West Layton Literary Society

April 2011: Driving Force

Get ready for some adventure!  😀  Dick Francis is one of my favorite authors, and I’m excited to get going on this book.  Here are this month’s details for ya . . .

Book Title:  Driving Force

Author:  Dick Francis

Date:  Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Time:  7:00 p.m.

Hostess:  Me (Aimee)

Here’s some info on the book from dickfrancis.com

“Young ex-jockey Freddie Croft owns a profitable fleet of horse vans that convey runners to the course. A man who has few illusions about racing’s smarmier aspects, Freddie is a stickler for security. But even he is startled by the violence that erupts when a hard, fast rule is broken: Never pick up a hitchhiker. In what will be the first of many ironies, the passenger – not the driver – turns up dead. And if one corpse in bad for business, what happens next could well be fatal: Freddie is swept unknowingly into the vortex of a malign conspiracy in which appearances deceive and the cost of being duped is murderously high. Tilting at the shifting shadows cast by his elusive adversaries, he must summon up extraordinary guile and courage to protect his enterprise – and save his life.”

March 2011: Freckles

This month, we will be reading Freckles by Gene Stratton Porter.  We will be meeting at Shelly’s house on Wednesday, March 2 at 7:00 p.m.

This book is a classic and is no longer subject to copyright laws, so you can read it free online.  Just google the title and the author and you will get lots of links for places to read it.  (I’m sure you can also get it at the library if you prefer the ‘real thing’ to a computer).

Here’s a little blurb from librivox.com to give you a little heads-up about this book:

Freckles is a young man who has been raised since infancy in a Chicago orphanage. His one dream is to find a job, a place to belong and people who accept him despite his youth and the disability of having only one hand. He finds this place in the Limberlost Swamp, as Mr. McLean’s Limberlost guard of precious timber.
In the process, he discovers a love for the wilderness and animals he encounters every day on his rounds and a burning desire to learn about all the new birds and plants he sees on his rounds every day. He also finds and falls in love with a girl he calls the “Swamp Angel.” This is the story of his plucky courage in sticking to his job in the swamp, and his adventures in learning about the natural world he finds himself in every day. He is befriended by the “Bird Woman” and with her help learns to love the Limberlost he has been hired to guard.
(Summary by Mary Anderson)

February 2011: Shiver

  This sounds like a good one, I am on the waiting list at the library, and am excited to get it!

Some info. for ya:

Book Title:  Shiver

Author:  Maggie Stiefvater

Date:  Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Time:  7:00 p.m.

Place:  Danae’s house

Here’s a little bit from maggiestiefvater.com:

“For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf—her wolf—is a chilling presence she can’t seem to live without. Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl. In summer, a few precious months of being human… until the cold makes him shift back again.

Now, Grace meets a yellow-eyed boy whose familiarity takes her breath away. It’s her wolf. It has to be. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human—or risk losing himself, and Grace, forever.”

Happy Reading!

January 2011: The Magic of Ordinary Days

I had a hard time finding this book!  It was made into a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, so if you’d rather just watch it . . . :D.  Anywho, here’s this months info for ya:

Title:  The Magic of Ordinary Days

Author:  Ann Howard Creel

Book Club Date:  Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Time:  7:00 p.m.

Place:  Melanie’s House

Here’s a little blurb from penguingroup.com to wet your appetite . . .

History has a way of bringing the past to life, conjuring up people and places that have long since disappeared. Living in the past is also a way to flee the present, to experience and perhaps live in a world that is not complicated by emotion and regret. Livvy could have never imagined that her life would take a course that was so distant from the dream she had for herself—her hopes to become an archeologist, to lead a cloistered yet fulfilling life. But she becomes pregnant and unexpectedly finds herself far from home and her family, married to a man she does not know, as the country is on the brink of war. As she explains it, “in one fleeting moment I stripped away the petals of my future, let them catch wind, and fly away.”

Sounds like a good one!

December 2010: “A Long Way from Chicago” and “A Year Down Yonder”

We get TWO books this month!

#1:  A Long Way from Chicago

#2:  A Year Down Yonder

Both were written by Richard Peck

We will be meeting at Shannon’s house at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, December 1 to discuss.

These books take place during the 1930’s, and are about some kids from Chicago who go to visit their grandmother in the country.  She’s a feisty lady, which makes for some pretty entertaining adventures.  😀  Happy Reading!

November 2010: Little House on the Prairie

Oops!  I almost forgot to give you all an update this month!  So Sorry!!!  Here’s the scoop . . .

Book to Read:  Little House on the Prairie

The Author:  Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Date:  Wednesday, November 3, 2010

The Time:  7:00 p.m.

Our Lovely Hostess:  Heidi (if you need an address or directions, let me know :D)

I’m sure most of you are already familiar with the gist of this book, but since I am a little bit OCD, and I like all my posts to look similar, here’s a little blurb from littlehousebooks.com for ya . . .

“Pa Ingalls decides to sell the little log house, and the family sets out for Indian country! They travel from Wisconsin to Kansas, and there, finally, Pa builds their little house on the prairie. Sometimes farm life is difficult, even dangerous, but Laura and her family are kept busy and happy with the promise of their new life on the prairie.

Little House on the Prairie is the second book in the Laura Years series.”

October 2010: Skeleton Creek

Welcome Back!  Hope you all had a fantastic summer!  We are starting the 2010 – 2011 book club year off with a bit of a thriller . . . 

The Book:  Skeleton Creek (Book 1)

The Author:  Patrick Carman

We will meet to chat about this book on Wednesday, October 6 at 7:00 p.m. at Christie’s house.

I started reading this book last night, and I’ll be honest . . . some of the videos are CREEPY!  I would suggest reading this book during the day, when it is light outside (only if you are as much a wimp as I am . . . the same videos that creeped me out last night didn’t fase me this afternoon :D)

Here’s a little blurb from scholastic.com for ya:

Strange things are happening in Skeleton Creek and Ryan and Sarah are trying to get to the heart of it. But after an eerie accident leaves Ryan housebound and forbidden to see Sarah, their investigation takes two tracks: Ryan records everything in his journal, while Sarah uses her videocam to search things out … and then emails the clips for Ryan to see.

In a new, groundbreaking format, the story is broken into two parts — Ryan’s text in the book, and Sarah’s videos on a special website, with links and passwords given throughout the book.

September 2010 — Planning Party

Hello All!  Hope you are having a fantastic summer!  For those of you who don’t already know,  :D, we are taking a few months off.  Our next meeting will be in September, and rather than discussing any particular book, we will be planning out the books we want to read for the next year.

So . . . your assignment this summer is to start collecting a list of books you would like to read.  Bring that with you, along with your calendar, as we will also be assigning “host houses”.  Here are some details for you:

Date:  Wednesday, September 8,2010

Time:  7:00 p.m.

Place:  Aimee’s House

Love you all!  Have a fabulous couple of months!

June 2010 — The Help

Ready . . . Set . . . Here we go again!

June’s book will be The Help by Kathryn Stockett

We will be meeting Wednesday, June 2 at Shannon’s house at 7:00 p.m.

As always, here’s a little teaser for ya! (from kathrynstockett.com)

“Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women–mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends–view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don’t.”

May 2010 — Princess Academy

This month we will be reading Princess Academy by Shannon Hale.

We will be meeting at 7:00 p.m. at Aimee’s house on Wednesday, May 5, 2010.

Here’s a little blurb from Shannon Hales’ website to get you excited:

“High on the side of rocky Mount Eskel, far from the valleys where gardens are green and lush, where lowlanders make laws, Miri’s family has lived forever, pounding a living from the stone of the mountain itself. For as long as she can remember, Miri has dreamed of working alongside the other villagers in the quarries of her beloved mountainside. But Miri has never been allowed to work there, perhaps, she thinks, because she is so small.

Then word comes from the valley that the king’s priests have divined Mount Eskel to be the home of the prince’s bride-to-be—the next princess. The prince himself will travel to the village to choose her, but first all eligible girls must attend a makeshift mountain academy to prepare themselves for royal lowlander life.

At the school, Miri soon finds herself confronted by bitter competition among the girls and her own conflicting desires to be chosen by the prince. Yet when danger comes to the academy and threatens all their lives, it is Miri, named for a tiny mountain flower, who must find a way to save her classmates—and the one chance to leave the mountain each of them is determined to secure as her own.

From acclaimed author Shannon Hale comes the Newbery Honor-winning novel about would-be princesses and one small but determined girl’s destiny.”