Books # 2

Back when I started this blog, I promised to periodically write about books.  The first and last time I did that was May 2010.  Now a fellow blogger (Trilla) has written about books she's read and books clubs she belongs to and I am motivated to do the same.

Jane Austen books and cyclamen

I am often asked about the Jane Austen Society.  I belonged to the Jane Austen Society when I lived in St. Louis, and joined the book club when we moved here.  People often ask how we can discuss Austen's six novels year after year.  I really can't answer that except to say that once we start planning for the coming year around August or September, the ideas just keep popping up. In 2012, we had George Justice come and discuss his editing of Norton's Critical Edition of Emma. During the summer we had a 'picnic at Box Hill,' in a member's lovely cool, green backyard, as did Emma.  Of course, her idyll was on a hill in the English countryside.  Later in the year, Michael Yonan gave a power point presentation on works of art in the era of Jane Austen.  This year, 2013, is the 200th year since the publication of Pride and Prejudice.  Haskell, Professor Emeritus of English Literature, led our book discussion in January.  We lovingly re-read and argued our favorite epigramisms (general truths and small morals) and famous sayings found in the book.  The best known of these is the opening sentence:  "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." 

George makes a point during refreshments and conversation.

Next month we are going to view the 1940 Hollywood version of Pride and Prejudice with Laurence Oliviere and Greer Garson.  In June, we are entertaining Bettina Harvig, who will talk about Jane Austen quilts, and in September Michael Yonan (again) will talk to us about the architecture of the houses in Austen novels.  I can't go into every meeting we've had or will have here, but would like to end by saying that 2013 is the 25th anniversary of this club.


Julie plays  Austen's 'piano' selections.

My Kindle in the upper right corner, the Vermeer Essentials (left)
and Brunelleschi's Dome
which I hope to share at the next TARTS meeting. 

Another group that I enjoy is TARTS. (Sorry, I really can't remember what the letters stand for.) It is composed of docents from the Museum of Art and Archaeology.  We meet the first Monday of every month at a local cafe to share books or magazine articles we think will interest the group.  This last month I brought little book called The Essential Johannes Vermeer, by Christopher Sweet which I use in conjunction with the Kindle book, Vermeer's Hat:  The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World.  Since no illustrations were included with the Kindle version, I refer to The Essential...Vermeer to examine objects Vermeer included in his paintings that reflected the rise of a prosperous merchant class in the Netherlands as Dutch ships traveled to the East Indies and China to bring back spices and Chinese porcelain.  Another member (coincidentally) brought The Embarrassment of Riches, by Simon Schama (800 pages) detailing the Golden Age of Dutch dominance in Europe.  In one excerpt the diarist, Samuel Pepys, complains that he had to wade knee deep through cloves as he made his way through the hold of a captured Dutch ship.  Poor thing!  Must get that book!  Once again, I can't go into detail about all the wonderful books we share.  One or two on Gothic cathedrals, the Renaissance...  They make me hungry for more, more!

The third book group, called The Red Tent (a Biblical reference),  is our church women's book club, although most of the books we read are not particularly religious.  Our name was taken from Anita Diamant's book, The Red Tent, the first book we read several years ago when the group began.  This year we began by reading Hemingway's A Movable Feast, and The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain.  After reading these two books,  we were all ready to go to Paris.  The Night Circus, by Erin Morganstern brought us into a strange world of magic.  I especially enjoy this group because it has many younger women in it, and there are not too many groups that have a mixture of ages.  Mothers and daughters sometimes come together, and a number of the women are the ages of my grown sons.  Every spring we bring snacks to the A-frame at Les Bourgeois Vineyard about 15 miles out of town, buy wine to drink, eat and suggest books for the fall.  These suggestions are then voted on by email and our reading list is ready.

A book I've read for my own delight is The Violinist's Thumb:  And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code, by Sam Kean.  It is amusing as well as informative.  Two other interesting books in the art field are Caveat Emptor:  The Secret Life of an American Art Forger, by Ken Perenyi and Brunelleschi's Dome, by Ross King.  The first book gives one an appreciation for the step by step technology involved in preparing the canvas and creating a painting.  It is an exciting read as well.  The second book gives one a breathtaking glimpse of life and work in the Renaissance as workers climb the equivalent of a 40 story building each morning to work on Brunelleschi's cupola on the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral in Florence.  Brunelleschi not only conceived of his dome constructed without wooden centering, but designed machines to lift tons of marble and sandstone to the roof.  His ideas for transporting this stone to the building site were not so successful. 

This post is a bit longer than I expected, and I have already told my three friends who generally follow my blog something about what I read.  So my apologies to them for any redundancies. 
I would say that the main business of all three of my book groups is the delight we take in our friendships, as well as having an excuse to get together and talk about the books we love.  May we all continue to read and share our thoughts!