February 17 Selection

Lisa has selected The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure as our first selection for 2014.

About the Author from Amazon


Charles Belfoure is an author and architect who lives in Westminster, Maryland. A graduate of the Pratt Institute and Columbia University, his practice is in historic preservation working as both an architect and historic preservation consultant with a a specialty in historic tax credit consulting. He has written architectural histories including being the co-author of The Baltimore Rowhouse and Niernsee & Neilson, Architects of Baltimore, the author of Monuments to Money: The Architecture of American Banks, and Edmund Lind, Anglo-American Architect of Baltimore and the South. He was the recipient of a grant from the James Marston Fitch Charitable Foundation and the Graham Foundation. His books have won awards from the Maryland Historical Trust. The Paris Architect is his first novel.

About the Book from Powell's Books

In 1942 Paris, gifted architect Lucien Bernard accepts a commission that will bring him a great deal of money — and maybe get him killed. But if he's clever enough, he'll avoid any trouble. All he has to do is design a secret hiding place for a wealthy Jewish man, a space so invisible that even the most determined German officer won't find it. He sorely needs the money, and outwitting the Nazis who have occupied his beloved city is a challenge he can't resist. But when one of his hiding spaces fails horribly, and the problem of where to hide a Jew becomes terribly personal, Lucien can no longer ignore what's at stake. The Paris Architect asks us to consider what we owe each other, and just how far we'll go to make things right.

The Book Snobs Gathering

The Book Snobs will gather at Lisa's home on Monday, February 17. 

June 2012 Selection

Lisa has selected The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles as our book for June 2012. This selection is part of our year of choosing a bestseller from the year of the hostess' birth. The French Lieutenant's Woman was published in 1969.

From Good Reads:

In this contemporary, Victorian-style novel Charles Smithson, a nineteenth-century gentleman with glimmerings of twentieth-century perceptions, falls in love with enigmatic Sarah Woodruff, who has been jilted by a French lover.

Of all John Fowles' novels The French Lieutenant's Woman received the most universal acclaim and today holds a very special place in the canon of post-war English literature. From the god-like stance of the nineteenth-century novelist that he both assumes and gently mocks, to the last detail of dress, idiom and manners, his book is an immaculate recreation of Victorian England.

Not only is it the epic love story of two people of insight and imagination seeking escape from the cant and tyranny of their age, The French Lieutenant's Woman is also a brilliantly sustained allegory of the decline of the twentieth-century passion for freedom.

The Book Snobs Gathering

The Snobs met at Lisa's home on Monday, June 25, for dinner and discussion of The French Lieutenant's Woman. We enjoyed a build-your-own baked potato bar for dinner.

Only about half of the members actually finished this book. We agreed that it was a difficult read. Discussion centered mostly on the fact that John Fowles offered three alternate endings for his lengthy novel. Some of us found that extremely frustrating and felt like, as an author, it should have been Mr. Fowles responsibility to decide how his novel ended. He should not have left it up to the reader to decide. It was odd how he spoke in asides to the reader insinuating that his characters had lives of their own and made different decisions than he intended.

October 2011 Selection

Lisa's hostess choice selection is for October 2011 is Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese.

From Abraham Verghese's web site:

The story is a riveting saga of twin brothers, Marion and Shiva Stone, born of a tragic union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa. Orphaned by their mother's death in childbirth and their father's disappearance, and bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. But it's love, not politics -- their passion for the same woman -- that will tear them apart and force Marion to flee his homeland and make his way to America, finding refuge in his work at an underfunded, overcrowded New York City hospital. When the past catches up to him, wreaking havoc and destruction, Marion has to entrust his life to the two men he has trusted least in the world: the surgeon father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him.

The Book Snobs Gathering:

Monday
October 24
6:30 p.m. 
Watch your email for details.

October 2010 Selection

Lisa has selected Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez as the October selection from the world literature genre.

Shelfari says "In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career he whiles away the years in 622 affairs--yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again. With humorous sagacity and consummate craft, García Márquez traces an exceptional half-century story of unrequited love. Though it seems never to be conveniently contained, love flows through the novel in many wonderful guises--joyful, melancholy, enriching, ever surprising."

The Book Snobs Gathering

The Snobs gathered at Lisa's home on Tuesday, October 26. The Snobs enjoyed dinner of salad and King Ranch Casserole accompanied by a variety of wines. Dessert was delicious banana cream pie.

Most of the Snobs did not actually finish reading Love in the Time of Cholera. Discussion centered around the obsessive love of Florentino Ariza for Fermina Daza and his long series of affairs. We also discussed how he described himself as faithful to her in spite of those affairs. We all wondered what Oprah was thinking when she selected this as one of her favorite books. Most, if not all of the Snobs, strongly disagreed.

January 2010 Selection

The Wednesday Letters is the story of Jack and Laurel.  Married 39 years, the Coopers lived a good life and appear to have had a near-perfect relationship.  Then one night, with his wife cradled in his arms, and before Jack takes his last breath, he scribbles his final "Wednesday Letter."   When their three adult children arrive to arrange the funeral, they discover boxes and boxes full of love letters that their father wrote to their mother on every single Wednesday.  As they begin to open and read the letters, the children uncover unimaginable adventures and the shocking truth about their past.   The Wednesday Letters has a powerful message about redemption and forgiveness.  And it just might inspire you to begin writing your own Wednesday Letters.

This book was chosen by Lisa for the "Realistic Fiction" genre.

The Snobs Gathering
The Snobs gathered at Lisa's home for a "wake" in memory of Jack and Laurel Cooper on Monday, January 25.  The Snobs enjoyed a dinner reminiscent of a typical family funeral meal.  Mourners dined on fried chicken, chicken pot pie, twice baked potatoes and chocolate cake.

The Snobs enjoyed their usual enthusiastic discussion.  We talked about each of the main characters and discussed the effect that secrets, often revealed after a loved one's death, can have on those who survive.

It was a lively and enjoyable evening of food, wine and discussion.

April 2009 Selection

Some women are addicted to shopping, others can't get enough of champagne. Some like to curl up with a good book and others want a night out on the town. But there's just one thing Lucy Lombard can't live without and that's chocolate - rich, creamy, sweet, delicious chocolate.

For her there's no substitute. There's nothing it won't cure, from heartache to a headache, and she's not alone. Sharing her passion are three other addicts: Autumn, Nadia and Chantal. Together they form a select group known as The Chocolate Lovers' Club. Whenever there's a crisis, they meet in their sanctuary, a café called Chocolate Heaven, and with a cheating boyfriend, who promises he'll change; a flirtatious boss; a gambling husband and a loveless marriage, there's always plenty to discuss...

By turns hilarious and heart-rending, The Chocolate Lovers' Club brings together four unforgettable women from totally different worlds united in their passion for chocolate.

The Chocolate Lovers' Club was selected by Lisa for the Food genre. 

The Book Snobs Gathering

The Snobs gathered at Lisa's house on Monday, April 27 for chocolate and discussion.  Saying we had chocolate is more than an understatement. Lisa put together a chocolate buffet, nay a chocolate feast!  There was chocolate pudding, chocolate cookies, many varieties of chocolate candies and a chocolate fountain with fruit, pretzels and marshmallows for dipping.  There were also chocolate biscuits and fruit, yogurt and granola.  The centerpiece of the buffet was a delicious chocolate fudge praline cake.  And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the chocolate martinis.  Oh, yeah, we had a chicken salad too.  Discussion was lively and a lot of fun.  We laughed a lot as we discussed such topics as what kind of chocolate we would be and how the characters in the book didn't seem to gain weight even though they ate chocolate almost constantly. It's about 24 hours later, and I'm just now regaining consciousness from my chocolate coma.  We all agreed that we should open our own "Chocolate Heaven" in our town.