BEACH ROAD by James Patterson

The SAZCB Book Club just read and met over BEACH ROAD by James Patterson.

Tom Dunleavy has a one-man law firm in East Hampton, but his principal clients make a living serving the rich. The billionaires swarming the beaches already have lawyers on their payroll. Then a friend of his is arrested for a triple murder near a mansion. Tom knows in his gut that his friend is innocent, and he asks him to represent him. Tom recruits a super-lawyer who is his ex-girlfriend, but she agrees to help. In their search to find who really killed the three locals, Tom orchestrates a series of revelations to expose the killer.

Everyone in our club liked it, both men and women. If you like a good mystery and
surprises and who-dun-its, this will be for you. Most of the group feels that this is one of the best James Patterson books that they have ever read.

It’s available in Daisy format from Bookshare, on tape or cartridge from the Talking Book Library, and from BARD. On Saturday November 19 at 1:30 Arizona time we’ll talk about Tony Hillerman’s THE BLESSING WAY. Write me if you want more details.

Dame Julie Elizabeth Andrews Edwards

HOME: A MEMOIR OF MY EARLY YEARS, by Julie Andrews

I am really looking forward to reading this book. She has been a favorite of mine for a long time but I have never read anything about her. I have heard that this is a book that goes back to when she was first getting started, so it will be enjoyable for me. I hope. Two weeks from now is when the book club meets and I’ll get to see what everyone else thinks about it.

From her web site: Dame Julie Elizabeth Andrews Edwards has received Golden Globe, Emmy, Grammy, People's Choice, Theater World, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award honors. She has starred in Broadway musicals such as My Fair Lady and Camelot, as well as musical films like Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music.

THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE by Ken Follett

The last book we read in the book club was THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE by Ken Follett. It had a very mixed reaction there on who liked and who did not like this book. We are trying to bring in more books that men will enjoy and we will continue to do that. There was much death in this one but because of it being about war and spies you had to expect that. Of course many did not like it, but a few liked it very much and got a lot out of it.

The next book up is an autobiography about Julie Andrews’ early years in show business. It’s titled: HOME, A MEMOIR OF MY EARLY YEARS. We are all looking forward to that one and will bring it up at the next book club meeting on September 10th.

I am looking very forward to reading the next Sue Grafton book: V IS FOR VENGEANCE and that one is coming out on November 14th.

Mitzi

From Ken Follett’s web site: “It is 1944 and weeks before D-Day. The Allies are disguising their invasion plans with a phony armada of ships and planes. Their plan would be scuppered if an enemy agent found out, and then, Hitler's prize agent, “The Needle”, does just that. Hunted by MI5, he leads a murderous trail across Britain to a waiting U-Boat. But he hasn't planned for a storm-battered island, and the remarkable young woman who lives there.”

The Cedar Cove Series of Debbie Macomber

One of my new favorite authors now is Debbie Macomber. She’s been on the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and USA Today bestseller lists combined over 140 times.

There are 10 novels and a cookbook in Debbie Macomber's Cedar Cove Series, a humorous romantic genre about ordinary women in a small town. She has a good sense of humor that can be appreciated by young, middle aged, and older readers. her books jump among vignettes every 15 minutes or so, but all these different people are acquainted and the novels keep the core story intact.

These are the series books with their library numbers.
16 Lighthouse Road: RC055515
204 Rosewood Lane: RC055516
311 Pelican Court: DB57922
44 Cranberry Point: DB59237
50 Harbor Street: DB61163
6 Rainier Drive: DB63684
74 Seaside Avenue: DB65373
8 Sandpiper Way: DB67608
92 Pacific Boulevard: DB70205
1022 Evergreen Place: DB72330
Cedar Cove Cookbook: DB71541
1105 Yakima Street: not yet available

Just one more thing: on ths Cedar Cove web site there’s “a virtual Cedar Cove Scavenger Hunt to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Debbie Macomber's Cedar Cove series.“

Those Happy Golden Years

Our book club picked Laura Wilder's Those Happy Golden Years for the talk this month. It was unanimous! We all really liked it. Of course, the book is a lot different from the show.

If you like books that take you back about 100 years in all and how they did things you will really like this one. If you were a fan of the Little House on the Prairie television series you should give this book a try.

Mitzi

A Book Club Book

I just finished Those Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I love old time books a lot and this is one that really takes you back, and if you like that type of thing you will really enjoy this book. As someone who grew up listening to the “Little House on the Prairie” television show, I was a bit surprised at how different the book is from that show, especially in how differently portrayed the characters were.

Mitzi

Another Series of Humorous Novels

One of my favorite authord these days is Janet Evanovich, so I was checking out some books she co-authored with Charlotte Hughes. They worked together on a series of six novels called the FULL series, and they'e just about as funny as the Stephanie Plum series.

The reading flow seems to point to the series going on after the sixth book, but there are no more mentioned and the Hughes web site is stale by two years. The only sour point I saw in this group was with the readers. The first four books were read by Colleen Delany, a very good reader who inflected well and who changed voice for each character. The last two were read by another good reader who just didn't follow the style of Delany.

By themselves, the last two were fine, but the first reader set the bar high.

The books are Full House, Full Tilt, Full Speed, Full Blast, Full Bloom, and Full Scoop.

Mitzi

Interested in starting a book club?

If you’re interested in starting a book club you need to get with the rest of the people who might find starting a club to be a good idea, and discuss the different types of books you might all find readable. There’ll be a lot of give-and-take there because nobody likes exactly what any other person likes, so be prepared to have a wide range of titles suggested.

Talking Books has over 70,000 titles to choice from. One important thing is to see how many copies they have of that book. The newer best sellers have more copies. The people in the group who find it easy to use their computers can download from BARD, but many don’t, so call them when you have chosen a book to check availability.

It is helpful to have at least a six month schedule if you can, so each time you meet for your current book discussion you can agree on one more book to add and then you will always be 6 months ahead. That just really helps if you are adding in new members plus you just know upcoming books that way. That also gives people time to propose picking a different book if you’ve just selected a read dog.

At our club everyone comes up with at least one question or comment. It helps get the talking going about the book.

Next month we’re going to be talking about These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder. That follows Olive Kitteridge, To Kill A Mockingbird, and My Sister’s Keeper, so you can see we jump around a bit.

Mitzi

Book Clubs views on Olive Kittredge book by Elizabeth Strout

Well, our book club met and talked about this book. Interestingly, not one person finished the book and not one person liked it. That’s all.

Schwan’s lemon pie.

For those of you who love lemon: I was visiting my Mom in the White Mountains this last weekend and had a Schwan’s lemon pie and it was great. It has the gram cracker crust that I also love. If you get Schwan’s you have to try it. 

I also just found out that now and I guess it has been for awhile they have a delivery charge of $1. 

If you do want to get Schwan’s or already have it they also send you email letting you know your delivery date and they are great about just giving them a call and ordering right over the phone. 

Reminder they have Braille catalogs! www.schwans.com, or 1-800 724-9627, or 1-888-SCHWANS  

Mitzi

Olive Kitteridge

The book for our book club this month was Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.

This was not one of our books that I really cared for, I did hear that it was a series of short stories so thought it might be interesting but did not care for it much at all. Olive is a character who is very hard to like. Instead of writing a cohesive story tied together with some continuity and logic,  Strout gives us thirteen erratic short stories with Olive in each of them and leaves it to us to form an opinion of whether we like her or not, or whether we know her or not. Each story tells of a different facet of Olive, and these facets compete with each other for our opinion.

This is not a feel-good book; it has no real humor. I will be very interested in seeing what my book club thought about it. Of course it won a Pulitzer Prize, so who knows...

Patricia Cornwell’s wrote eighteen Kay Scarpetta books, if you don’t count the cook book. BARD has thirteen of them, which is expected because BARD seems to take any series like that and scatter its offerings randomly.

I thought I would try other books of Cornwell’s so I tried the three part Andy Brazil series of Hornet’s Nest, Southern Cross, and Isle of Dogs. Naturally, BARD had only the first and last one. Totally different style of writing and I found myself skipping through it as they go on and on. Was just a bit surprised that I did not like it; I thought it might be similar to the Kay Scarpetta books but it is not.

Sad books and bad movies

For anyone who has not read My Sisters Keeper by Jodi Picoult, it is very well written but sad. From BARD: “When a child is diagnosed with a rare leukemia her parents create test-tube baby Anna to save her life. After years of medical procedures Anna, now thirteen, is expected to donate a kidney. She files for medical legal emancipation and throws the family into a fundamental moral crisis.”

One of the worst movies I have seen in a long time was Paul. It was my son’s birthday last week and it sounded like a movie he would like, and it was showing at the theater in descriptive movie, so I was happy to be able to go see it with my son. No plot really, just a series of sketches and, to me, just a dumb movie.

Want to mention a book that I have enjoyed in the last two months. I have read a lot in the last couple of months and this was my favorite. I really liked The Lucky One. I think that even men would enjoy it. I like other Nicolas Sparks books but am not real crazy with the ones that have a good amount of death in them, especially the one where the main character dies. However, really found this one to be good. It’s available from BARD and Talking Books.

Starting out with Braille

I have been talking to a number of people lately asking if they know Braille. I’m finding that a lot of people start it and don’t pursue it because it’s hard to learn.

They’re mostly correct. It is not the easiest thing to learn, especially if you could see at one time. Even though all it really boils down to is being a new alphabet for their familiar daily language, it seems like it is all a completely new language.

All I can say is keep trying and don't push your self. Just like typing it takes regular and orderly practice. That’s all it takes.

It can be so helpful to you even at the basic Grade One level. Grade One is basically a letter by letter substitution with the printed alphabet. Most text written by others for you to read is Grade Two, which can be thought of as having lots of abbreviations. It puts many common letter combinations and even shorter words into a shorthand that reads faster. You can also think of it as the difference between reading each letter in a word and each word in a sentence verses scanning the sentence and understanding it just as well.

This is a very, very simplified description, but Grade One is the start, and it’s yours. It can help you with being able to label your favorite things, help you write down numbers, and do other little things that will be helpful to you and give you more independence.

Just an opinion on a book

I am really not into books where one of the main characters dies, but I have read a good number of books over the last two months and I think that The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks is a good one. One of those all-around good books that a number of different people would like, just not a good one for guys. I could go into a lot of detail about it but don't want to give anything away.

If someone has read it or does let me know what you think?

Mitzi

Upcoming conventions

The four 2011 ACB & NFB Conventions, both Arizona state and national, are coming up.  Here is some quick info on them.

acB National Convention

The ACB 50th anniversary conference and convention will be in Reno, Nevada from July 8 to 16 at the John Ascuaga Nugget Hotel Resort Casino. Rates are $87 single/double with an additional ten dollars per each additional person in the room. You can make reservations on line or at 800-648-1177 using code GBLIND to get the lower conference rate.

NFB National Convention

Each year the National Federation of the Blind holds its national convention which is traditionally the largest disability conference of its kind. More than 3,000 blind people from across the United States participate. This year's convention will be held in Orlando, Florida, at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort.  Make your room reservation now by calling (866) 996-6338. Preregistration is also now open, so visit www.nfb.org/registration to register for convention and secure your spot at the banquet!

AzCB State Convention

On the theme of “Celebrate our past and Launch our future”, the Arizona Council of the Blind holds its convention April 14 to 16 at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Phoenix. The Scholarship and Awards Banquet will be on Friday evening. The fees, which include Continental Breakfast and Box Lunch, are $20 per member and $30 for non-members if registration is completed by April 1. Remember the price at the door will be $40. Contact Sharon Carpenter by email at carpensharon@yahoo.com or phone her at 602-472-8704.

NFB of Arizona 2011 State Convention

Details are still being worked on for the NFB of Arizona state convention, but we do know that it will be in eastern Maricopa County the first or second weekend In September. More information as soon as we get it or check their site at http://www.az.nfb.org.