Starting 2010 with a little bit of faith!

Happy Holidays! What a better way to enjoy the holidays by reading a book that shares a journey from well-known local author Anne Lamott. Our first book of 2010 will be Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott. We'll be meeting in the Hayes Valley neighborhood on Sunday January 24, 2010.

Here's a book summary: 

A chronicle of faith and spirituality that is at once tough, personal, affectionate, wise, and very funny. Anne Lamott claims the best two prayers she knows are "Help me, help me, help me" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you." Despite — or because of — her irreverence and wit, faith is a natural subject for Lamott. With an exuberant mix of passion, insight, and humor, in Traveling Mercies she takes us on a journey through her often troubled past to illuminate her devout but quirky walk of faith. In a narrative spiced with stories and scripture, with diatribes, laughter, and tears, Lamott tells how, against all odds, she came to believe in God and then, even more miraculously, in herself.

Whether writing about her family or her dreadlocks, sick children or old friends, the most religious women of her church or the men she's dated, she shows us the myriad ways her faith sustains and guides her, shining light on the darkest part of ordinary life and exposing surprising pockets of meaning and hope.

Hoping that everyone has a wonderful holiday!

See you in 2010!

A beautiful memoir on a piece of Isabel's life

We had an incredible discussion on Isabel Allende's first memoir that gave us a glimpse in a period where her daughter was in a coma on her life story that highlighted the time her grandparents' story, her parents' story, the coup that ousted Salvador Allende in Chile, her exile, her marriage, and so forth.

Her writing really brought us to the moments when she's with Paula and is talking to her about where she comes from. We see Isabel as a gutsy woman who is trying to seize as many opportunities as she's presented with and explore her relationships with different family members. We are all interested in how Paula might have foreseen her death and how she communicated with her mom what to do through a sealed envelope. We were also curious to find out what made her fall in love with the men mentioned in the book, particularly with Willie in the end.

We don't get to know so much about Paula, even though she's the book title. But we thought it was intentional as the book was originally meant to be a letter to Paula so she can catch up with her life at the end of her coma.

It's a beautiful read and one that inspires you to read her other books!

A Personal Story of Isabel Allende

After reading a novel based in Latin America going back to 16th Century times of the Spanish conquistadores, let's learn about the author behind the story.Chilean author Isabel Allende has written three memoirs, her first one is called Paula, a memoir she writes dedicated to her daughter.

Here's a book summary:

Writing nonfiction for the first time, she interweaves the story of her own life with the slow dying of her 28-year-old daughter, Paula. A magician with words, Allende makes this grim scenario into a wondrous encounter with the innermost sorrows and joys of another human being.In 1991, while living in Madrid with her husband, Paula was felled by porphyria, a rare blood disease, and, despite endless care by her mother and husband, lapsed into an irreversible coma. Her mother, as she watched by Paula's bedside, began to write this book, driven by a desperation to communicate with her unconscious daughter. She writes of her own Chilean childhood, the violent death of her uncle, Salvador Allende, and the family's flight to Venezuela from the oppressive Pinochet regime. Allende explores her relationship with her own mother, documented in the hundreds of letters they exchanged since she left home. Allende later married-and divorced-an undemanding and loyal man and became a fierce feminist, rebelling against the constraints of traditional Latin American society.

Please join us for a great discussion on Sunday December 6 at 2pm - Location TBD - hope to see you there!

A fearless woman ahead of her times

It was a wonderful discussion about Ines Suarez and her journey to South America at a time when no one knew much about this "New" World. Ines follows her first husband, not for love, but to find her freedom, as she couldn't make anything of herself in Spain. She took up the challenge and crossed the ocean on a ship full of men and her niece to find herself stalked by a man who tries to rape her any chance he gets.

She manages to survive and goes on to Peru to find her husband. Once she finds out he's died, her life seems to begin as she's free to make her own choices and follows her lover Pedro de Valdivia to Chile. Here is when the book starts filling itself with so many battle scenes between the indigenous and the Spaniards.

It was fascinating to learn more about the different historical figures from the Spanish conquest times. Isabel Allende truly has a great writing style, but the memoir-esque style of the character Ines Sastre, makes herself sound snobby at times, focusing on her strength and not her flaws.

It just so happened that Ines found the perfect man in Rodrigo de Quiroga, who did anything for Ines. But Ines chose to end her story with Pedro de Valdivia, giving quite an abrupt ending to a woman's memoir.

Now learn about South American History!

From Africa, let's travel to Latin America and read a historical fiction novel by popular Chilean author Isabel Allende called Ines of my Soul.

Here's a book summary:

Only months after the inauguration of Chile's first female president, Isabel Allende recounts in her usual sweeping style the grand tale of Doña Inés Suárez (1507– 1580), arguably the country's founding mother. Writing in the year of her death, Inés tells of her modest girlhood in Spain and traveling to the New World as a young wife to find her missing husband, Juan. Upon learning of Juan's humiliating death in battle, Inés determines to stay in the fledgling colony of Peru, where she falls fervently in love with Don Pedro de Valdivia, loyal field marshal of Francisco Pizarro.

Basing the tale on documented events of her heroine's life, Allende crafts a swift, thrilling epic, packed with fierce battles and passionate romance.

Please join us for a great discussion on Sunday November 1 at 2pm - We're meeting at the Old Jerusalem Cafe, on 1340 Irving Street (between 14th Ave & 15th Ave) - hope to see you there!

Learning some American History

This book highlighted a part of history that is not widely familiar - the foundation of Liberia by freed African slaves traveling back to their home continent after being educated and raised in the United States.

Helene Cooper does a wonderful job of writing her childhood memories parallel to the history of Liberia involving her ancestors, coincidentally having both sides of her parents come from historical founding father figures of the country. What we all appreciated was her honesty of telling us her story without judgement, but to lay it as it is. This provoked more discussion including how her mother defended her childhood, her relationship with Eunice, her "sister," and her relationship with her father. It was fascinating to see how they all exiled from Liberia and yet the parents would go back quite frequently in spite of the dangers, to make money to support their children's education.

It was quite the page turner! I think we would have liked to know more of her life, as we were left with that feeling of wanting more and not missing out in any details.

Discovering a childhood in Liberia

Let's go from China to Liberia! Our next book discussion will focus on the memoir called The House at Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper.

Here's a book summary:

Journalist Cooper has a compelling story to tell: born into a wealthy, powerful, dynastic Liberian family descended from freed American slaves, she came of age in the 1980s when her homeland slipped into civil war. On Cooper's 14th birthday, her mother gives her a diamond pendant and sends her to school. Cooper is convinced that somehow our world would right itself. That afternoon her uncle Cecil, the minister of foreign affairs, is executed.

Cooper combines deeply personal and wide-ranging political strands in her memoir. There's the halcyon early childhood in Africa, a history of the early settlement of Liberia, an account of the violent, troubled years as several regimes are overthrown, and the story of the family's exile to America. A journalist-as-a-young-woman narrative unfolds as Cooper reports the career path that led her from local to national papers in the U.S. The stories themselves are fascinating, but a flatness prevails—perhaps one that mirror's the author's experience.

We'll be meeting in the Outer Richmond neighborhood on October 11.