The Reader by Bernhard Schlink was picked by my book club. I was excited since this book was already on my radar. I won’t be doing a normal review, but instead just giving you a few thoughts because it’s been so long between when I actually read the book and right now typing up this post.

A quick sketch of the plot: It’s set sometime in the 1960s in Germany. Michael Berg meets Hanna when he’s 15 and she’s 40. They start a sexual relationship that goes on for a while, until one day Hanna just disappears. Their relationship was very sexual, and Hanna had Michael read stories to her. When Michael next sees Hanna, he’s a young law student and Hanna is on trial for Nazi war crimes.

There’s not a whole lot of plot in this book; it’s really a character driven novel. I was worried that I wouldn’t like the 15-year-old with a 30-year-old, but it wasn’t icky, and obviously no one would condone it, but it just *was*. A friend (hi, Becky!) pointed out that the author didn’t *have* to use a 15-year-old boy. He could have just as easily been 17 or 18, making it far less objectionable, and the relationship would have still meant just as much to Michael.

I really liked this book. I thought Hanna and Michael had an interesting dynamic that lent itself to a book club discussion. I thought the story was beautiful and tragic, though I don’t think the story was romanticized at all. If anything, the narrator was unemotional, and merely told the story. No sentimentality leaked in, so it was an easy book to stay unattached to. I know that seems counter-intuitive to a good book, but I really think it works here.

One thing that frustrated me in the book club discussion was when I asked whether people thought the story was happy or sad or neither. I asked this question because of the following passage:

For the last few years I’ve left our story alone. I’ve made peace with it. And it came back, detail by detail and in such a fully rounded fashion, with its own direction and its own senses of completion, that it no longer makes me sad. What a sad story, I thought for so long. Not that I now think it was happy. But I think it is true and thus the question of whether it is sad or happy has no meaning whatsoever.

So I ask people whether they thought the story was happy or sad or neither, and this one member says it was sad. And I asked her why, even though the narrator is telling us it’s really *not* a sad story. And she has no reason, just that she thinks it’s a sad story. I know I’m uptight, but is it really unreasonable to ask people to back their opinions and feelings up with actual facts and passages from the book??

All that to say, I loved The Reader.

Rating: 90 out of 100

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Book source: I mooched this book from BookMooch.

You can thank the FTC for this disclosure!

I’m was so excited when Elisabeth emailed me and told me she’d be happy to answer these questions. I think I’m telling my husband we have to move so I can be in Elisabeth’s book club. This may require some plotting…

Also, I CANNOT get enough of these interviews. I’m addicted. So if you’d like your book club to be featured, just email me at trish(at)heylady(dot)net.

How long has your book club been in existence?

We have been in existence for 14 years.

Does your book club have a name?

Our name is The Lit Chicks. (I love this name. Can I borrow it?)

How many people are in your book club?

We currently have 9 members but have had as many as 13.

Is your book club open to new members? How do new members end up in your book club?

We are open to new members, although we like the group as is.  New members are brought in by current members who know the person who would like to join.

When do you meet? Is it a set day every month, or do you work it out so it’s on a different day but convenient for everyone?

We try to meet on the third Wednesday of every month.  We are flexible though, so if that day does not work for us, we will switch.

What kind of books do you read?

We mainly read fiction, but always read one classic a year.  We also occasionally dabble in non fiction.

How do you choose books?

Books are chosen once a year at our January or February meeting.  We bring suggestions to the meeting, and also choose books from our annual holiday book grab bag.( Every December when we go out to a restaurant for our meeting, every member brings a gift wrapped paperback book.  The books go in the center of the table and everyone picks.)   The books we want to read,  has to be agreed upon by all and not read by anyone.

Which book generated the best discussion?

The books that garner the best discussions are usually the ones where we are divided on whether we liked or disliked the book.  We have a lot of good discussions but one of our best ones was The Thirteenth Tale.  Our most recent book that generated a good discussion was The Year of the Fog.

Do you invite authors to join your discussion when you discuss their book? How do you handle having the author in on your discussion if some or all of the members didn’t absolutely love the book?

Never had an author come to a meeting, although we do have a member who has published.

Do you have one person who moderates the discussion?

We are a very informal group and have no one person who leads us, although technically I am our “leader”, since I started the group.

Have you ever had a professional moderator moderate one of your meetings?

Nope, never hired anyone.

How long does the discussion last?

The length of the discussion varies.  Books where we are divided tend to be longer.  We also digress from our talks and then return later to revisit.

Do you eat food at your book club meeting?

There is always food and drink.  Very important!!!

How do you decide where the meeting will be held?

Every member hosts for one meeting.  We always go out for our holiday meeting in December.  We have just recently downsized to nine, we have one open month and we will be meeting at Panera’s.  Next year, we will have to decide what to do about that extra third month.

Is there anything else about your book club you’d like to share?

We are not only a book group but friends.  We do movie nights where we have read the book and then we meet on a Friday to watch the movie.  This is in addition to our regular meetings.  Best of all though is we love to go away on trips.  We try and go in the fall and the spring.  Our fall trip this year is  to to Saratoga, New York.  Our last trip was to Mystic, Connecticut.  We have a blast!!!  We laugh and laugh and talk about everything from soup to nuts, shop, play games and of course eat out!

Since I love Elisabeth’s book club name, I’m wondering if your book club has a name? Mine doesn’t, and I’d love to hear yours and/or cool names for book clubs! For a while our book club was called Gin and Phonics, but I just didn’t *love* it.

Leslie, my friend from high school
Ti from Book Chatter and her Valencia Library Book Group
Michelle
Kelly from Yannabe and her OPRA Book Club
Heather from A Lifetime of Books and her book club Storie delle Sorrelle
Helen from Helen’s Book Blog and her TWO book clubs

Psst! There’s a giveaway at the end of this post!

Today I’m interviewing Helen Murdoch. She was a teacher for 14 years and is now the librarian. Be sure to check out Helen’s blog, Helen’s Book Blog! She’s in two book clubs and has been kind enough to answer the questions for both book clubs! Woohoo!

Well let’s do some snooping, shall we?

(The A and B answers are for her two different book clubs, respectively.)

How long has your book club been in existence?

A: A friend and I formed our book club in July 1991, after our 26th Birthday party had wound down for the evening.
B: My second book group just formed a year ago when my daughter’s friend’s mom got a group of us moms together.

Does your book club have a name?

A: We don’t have a name. We’ve joked about naming ourselves, but just get silly when we try and nothing has stuck so far.
B: No name; the idea hasn’t even come up

How many people are in your book club?

A: There are 8 of us: 1 public librarian; 1 high school librarian (me); a retired teacher; a caterer; 1 junior high teacher; 1 high school teacher; 1 University professor; a high school library assistant.
B: There are 12 to 14 of us, all moms with kids at the same elementary school though about 7 show up each month. We have a varied list of jobs from teachers to stay at home moms to members of the military.

Is your book club open to new members? How do new members end up in your book club?

A: We are kinda’ open to new members. We have 8 of us, which seems like a nice number; no one gets left out of the discussion. So, when someone moves away we tend to bring in someone new. If someone has an idea for a new member we bring it up to the group and let them know about the person to see if everyone seems open to her. Yes, I said her. We started out as a co-ed group but the men kept moving away so now we’re all women and we really like it that way!
B: We haven’t added any new members since we started.

When do you meet? Is it a set day every month, or do you work it out so it’s on a different day but convenient for everyone?

A: We meet on the third Thursday of each month, September through June. Most of us are in education so we don’t meet during the summer since we tend to travel (lucky us!).
B: We meet every 6 weeks on a Wednesday and have the year planned out ahead of time so we all know when the night is approaching. We meet at the same house each time as well.

What kind of books do you read?

A: We tend to read contemporary fiction, but sometimes do stray from that.
B: We read non-fiction (a nice complement to my other book group).

How do you choose books?

A: Each month we meet at a different person’s house. Actually, we’re pretty regimented about that: we rotate in alphabetical order by first name so we can remember who comes next. The person who hosts provides dinner of pizza and salad and has a stack of books for us to choose from. We read the book descriptions aloud and sometimes even passages from the books. Then we do an informal vote to choose which one we’ll read.
B: Anyone can bring a book that they want us to read and we do a little “book talk” of our book. After an informal vote we’re good to go with one and sometimes two books for the next meeting

Which book generated the best discussion?

A: Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi; Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver (we even reread it years later); and the Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
B: Three books have generated the most intense discussions: Along Way Home: memoirs of a boy soldier by Ishmael Beah (outrage, sadness, heartbreak, triumph, etc); Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (because we had such mixed emotions and reactions to it); and Loving Frank by Nancy Horan.

Do you invite authors to join your discussion when you discuss their book? How do you handle having the author in on your discussion if some or all of the members didn’t absolutely love the book?

A: We’ve only invited one author to a discussion, Val Hobbs, and that’s because she is local. I also work with her husband so know her a little. We had read The Gift and most of us liked it so it was a comfortable situation.
B: We haven’t had any authors invited.

Do you have one person who moderates the discussion?

A: Honestly, we’ve all been together for so long that we do a lot of “life” talking in addition to the book. No one person moderates; we all just jump in to talk about the book. Sometimes some of us haven’t read the book or haven’t finished it so that can limit the discussion as well.
B: We have one or two members that are more outspoken and they tend to determine the discussion just by their presence. We did start out with the person who chose the book bringing in questions to guide the discussion, but after a couple months realized we didn’t really need that.

Have you ever had a professional moderator moderate one of your meetings?

A and B: No

How long does the discussion last?

A and B: We meet from 6:30 to 8:00 or so. Honestly, the book usually isn’t the only topic of conversation

Do you eat food at your book club meeting?

A: Pizza and salad. Except when we’re at the caterer’s house when we get yummy left overs.
B: Usually just snacky foods like fruit, cheese and crackers. Sometimes something more substantial like sandwiches

How do you decide where the meeting will be held?

A and B: Oops, I kinda’ already answered that above…

Is there anything else about your book club you’d like to share?

I love going to my book group meetings, even if I haven’t enjoyed the book. Getting together with other women who love books and are fun to be with is a wonderful break from the regular routine of life. It is great to have a group (or 2) of women who catch up with one another on a regular basis. My mom is in a women’s group that has met every 2 weeks for 35 years so I have been the beneficiary of that inner-circle. It is great for a group to last so long that we see each other’s children grow up and we can support each other through triumphs and difficult times.

——

Thanks for answering all my questions, Helen! Your clubs sound like a lot of fun, and I know there’ll be a lot of jealous foks out there who can’t be in your book clubs!

If you would like to talk about your book club, send me an email at trish(at)heylady(dot)net. No blog necessary! You just have to be in a book club.

——

Previous interviews:

Leslie, my friend from high school
Ti from Book Chatter and her Valencia Library Book Group
Michelle
Kelly from Yannabe and her OPRA Book Club
Heather from A Lifetime of Books and her book club Storie delle Sorrelle

——

I’ve got four copies of the Reading Group Choices 2010 booklet. It’s got great suggestions for book club picks, and I loved going through it and writing down books I wanted to read, whether or not I end up suggesting them to my book club!

To enter, leave a comment that has to do with something Helen said in her interview. The contest is open until Saturday, July 31st at 11:59pm PT. I’ll pick a winner on Sunday, August 1st. Good luck! One entry per person. Open internationally.

*waves*

Hi! Remember this feature? Yeah, I’d forgotten about it too until I was digging around in a drafts folder. Whoops! Good thing I found this, because I’d forgotten all about this super cool button. Woot!

Hey, if you have a book club and would like to answer these questions below, send me an email at trish at heylady dot net. If you don’t have a blog, that would be even BETTER.

Today’s book club interview is with my friend Leslie, who I’ve known since high school. Unfortunately, we don’t live very close anymore, but Facebook has kept us in contact and she graciously agreed to answer my questions about her book club!

How long has your book club been in existence?

5 years and I have been a member for 4 years.

Does your book club have a name?

No name.

How many people are in your book club?

6

Is your book club open to new members? How do new members end up in your book club?

It is always open to new members and new members are often friends of the ladies on the book club who are interested in joining our group

When do you meet? Is it a set day every month, or do you work it out so it’s on a different day but convenient for everyone?

We try to meet once a month and often meet on Thursday nights over dinner and drinks or on Sat or Sunday’s around 11am for brunch!

What kind of books do you read?

We have read all sorts of books from bestsellers to the classics

How do you choose books?

We rotate among us whose turn it is to pick. When a new member comes we add them into our rotational list.

Which book generated the best discussion?

Good question, it is hard to pick just one, I would have to say The Red Tent, The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, and One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Do you invite authors to join your discussion when you discuss their book? How do you handle having the author in on your discussion if some or all of the members didn’t absolutely love the book?

We have never invited an author or even thought about it.

Do you have one person who moderates the discussion?

No we all just talk about what we liked and didn’t like, etc. We are a very informal book club.

Have you ever had a professional moderator moderate one of your meetings?

No.

How long does the discussion last?

We don’t talk about the book too long, maybe 1/2 hour and then talk girl talk the rest of the time. Again, we are an informal book club.

Do you eat food at your book club meeting?

Yes! We always meet over food and drinks!

How do you decide where the meeting will be held?

We rotate locations based on where we all live so we rotate among Sacramento, Roseville, and El Dorado Hills.

Is there anything else about your book club you’d like to share?

I mentioned our book club is informal and we love it that way. We all enjoy reading and I think this group gives us that and gives us our need for girl talk too!

Previous interviews:
Ti from Book Chatter and her Valencia Library Book Group
Michelle
Kelly from Yannabe and her OPRA Book Club
Heather from A Lifetime of Books and her book club Storie delle Sorrelle

Edited to add: If you didn’t get your question answered or have follow-up questions, Kelly has started a thread on her own blog so she can answer those questions for you!

Hi, Readers!

Tonight I’m excited and privileged to welcome Kelly O’Connor McNees, author of The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, to our Reading Series discussion. She will be here “live” participating in our discussion and answering questions at 6 pm PST (9 pm EST) in the comments section of this post.

The conversation got going in this post, where I posed some discussion questions for everyone and asked for questions for Kelly.

I’ve been gathering your questions for Kelly and, of course, would welcome more. Here’s what we have so far.

Pat from Mille Fiori Favoriti asks:

I am curious as to why Kelly weaves the thread of Walt Whitman’s “Leaves Of Grass” throughout her novel from time to time?  Was there meant to be any special innuendo or reason behind that other than literary reference?

Also, was the loss that summer of  Louisa’s sister Anna’s almost fiancee fictional, or did that really happen?

Did both sisters actually leave the Alcott family at the end of that summer and go off to different places?

Susan Gregg Gilmore, author of Looking For Salvation at the Dairy Queen, asks:

I immediately fell into step with the March sisters.  And even though these women have been in our collective memories for generations now, this story felt wonderfully modern and contemporary.  When you read Little Women as a young girl, Kelly (which I’m assuming you must have done!), did you feel somehow dissatisfied with their story or did you just need more?  Specifically, when did you begin to question what life for the Alcott women must have really been like?  And is Jo’s struggle to find her place in the world one that is familiar to you?

I thought Bronson and Emerson’s exchange in the beginning of the book was beautifully done.  That one conversation shed so much light on the visionary (but far from practical man) that Bronson was and what it must have been like to have lived with him.   What do you personally think of the man and his affect on Louisa as a grown woman — I guess what I’m wondering, at the risk of sounding like Dr. Phil, is if his inability to provide some of the most basic needs for his wife and daughters in some way left the albeit very independent Louisa wary of entering into a lifelong relationship with any man?  And just out of curiosity, were you affected by Geraldine Brooks’s portrayal of the March patriarch?

You will be asked this many times in the months to come, but I must know what you’re planning to treat us with next!

From Lisa at Books on the Brain:

Dear Kelly,

Congratulations on your book!  I thought it was wonderful and thoroughly enjoyed it.

In reading the Author’s Note at the back of the book, it seems as if Louisa herself helped you take the leap into becoming a full time writer and writing this novel.  Can you tell us a little about what it felt like to make that decision?

You immersed yourself in this historical figure while doing your research and during the writing process.  Now that the book is finished and you’re not reading or writing about Louisa every day, do you miss her?

Have you decided yet what you’ll work on next (and if so, can you tell us about it)?  Do you think you’ll base your next novel on a real person?

Lisa at Lit and Life asks:

While the Alcott girls in “Lost Summer” are not entirely mirror images of the March girls, they certainly hold very true to those characters.  Did your research into Alcott lead you to believe that the Alcott girls were that accurately reflected in “Little Women” or did you mold them that way to create a blend between the reality of the Alcotts and the characters that are so beloved?

Ti from Book Chatter is curious:

We all know how challenging it was for Alcott, as a woman, to make a name for herself but I’d like to know what challenges you faced in getting this novel written. For instance, did you receive any pressure to change the ending of Lost Summer?

Besides Little Women, what other novels influenced you in the writing of TLSOLMA?

Just for fun, which character did you identify with the most?

Jennifer from Literate Housewife asks:

Clearly a lot of research went into this novel.  What was the most surprising thing you discovered about Louisa May Alcott along the way?

Margot from Joyfully Retired asks:

I loved your account in the back of the book about how you came to be interested in Louisa May Alcott. How long did all of it take, from that first library book to finding a publisher to print your book?

The character of Bronson Alcott was so well-developed. How much of that is fact and how much is fiction. Were there lots of documents about Mr. Alcott?

Is there another historical figure, literary or otherwise, that you are working on for a future novel and will it be so thoroughly researched?

Come by tonight at 6 pm PST (9 pm EST) to say hi to Kelly and see how she answers our questions!  Hope to see you then!

Edited to add: If you didn’t get your question answered or have follow-up questions, Kelly has started a thread on her own blog so she can answer those questions for you!