Ecova
Book Club
Flyer #14 Wednesday,
February 13th, 2013
Happy
St. Valentine’s Day!
This is the month most noted for
hearts and flowers and little sugar candies… I can almost feel the weight gain
just in the imagining all those boxes of chocolates! HA!
Classy,
sassy, and downright romantic! We love to feel those warm fuzzies! Especially
while it is still cold… brrr! February is all about promoting American Heart Health,
Black History, and Creative Romance. On the not so normal side of the same
scale we are also celebrating National Cherry Month, National Grapefruit Month,
and even International Flirting Week (3rd week)! Every day this
month can reflect something peculiar, sarcastic and creatively fun, just check
your calendar! I know I will be joyfully participating in the No Brainer Day on
the 27th.
I
don’t usually look for reasons to gift the joys of reading but what better way
to say how much you care with a great book! We get creative in our house and
make bookmarks and double them as Valentine’s gifts for classmates and teachers.
Well, no matter what you give or receive this month remember to love yourself
with a book! So why not check out what we have on our plate this month and
enjoy to your heart’s content.
Are you getting your newsletter in your inbox?
Know anyone who wants to get on the list? Email Loretta and ask to be added!
We have thrown around a few ideas on how the
Book Club can get more involved with the community, the company, and with each
other. Some ideas were “hot-to-trot” but are not solvent enough to be conducted
on company grounds due to tax laws. For this, we apologize. But! We have a great
fundraiser idea/craft that was recommended by Beth Morrow. For this, we thank
you for your creativity and awareness to our office environment!
What
can you do? We are currently seeking donations of old phone books, directories,
encyclopedias, and other periodical tomes that are no longer of use. We will
also be accepting scrap fabric, old scarves, newspaper, wrapping paper, ribbon,
and the like. That’s right! We want to repurpose them for a great project! What
the fruitcake? We got you! We will post announcements in the coming weeks for
donation locations and for end products… so keep your eye out for that upcoming
announcement!
When does the book club meet? We love to read
and many books inspire discussion. We all have crazy hectic schedules and this
can be very discouraging. I am asking if anyone would be interested in meeting
once a month on a Saturday for a couple of hours. This would be open to any and
all interested persons and not restricted to “members only”. Email me with your
ideas!
Do you have an item or book for sale? We can
advertise it here! Email me the details and it will be added in our next
newsletter!
I MUST HAVE THIS BOOK!!! Find your copy at any
of these fine local and internet locations!
What we were reading...
January
Series Pick:
Tortall Series by Tamora Pierce
January
Book:
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
January Suggested
Titles:
In the Dead of Winter (Ivy Towers #1)
by Nancy Mehl
Homicide in Hardcover (A Bibliophile
Mystery #1) by Kate Carlisle
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret
Atwood
Amber House (Amber House #1) by
Kelly Moore
The Mistaken by Nancy S. Thompson
Eon: Dragoneye Reborn (Eon #1) by
Alison Goodman
Incarceron (Incarceron #1) by
Catherine Fisher
Armor by John Steakley
Enclave (Razorland #1) by Ann
Aguirre
February Series Pick…
Earth’s Children Series
By Jean M. Auel
The series is set in Europe during the Upper
Paleolithic era, after the date of the first ceramics discovered, but before
the last advance of glaciers. The books focus on the period of co-existence
between Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals. As a whole, the series is a tale of
personal discovery: coming-of-age, invention, and cultural complexities. It
tells the story of Ayla, an orphaned Cro-Magnon girl who is adopted and raised
by a tribe of Neanderthals and who later embarks on a journey to find the
Others (her own kind), meeting along the way her romantic interest and
supporting co-protagonist, Jondalar.
Jean Marie Auel (born February 18, 1936) is an American writer.
She is best known for her Earth's Children books, a series of novels set in prehistoric
Europe that explores interactions of Cro-Magnon people with Neanderthals. As of
2010 her books have sold more than 45 million copies worldwide.
February Read…
Virginia, 1852. Seventeen-year-old Josephine Bell decides to
run from the failing tobacco farm where she is a slave and nurse to her ailing
mistress, the aspiring artist Lu Anne Bell. New York City, 2004. Lina Sparrow,
an ambitious first-year associate in an elite law firm, is given a difficult,
highly sensitive assignment that could make her career: she must find the
“perfect plaintiff” to lead a historic class-action lawsuit worth trillions of
dollars in reparations for descendants of American slaves.
It is through her father, the renowned artist Oscar Sparrow, that Lina discovers Josephine Bell and a controversy roiling the art world: are the iconic paintings long ascribed to Lu Anne Bell really the work of her house slave, Josephine? A descendant of Josephine’s would be the perfect face for the reparations lawsuit—if Lina can find one. While following the runaway girl’s faint trail through old letters and plantation records, Lina finds herself questioning her own family history and the secrets that her father has never revealed: How did Lina’s mother die? And why will he never speak about her?
Moving between antebellum Virginia and modern-day New York, this searing, suspenseful and heartbreaking tale of art and history, love and secrets, explores what it means to repair a wrong and asks whether truth is sometimes more important than justice.
It is through her father, the renowned artist Oscar Sparrow, that Lina discovers Josephine Bell and a controversy roiling the art world: are the iconic paintings long ascribed to Lu Anne Bell really the work of her house slave, Josephine? A descendant of Josephine’s would be the perfect face for the reparations lawsuit—if Lina can find one. While following the runaway girl’s faint trail through old letters and plantation records, Lina finds herself questioning her own family history and the secrets that her father has never revealed: How did Lina’s mother die? And why will he never speak about her?
Moving between antebellum Virginia and modern-day New York, this searing, suspenseful and heartbreaking tale of art and history, love and secrets, explores what it means to repair a wrong and asks whether truth is sometimes more important than justice.
Other
Suggested Reads…
Love
Poems
by Nikki Giovanni
In a career that has spanned more than a quarter century,
Nikki Giovanni has earned the reputation as one of America's most celebrated
and controversial writers. Now, she presents a stunning collection of love
poems that includes more than twenty new works.From the revolutionary "Seduction" to the tender new poem, "Just a Simple Declaration of Love," from the whimsical "I Wrote a Good Omelet" to the elegiac "All Eyez on U," written for Tupac Shakur, these poems embody the fearless passion and spirited wit for which Nikki Giovanni is beloved and revered.
Romantic, bold, and erotic, Love Poems expresses notions of love in ways that are delightfully unexpected. Articulating in sensuous verse what we know only instinctively, Nikki Giovanni once again confirms her place as one of our nation’s most distinguished poets and powerful truth-tellers. In a career that has spanned more than a quarter century, starting with her explosive early years in the Black Rights Movement, Nikki Giovanni has earned a reputation as one of America's most celebrated and controversial writers. Her mind-speaking work has made her a universal favorite and a number-one best-seller. The love poems-the revolutionary "Seduction," the whimsical "I Wrote a Good Omelet," and the tender "My House" to name just a few-are among the most beloved of all Nikki Giovanni's works. Now, Love Poems brings together these and other favorites with over twenty new poems. Romantic, bold, and erotic, Love Poems will once again confirm Nikki Giovanni's place among the country's most renowned poets and truth tellers.
Dark
Lover: The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino
by Emily W. Leider
From the author of “Becoming Mae West"-- an in-depth
look at the Silver-Screen legend who forever changed America' s idea of the
leading man
Tango pirate, gigolo, powder puff, Adonis-- all have been used to describe the silent-film icon known as Rudolph Valentino. From his early days as a taxi dancer in New York City to his near apotheosis as the ultimate Hollywood heartthrob, Rudolph Valentino (often to his distress) occupied a space squarely at the center of controversy. In this thoughtful retelling of Valentino' s short and tragic life-- the first fully documented biography of the star-- Emily W. Leider looks at the Great Lover' s life and legacy, and explores the events and issues that made him emblematic of the Jazz Age. Valentino's androgynous sexuality was a lightning rod for fiery and contradictory impulses that ran the gamut from swooning adoration to lashing resentment. He was reviled in the press for being too feminine for a man; yet he also brought to the screen the alluring, savage lover who embodied women's darker, forbidden sexual fantasies.
In tandem, Leider explores notions of the outsider in American culture as represented by Valentino's experience as an immigrant who became a celebrity. As the silver screen's first dark-skinned romantic hero, Valentino helped to redefine and broaden American masculine ideals, ultimately coming to represent a graceful masculinity that trumped the deeply ingrained status quo of how a man could look and act.
Tango pirate, gigolo, powder puff, Adonis-- all have been used to describe the silent-film icon known as Rudolph Valentino. From his early days as a taxi dancer in New York City to his near apotheosis as the ultimate Hollywood heartthrob, Rudolph Valentino (often to his distress) occupied a space squarely at the center of controversy. In this thoughtful retelling of Valentino' s short and tragic life-- the first fully documented biography of the star-- Emily W. Leider looks at the Great Lover' s life and legacy, and explores the events and issues that made him emblematic of the Jazz Age. Valentino's androgynous sexuality was a lightning rod for fiery and contradictory impulses that ran the gamut from swooning adoration to lashing resentment. He was reviled in the press for being too feminine for a man; yet he also brought to the screen the alluring, savage lover who embodied women's darker, forbidden sexual fantasies.
In tandem, Leider explores notions of the outsider in American culture as represented by Valentino's experience as an immigrant who became a celebrity. As the silver screen's first dark-skinned romantic hero, Valentino helped to redefine and broaden American masculine ideals, ultimately coming to represent a graceful masculinity that trumped the deeply ingrained status quo of how a man could look and act.
Waiting
to Exhale
by Terry McMillan
From the critically acclaimed author of A Day Late and a Dollar Short and The Interruption of Everything, a
wise, earthy story of a friendship between four African American women who lean
on each other while "waiting to exhale": waiting for that man who will
take their breath away.
The
Undomestic Goddess
by Sophie Kinsella
Going into utter meltdown, she walks out of her London office, gets on a train, and ends up in the middle of nowhere. Asking for directions at a big, beautiful house, she’s mistaken for an interviewee and finds herself being offered a job as housekeeper. Her employers have no idea they’ve hired a lawyer–and Samantha has no idea how to work the oven. She can’t sew on a button, bake a potato, or get the #@%# ironing board to open. How she takes a deep breath and begins to cope–and finds love–is a story as delicious as the bread she learns to bake.
But will her old life ever catch up with her? And if it does…will she want it back?
The
Will of Wisteria
by Denise Hildreth
Charleston blue blood Clayton Wilcott "got religion" late in life; so late, it turns out his kids never took to it. So he's left a provisional will delivered in a highly unorthodox way. Now they're going to have to honor Daddy's commandments from beyond the grave--for a full year--or be cut off from their substantial inheritances. The scent of wisteria lingers in the air as the four spoiled Wilcotts battle for their birthright. Told in Denise Hildreth's trademark blend of humor and heart, this Southern tale is about learning to love, learning to live, and learning to bend.
The
Smoke Jumper
by Nicholas Evans
His name is Connor Ford and he falls like an angel of mercy
from the sky, braving the flames to save the woman he loves but knows he cannot
have. For Julia Bishop is the partner of his best friend and fellow “smoke
jumper,” Ed Tully. Julia loves them both--until a fiery tragedy on Montana’s
Snake Mountain forces her to choose between them, and burns a brand on all
their hearts.
In the wake of the fire, Connor embarks on a harrowing journey to the edge of human experience, traveling the world’s worst wars and disasters to take photographs that find him fame but never happiness. Reckless of a life he no longer wants, again and again he dares death to take him, until another fateful day on another continent, he must walk through fire once more...
In the wake of the fire, Connor embarks on a harrowing journey to the edge of human experience, traveling the world’s worst wars and disasters to take photographs that find him fame but never happiness. Reckless of a life he no longer wants, again and again he dares death to take him, until another fateful day on another continent, he must walk through fire once more...
The 7
Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
by Stephen
R. Covey
In The 7 Habits of Highly
Effective People, author Stephen R. Covey presents a holistic,
integrated, principle-centered approach for solving personal and professional
problems. With penetrating insights and pointed anecdotes, Covey reveals a
step-by-step pathway for living with fairness, integrity, service, and human
dignity -- principles that give us the security to adapt to change and the
wisdom and power to take advantage of the opportunities that change creates.
~ READ! It feeds the mind! ~
