July Selection

Marta has selected Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill for our July discussion. The genre is fantasy/fable/fairy tale.

From the publisher's web site:

The publication of Joe Hill’s beautifully textured, deliciously scary debut novel Heart-Shaped Box was greeted with the sort of overwhelming critical acclaim that is rare for a work of skin-crawling supernatural terror. It was cited as a Best Book of the Year by Atlanta magazine, the Tampa Tribune, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, and the Village Voice, to name but a few. Award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling Neil Gaiman of The Sandman, The Graveyard Book, and Anansi Boys fame calls Joe Hill’s story of a jaded rock star haunted by a ghost he purchased on the internet, “relentless, gripping, powerful.” Open this Heart-Shaped Box from two-time Bram Stoker Award-winner Hill if you dare and see what all the well-deserved hoopla is about. 

Judas Coyne is a collector of the macabre: a cookbook for cannibals . . . a used hangman's noose . . . a snuff film. An aging death-metal rock god, his taste for the unnatural is as widely known to his legions of fans as the notorious excesses of his youth. But nothing he possesses is as unlikely or as dreadful as his latest purchase, an item he discovered on the Internet: I will sell my stepfather's ghost to the highest bidder . . . For a thousand dollars, Jude has become the owner of a dead man's suit, said to be haunted by a restless spirit. But what UPS delivers to his door in a black heart-shaped box is no metaphorical ghost, no benign conversation piece. Suddenly the suit's previous owner is everywhere: behind the bedroom door . . . seated in Jude's restored Mustang . . . staring out from his widescreen TV. Waiting—with a gleaming razor blade on a chain dangling from one hand . . .

The Book Snobs gathered at Marta's house on Monday, July 29. Marta served home made Mexican food that was outstanding.

August 2012 Selection

Marta will host in August as the Snobs discuss all three books of the Fifty Shades Trilogy.

The Book Snobs Gathering

Marta's Home
Tuesday, August 28, 6:30 p.m.
Watch your email for details.

Marta served appetizers and wine followed by chicken stir fry. Dessert was delicious chewy brownies and vanilla ice cream.

The meeting room was accessorized with handcuffs and other appropriate accoutrement. Our hostess also gave door prizes which required the Snobs to answer questions about their own love lives, anonymously, of course. We also answered which character in the book we most identified with.

This trilogy was a very interesting set of books for discussion. It caused us to stretch our limits and let down our guards in discussing the relationship between Anastasia and Christian and many of the other characters. Topics of discussion included lifestyle choices including BDSM and sexual abuse of children. We discussed the reasons for Christian's sexual proclivities and for Anastasia's submission. All in all, we had a lot of fun discussing these books.

September 2011 Selection

Marta selected Life Expectancy by Dean Koontz as the September selection for the Book Snobs.

From the author's web site:

With his bestselling blend of nail-biting intensity, daring artistry, and storytelling magic, Dean Koontz returns with an emotional roller coaster of a tale filled with enough twists, turns, shocks, and surprises for ten ordinary novels. Here is the story of five days in the life of an ordinary man born to an extraordinary legacy—a story that will challenge the way you look at good and evil, life and death, and everything in between.

Jimmy Tock comes into the world on the very night his grandfather leaves it. As a violent storm rages outside the hospital, Rudy Tock spends long hours walking the corridors between the expectant fathers’ waiting room and his dying father’s bedside. It’s a strange vigil made all the stranger when, at the very height of the storm’s fury, Josef Tock suddenly sits up in bed and speaks coherently for the first and last time since his stroke.

What he says before he dies is that there will be five dark days in the life of his grandson—five dates whose terrible events Jimmy will have to prepare himself to face. The first is to occur in his twentieth year; the second in his twenty-third year; the third in his twenty-eighth; the fourth in his twenty-ninth; the fifth in his thirtieth.

Rudy is all too ready to discount his father’s last words as a dying man’s delusional rambling. But then he discovers that Josef also predicted the time of his grandson’s birth to the minute, as well as his exact height and weight, and the fact that Jimmy would be born with syndactyly—the unexplained anomaly of fused digits—on his left foot. Suddenly the old man’s predictions take on a chilling significance.

What terrifying events await Jimmy on these five dark days? What nightmares will he face? What challenges must he survive? As the novel unfolds, picking up Jimmy’s story at each of these crisis points, the path he must follow will defy every expectation. And with each crisis he faces, he will move closer to a fate he could never have imagined. For who Jimmy Tock is and what he must accomplish on the five days when his world turns is a mystery as dangerous as it is wondrous—a struggle against an evil so dark and pervasive, only the most extraordinary of human spirits can shine through.

The Book Snobs Gathering:

Marta hosted the Book Snobs Gathering at her home on Monday, September 26. She served delicious stuffed chicken breasts for dinner. The highlight of the meal was definitely the array of desserts. She  served creme puffs, cupcakes, and pan de polvo. All were homemade and delicious in keeping with the book's main character's career as a pastry chef.

We discussed what it would be like to know when something bad was about to happen in your life. We also discussed how at times the premise of this book seemed somewhat contrived and how sometimes it was the days leading up to the "bad days" that seemed worse. Everyone expressed frustration with how things just seemed to go on and on with one bad thing after another.

Everyone agreed that this book was one we would not ordinarily have read, but enjoyed mostly because it was different form our usual choices.

September 2010 Selection

Marta has selected the Education of Harriet Hatfield from the Banned Books genre.

Wild Rumpus Books summarizes, "Harriet Hatfield begins a new life at the age of 60 after her lover of 30 years has died and left her comfortably well off. But when Harriet opens a bookstore for women in a blue-collar neighborhood of Boston, she is viciously attacked for her lesbianism. Ms. Sarton's powerful portrayal of the shy, reserved woman's battle becomes a moving statement about the place of the outsider in our world-and the necessity of following the human heart."

The Book Snobs Gathering

Marta hosted the Snobs gathering on Monday, September 27. She served sandwich wraps, pasta salad and a variety of cheeses followed by yummy peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream.

The Education of Harriet Hatfield was an excellent book for discussion. The book was banned from high schools because of it's frank portrayal of homosexuality and the widespread AIDS paranoia of the 1980's. We discussed the changes in societal perceptions of homosexuality. We also talked about the characters in this book and the role that each of them played in developing Harriet's character. One of the final questions of the evening was whether we would allow or teenagers to read this book and whether we would also want it banned. The consensus was that we would definitely allow our own teens to read it, but would need to be ready to answer questions and guide discussions with them.

November 2009 Selection

Maggie and Ira Moran have been married for 28 years–and it shows: in their quarrels, in their routines, in their ability to tolerate with affection each other’s eccentricities. Maggie, a kooky, lovable meddler and an irrepressible optimist, wants nothing more than to fix her son’s broken marriage. Ira is infuriatingly practical, a man “who should have married Ann Landers.” And what begins as a day trip to a funeral becomes an adventure in the unexpected. As Maggie and Ira navigate the riotous twists and turns, they intersect with an assorted cast of eccentrics–and rediscover the magic of the road called life and the joy of having somebody next to you to share the ride . . . bumps and all.

Breathing Lessons was chosen by Marta for the Pulitzer Prize Winner genre.

The Book Snobs Gathering
Marta hosted The Snobs on Monday, November 30.  She served a delicious homemade Cream of Chicken Soup with homemade bread and a wide choice of wines.   Dessert was warm Chocolate Lava Cake.

Discussion centered on Maggie's role in creating her own life and the impact she had on her children and husband.

March 2009 Selection

The March 2009 selection is Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt. 

Never before in the history of publishing has a fiction or non-fiction book spent as much time on The New York Times Bestseller List as Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.   This book reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, it is actually a magical non-fiction rendering of a secluded and hauntingly beautiful city in which an infamous murder took place.  The book contains one beguiling and outrageous story after another--all true--in which Berendt offers up a rogue's gallery of true-life rascals, eccentrics and proper society folk who live behind the stately facades of Savannah's grandest houses.

This book was selected by Marta for the "Crime" genre.

The Book Snobs Gathering
The Snobs gathered at Marta's home on Monday, April 6th for dinner and discussion.  Marta served a delicious classically southern dinner of home fried chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, corn on the cob and hot rolls.For dessert we enjoyed peach cobbler and vanilla ice cream.  We were greeted with "graveside" martinis and piano music to set the mood.  The group was small, but, as always, the discussion was interesting.  Discussion centered around whether Jim was guilty of murder or not.  We also focused on the characters in this non-fiction book and how their lives were and were not linked.  Everyone present agreed that the Lady Chablis was the favorite character in this story.