dunne Books (first published 2007)
ISBN 0312347294 (ISBN13: 9780312347291)
edition language English
url http://www.worldwithoutus.com/
literary awards Orion Book Award Nominee (2008)
Louise - 8, Kathleen - 8, Kerry - 8
Secondary selection
Randall Munroe left NASA in 2005 to start up his hugely popular site XKCD 'a web comic of romance, sarcasm, math and language' which offers a witty take on the world of science and geeks. It's had over a billion page hits to date. A year ago Munroe set up a new section - What If - where he tackles a series of impossible questions: If your cells suddenly lost the power to divide, how long would you survive? How dangerous is it, really, in a pool in a thunderstorm? If we hooked turbines to people exercising in gyms, how much power could we produce? What if everyone only had one soulmate? From what height would you need to drop a steak to ensure it was cooked by the time it reached the ground? What would happen if the moon went away? This book gathers together the best entries along with lots of new gems. From The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek and the songs of Tim Minchin, through chemistry, geography and physics, Munroe leaves no stone unturned in his quest for knowledge. And his answers are witty and memorable and studded with hilarious cartoons and infographics. Far more than a book for geeks, WHAT IF explains the laws of science in operation in a way that every intelligent reader will enjoy and feel the smarter for having read.
Hardcover, 303 pages
Published September 2nd 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN 0544272994 (ISBN13: 9780544272996)
edition language English