Ecova Book
Club
Issue #25 Wednesday,
March 12th, 2014
Of
course, with Spring in the air, it is about time to do the dreaded Spring
Cleaning. Dreaded? Yep. This means it is time to clean out the corners and make
sure the mud doesn’t set in! But it also means, JOY! Joy? YES! This means there
are many yard sales about to explode into existence! And with those yard sales
come the discovery of many new books to explore!
This
year, I have decided to dedicate myself to exploring new avenues of devotion
and renewal. My first devotion has manifested in jiu-jitsu and the art of
juggling three very eager children! My second is to take advantage of that
brief daily window to read insightful texts on wisdom, charity, strength, and
insight. What change have you made this year in your daily reading? What avenue
of interest has drawn you at this point in your life? Do you seek to enrich
your thinking patterns? Are you drawn to discover a genre that has been
undesirable in the past? While I may not be drawn to the ancient texts of China
just yet, I am definitely discovering new and delightful reading! Thanks to
Roberta and Rose we have a delightful selection for you this month! And I may
have thrown a title too!
Happy
reading!
What we were
reading in February 2014
February
Featured Title:
Serendipity
(Southern Comfort #1) by Lisa Clark O’Neill
February Titles:
Where the Bodies are Buried (Sharp
Investigations #1)
by Christopher
Brookmyre
Physics of the Impossible by Michio
Kaku
Practical Duct Tape Projects by Instructables
The Tyrant’s Daughter by J. C.
Carleson
Everneath (Everneath #1) by Brodi
Ashton
He Died with His Eyes Open (Factory
Series #1) by Derek Raymond
American Assassin (Mitch Rapp #1) by Vince
Flynn
Forever Black (Forever Trilogy #1) by Sandi
Lynn
March
Feature…
O Pioneers! (Great Plains Trilogy #1)
By Willa Cather
One of America's greatest women writers, Willa
Cather established her talent and her reputation with this extraordinary novel,
the first of her books set on the Nebraska frontier. A tale of the prairie land
encountered by America's Swedish, Czech, Bohemian, and French immigrants, as
well as a story of how the land challenged them, changed them, and, in some
cases, defeated them, Cather's novel is a uniquely American epic.
Alexandra Bergson, a young Swedish immigrant girl who inherits her father's farm and must transform it from raw prairie into a prosperous enterprise, is the first of Cather's great heroines, all of them women of strong will and an even stronger desire to overcome adversity and succeed. But the wild land itself is an equally important character in Cather's books, and her descriptions of it are so evocative, lush, and moving that they provoked writer Rebecca West to say of her: "The most sensuous of writers, Willa Cather builds her imagined world almost as solidly as our five senses build the universe around us."
Willa Cather, perhaps more than any other American writer, was able to re-create the real drama of the pioneers, capturing for later generations a time, a place, and a spirit that has become part of our national heritage.
Alexandra Bergson, a young Swedish immigrant girl who inherits her father's farm and must transform it from raw prairie into a prosperous enterprise, is the first of Cather's great heroines, all of them women of strong will and an even stronger desire to overcome adversity and succeed. But the wild land itself is an equally important character in Cather's books, and her descriptions of it are so evocative, lush, and moving that they provoked writer Rebecca West to say of her: "The most sensuous of writers, Willa Cather builds her imagined world almost as solidly as our five senses build the universe around us."
Willa Cather, perhaps more than any other American writer, was able to re-create the real drama of the pioneers, capturing for later generations a time, a place, and a spirit that has become part of our national heritage.
March Picks…
Where would we be without the Irish?
Throughout history the Irish
have been vilified and reviled. They
have starved and have helped hew a nation from their own soil and new nations
from the soil of their adopted lands.
They have been seen as drunkards, associated with religious wars, they
have fought, loved, laughed….and written some of the most memorable creations
in literature while doing so. They have
changed the landscape of the known, the unknown and the unknowable. They have created memorable characters;
characters that have changed our lives and the lives of others, scared us in
the dark of the night, lead us to safety and taught us to never take a nap in
areas inhabited by little people. So Let
Us Begin…..
GOTHIC HORROR AND CREATOR OF AN ENTIRE GENRE OF LITERATURE THAT EXISTS
TO THIS DAY
Abraham (Bram) Stoker was
born on the north side of Dublin in 1847.
As a young man he was educated at the famous Trinity College, Dublin.
While he was president of the University
Philosophical Society his first paper was on
"Sensationalism in Fiction and Society". (Imagine!)
Later, while a London resident, he wrote the one book that scared me so
thoroughly that I have yet to finish: Dracula. While not the first to write of the Vampire
in literature his book is one of the most remembered, influencing both stage
and screen, though I imagine that not even Bram Stoker would have thought of
making his vampires sparkle.
A synopsis of the
beginning: Jonathan Harker, a young English lawyer, travels to Castle Dracula in
the Eastern European country of Transylvania to conclude a real estate
transaction with a nobleman named Count Dracula. As Harker wends his way through the
picturesque countryside, the local peasants warn him about his destination,
giving him crucifixes and other charms against evil and uttering strange words
that Harker later translates into “vampire.”
Frightened but no less determined, Harker meets the count’s carriage as
planned. The journey to the castle is
harrowing, and the carriage is nearly attacked by angry wolves along the
way. Upon arriving at the crumbling old
castle, Harker finds that the elderly Dracula is a well-educated and hospitable
gentleman. After only a few days,
however, Harker realizes that he is effectively a prisoner in the Castle. The more Harker investigates the nature of
his confinement, the more uneasy he becomes.
He realizes the count possesses supernatural powers and diabolical
ambitions. One evening Harker is nearly
attacked by three beautiful and seductive female vampires, but the count staves
them off, telling the vampires that Harker belongs to him. Fearing for his life, Harker attempts to
escape from the castle by climbing down the walls….You will have to read on by
yourself to find out what happens next! 
The
irish influence on stage – and
later screen
and music
George Bernard Shaw was
another Dubliner whose creations have also taken on a life of their own –
mostly after his death. Shaw was an
Irish playwright, novelist, journalist, essayist and critic on both music and
literature. His play, Pygmalion, is the basis of a
more likely to be known musical called “My Fair Lady”. The title, Pymalion, refers to a Greek
myth about a sculptor who fell in love with one of his sculptures. In the play Shaw has professor of phonetic
Henry Higgins make a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza
Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party by teaching
her to assume a veneer of gentility-the most important part of which is
impeccable speech. The play is a sharp
lampoon of the rigid British class system of the day and a commentary on
women’s independence. Shaw won both a
Nobel award in Literature for Pygmalion and an Oscar for his film
adaptation of the same name, still being the only person to win both
prestigious awards. Shaw had once allowed another musical adaptation of one of
his works to be created. He was so disenchanted
by the results that he never allowed another, hence “My Fair Lady” came about
after Shaw’s death. 
Making a lot out of little things
– a lion, a witch and a wardrobe
Clive Staples Lewis. Is that a name you know? Or is he better known to you under the sobriquet C.S. Lewis? This Belfast born and bred man has introduced ages of children and adults alike to many memorable characters: Aslan the Lion, The Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve-better known as Lucy, Peter, Susan and Edmund Pevensie, Tumnus the Faun, Prince Caspian, Reepicheep and others. Many of us had our imaginations captured as children by these books, but they are a worthwhile read even as adults. There are arguments for an against these books being Christian Allegory, but whether you decide to intrepret them as such or not, they are still a good, fantastical read. Even better is to gather around with your own children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews or friends and have a reading party to introduce a new age of children to the wonderful land of Narnia.
learning
not to take a nap without checking your environs first
Another Irishman whose creation has influenced
us through the ages is Jonathan Swift – a satirist, political pamphleteer,
essayist, novelist, poet and cleric. His
was a prolific pen who gave us characters and terms that are still used in
modern linguistics. If something is
“Lilliputian” it is very small. If something is “brobdingnagian” it is very
large. But do you know what a person
represents if that person is a “Yahoo”?
If not, it is time to revist Gulliver’s Travels. According to Swift, a Yahoo is a person that Swift describes as being filthy and with
unpleasant habits. The Yahoos are
obsessed with finding “pretty stones” in the mud, thus representing the
materialism and elitism Swift found in British society at the time he was
writing. Gulliver’s Travels is an essay in time, travel and the human
condition. Shipwrecked castaway
Lemuel Gulliver’s encounters with the petty, diminutive Lilliputians, the crude
giants of Brobdingnag, the abstracted scientists of Laputa, the philosophical
Houyhnhnms, and the brutish Yahoos give him new, bitter insights into human
behavior. Swift’s fantastic and subversive book remains supremely relevant in
our own age of distortion, hypocrisy, and irony.
And if you enjoy a good bit of satire
check out Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” – one of my favorites!
Socs
and Greasers
An
excerpt from the memoir
Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob
Lowe
Rob
Lowe is of Irish, German, English, Welsh and Scottish descent
Taken from one of the most beloved 80s movies The
Outsiders, Rob Lowe breaks down in layman’s terms what it was like working with
the star-studded cast of this popular classic film, which was taken from the
even more popular classic book written by S.E. Hinton.
Not only is there inside info on how certain scenes
were shot, but Mr. Lowe writes what it’s
like to be a “no name kid” actor who kind of thinks he knows what he’s
doing, but with the help of fellow actors along the way, he learns a lot more
about the business and friendship.
I found his conversation with Francis Ford Coppola
about the Godfather films to be quite enlightening and his experience on the
South Side of Chicago one night with a young actor by the name of Andrew
McCarthy to be extremely humorous.
This particular story is a two chapter excerpt that was
taken from his own memoir written a few years ago, was a free download from an
app called ShoutCast, but you can get it for Kindle also.
I think I would like to get the entire book eventually
just so that I can read what else went on back then, sometimes when you read
the “tabloids” they don’t tell you everything that’s happening, just the so
called “drama” of it all.
Word on the street has it that Mr. Lowe is working on
another memoir where he discusses all of the women he has been involved with,
and he says for that one, he is going to put away a “legal fund” because it may
cause some backlash.
Loads of laughs and heartwarming anecdotes for the
nostalgic at heart, it’s a short read but definitely worth the time.—GUEST
REVIEW BY ROSE FULLERTON, OLYMPIA
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST…AND HAVING A PORTRAIT OF YOURSELF THAT NEVER AGES
Students of drama or attendees of the theatre will know of
the play, “The Importance of Being Earnest”, a still performed romp by the
Dublin born Oscar Wilde. A farce of
mistaken identities, trying to dodge social obligations and satire poking fun
at elitist notions, this play is a standard in many a theatre. But the Oscar Wilde piece we are going to
concern ourselves with has a darker, more Faustian theme. Who would equate the writer of a comedic play
as the same author of The Picture of Dorian Gray? This story, according to Goodreads, is “The tale of a youth whose features, year after
year, retain the same appearance of innocent beauty while the shame of his
abhorrent vices becomes mirrored on the features of his portrait.” This theme has been mirrored over and over,
in writing, in film, in many other venues, but this was the first. If you have ever seen the film, who can
forget the horrific sight of the portrait that portrays the vice-ridden Dorian,
hidden in the attic? Check out this tale
of how giving in to shallowness, vanity, casual cruelty can affect the
decisions one makes and how the thought processes of one who can get away with
heinous actions influences the actions they take.
when
irish eyes are smiling…..
But don’t stop there on your Irish
journey!
James Joyce-the father of “stream of consciousness” -A
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Frank McCourt-the man who does not know how to use
punctuation -‘Tis, Angela’s Ashes
Cecelia Ahern-a fresh voice in women’s fiction -P.
S. I Love You
John Boyne-historical fiction also on film -The Boy
in the Striped Pajamas
Maeve Binchy-known for her humorous take on small-town
Irish life-Circle of Friends
And many, many more!
~ READ! It
feeds the mind! ~
