Let's travel to Haiti!

Our next book for April 2008 is Breathe, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat. Here's a brief description of her book:

A distinctive new voice with a sensitive insight into Haitian culture distinguishes this graceful debut novel about a young girl's coming of age under difficult circumstances. The burden of being a woman in Haiti, where purity and chastity are a matter of family honor, and where "nightmares are passed on through generations like heirlooms," is Danticat's theme.

Born after her mother Martine was raped, Sophie is raised by her Tante Atie in a small town in Haiti. At 12 she joins Martine in New York, while Atie returns to her native village to care for indomitable Grandmother Ife. Neither Sophie nor Martine can escape the weight of the past, resulting in a pattern of insomnia, bulimia, sexual trauma and mental anguish that afflicts both of their lives.

Join our discussion on Sunday April 27, 2008 at 2pm at Cafe Reverie on 848 Cole Street! Don't forget purchasing your book at BookSmith (near our next venue) to get a 10% discount.

Let's discover the history behind our city!

Reading Vowell's book took us on a different path, where we were discovering different factoids about three different US presidents. One of them we all know, President Lincoln and two others that some of us were discovering for the first time: Garfield and McKinley.

The author took us along on her journey as she travels around the US visiting historical places that were relevant to these three presidential assassinations. I think the one thing that we all were inspired to do after reading this book is to take one right here in San Francisco!

Some book club members were not able to get into the book and chickened out on coming to the discussion. Even if you don't like the book or haven't read it, we love for you to join us, as having different opinions makes the discussion more interesting.

Stay tune for a historical tour of our city coming near you!

Support your local independent bookstore!

We've started a great relationship with BookSmith, an independent bookstore in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood (1644 Haight St). The Booksmith has been in business since 1976. To check out their interesting history please go to http://www.booksmith.com/storehistory.html

BookSmith is very supportive of our book club and will provide us a 10% discount on our book choice for the club when purchsed individually and if we purchase 5 books together, our discount goes to 15%.

In any case, if you're ever in the Haight area, go inside BookSmith and browse around!