Humboldt Reads! Again

Last week we held the dinner and discussion for our most recent Humboldt Reads! book. Humboldt Reads! is a loosely formed book discussion group. Actually, it isn’t formed at all. We don’t have officers, regularly scheduled meetings or anything else resembling the formal format of a club. The library buys several copies of a book. It circulates for some various period of time. Sometimes it’s six weeks sometimes two or three months. When that time is over, we meet at a local restaurant to share dinner and to discuss the book.

Usually almost everyone who attends has read the book, but it isn’t required. There have been a couple of them that even I couldn’t get through. Sometimes I ask the group at one meeting for suggestions about what they would like to read and discuss next time. Sometimes I come across a book that is just full of stuff, good or bad, to talk about and I choose it on my own. It usually ends up that about four or five days before we meet for discussion, I realize that it has been six months or a year since I read the book. Do I remember enough about it to discuss it sensibly? Usually not, so I read it again quickly before the dinner.

The book up for discussion last week was the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. It is the story of the German occupation of the island of Guernsey during World War II. The whole book is comprised of letters written by several different residents. Oddly enough, after the first few letters, the format doesn’t seem at all unusual.

We have the audio version of the book on cd. I haven’t listened to it, but Demi says that the reader’s delightful accent adds to the whole feeling of experiencing a particular place at a particular time in history.

When my daughter and her friends argued about the pronunciation of the name of a character in the first Harry Potter book, none believed me that the correct pronunciation of Hermione is her-my-knee. After listening to couple of minutes of the audio version of the book, their opinion of my intelligence increased dramatically. Goodness knows, mothers aren’t thought to be very clever until the children reach their twenties. I’m rapidly approaching normal intelligence.

I find that I’m tired of reading books twice. I have chosen the next book for Humboldt Reads! based on a review in Library Journal. The title is The Cure for Grief by Nellie Hermann. I get to use my favorite library word again. This book is a bildungsroman, a coming of age novel. It is the story of a young girl, Ruby, and her fractured family and the tragedies that befall it. That’s about all I can say since I haven’t read it yet. We will meet on September 24 at 5:30 at Rustix to discuss it. Come on in, pick up a copy and join us for food, fun and a little book talk.

Previous Humboldt Reads! books in case you missed them!

Two Old Women Rocket Boys The Secret Life of Bees
Horizontal World Three Cups of Tea Light on Snow
The Glass Castle Out of the Dust Pay It Forward
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio Tortilla Flat Rope Walk
My Sister’s Keeper Range of Motion Splendid Solution