Add to Book Lists

I want to add two books to Xihu’s list:《沙漠之花》和《雪花与密扇》

Dessert Flower
Snow Flower and Secret Fan

These are two fascinating and easy to read books, 《Dessert Flower》is talking about African ritual female genital mutilation. 《Snow Flower and Secret Fan》about Chinese Women foot binding, both are involved in women’s fate, struggle for freedom, a heartbreaking and beautiful story. The only difference is first one is a biography and second one is a novel.

读《简 · 奥斯丁书友会》by 菲儿

Thanks for Liana's profound lecture, Xihu's insight and every one's comments, I have learned a lot from you, here comes my sharing of Jane Austen Book Club.
I am glad to live in Bloomington, appreciate book club and am proud of our group!

Karen Joy Fowler新出版的小说《简·奥斯丁书友会》（The Jane Austen Book Club）在主题与技巧上都沿袭了十八世纪著名女作家简奥斯丁的特色，连书名都是她的名字。 一如简·奥斯丁的小说侧重于女性的家庭生活及婚嫁是否决定你的命运等主题，Karen Joy Fowler也在小说中探讨了婚姻，家庭，妇女的地位等女性关心的问题，唯一不同的是《简·奥斯丁书友会》将每部奥斯丁小说的主题与阅读奥斯丁小说的人们融合在一起，将镜面外的人与镜子深处的人纠合在一起。时代的变迁并未使这些问题弱化，反而更让这些命题引起人们的关注。
小说的硬皮封面是代表了小说中六个人的六把椅子，每一把椅子都有一个他们自己的故事。这个在加州由五个女性和一个男性组成的奥斯丁读书会，在每月一次的相聚中开始讨论奥斯丁的每一部小说。Karen Joy Fowler的小说将六个人生活中的爱情，友情与亲情，背叛，孤独与冲突及父母子女间的沟通，离异和独身，同性恋等敏感问题统统串在了一起，他们各自生活中的困境和他们以读书会的形式聚集在一起的安逸形成一种反差，出于对现实逃避，他们试图在奥斯丁小说中寻求答案，在作者刻意安排下，六个月的读书会使他们每个人的命运微妙地发生变化。。。。
Jocylyn 是读书会的会长，五十出头，如同奥斯丁小说《艾玛》中的艾玛乐于助人婚配，但Jocylyn却从没有结过婚。在读书会中结识了本想为失意女友Sylvia安排的Grigg，但结果自己却和Grigg走到了一起。
Sylvia正处在丈夫闹婚变的痛苦中， 和Sylvia有着近四十年友情的Jocylyn为了帮助她度过这段困难的时期组织了这个读书会，和其它被抛弃的妇女不同，Sylvia的丈夫Dianel最终意识到Sylvia的宝贵，回到了Sylvia身边。

Allegra 是Sylvia和Dianel的女儿，一个同性恋者。她受了她那百败百战的性伴侣的伤害，一度消沉万分，不过最终还是回到了伴侣的身边，有了个团圆。作为父母的Sylvia 和Dianel并不能左右她的选择，这恰好也是当今一个关于同性恋的热门议题。
Prutie 是一个高中法语女教师，唯一一个在婚也有一个不失为成功的婚姻，但也许她在心底里对婚姻有着更多的期盼，可谁又能百分之百地对自己的婚姻感到满意呢？读书会的六个多月，让她心中对母亲那不能释怀的结在慢慢松开，难道不能原谅一个已经过世的老人体恤曾是一个二十多岁单身母亲的难处？
Benadette 六十七岁，是她们中年纪最大的，因沉浸在“老我”中，无法自拔，一度宣布自己不再照镜子，却在读书会六个月中找到了“新我”，也有了数次婚姻后最终的归宿。
Grigg 是他们中唯一的男性，年幼时受四个姐姐的庇荫，成年后仍受姐姐的影响，他和年长他十多岁的Jocylyn的相处与简·奥斯丁小说崇尚的老夫少妻大相径庭，不过谁又能说现代的Grigg和Jocylyn一定不能幸福呢？
Karen Joy Fowler的小说还再现了奥斯汀的喜剧风格，她对书中人物不乏调侃，嬉笑，以她特有的方式对他们进行善意的嘲讽，适度的讽喻中更倾注了她对人物的关爱。一个读书会的朋友说，《简·奥斯丁书友会》里没有她真正喜爱的人物，让她难以从中受到什么正面的激励，确实，六个主人公都不太具备令人向往让人迷恋的完美，相反你会看到不少人性的弱点和黑暗，不过，这并不影响小说对人物的塑造，却反而让他们更具有代表性和真实性，如同小时开头所言，每个人都有他们自己的简·奥斯丁。。。。
另一个让我去读《简·奥斯丁书友会》的原因是作家Karen Joy Fowler出生于美国印地安那州的布鲁明顿市，也就是我现在住的城市。

An Evening Well Spent

Well, my fellow Yoyo bookish ladies,

Last night’s meeting, marked by vivid story telling and lovely discussion went on pretty well. Many thanks to our two eloquent presenters and to those who asked questions and filled in the details, especially to our gracious host, whose beautiful home setting enhanced our spirit.

Here are some of my observations I’d like to share with you. Please bear with me if you find them un-agreeable.

• To make book club more successful, we need everyone’s involvement and participation. It is essential for presenter to provide some information long before the meeting, so that our listeners will get well prepared and have something to contribute at the meeting.
  
• Which naturally leads to my next observation, it seems to me there is not enough time left for discussion.
  
  Three ways to solve this:
  

1. Better time management: Presenters are encouraged to keep your talk concise and within time limits. Your role is to make short introduction of the book and to stimulate discussion. Perhaps rehearse a bit before the meeting to see how long your talk will last.
   
2. One presenter instead of two: no more worry of running over time and leave enough time for disscussion (brilliant idea, not mine thought)
3. Longer hours: Prolong our meeting from 2 hours to 2.5 hours.
   
   What do you think?

My 2 cents

After The Old Man and Sea, and Waiting we need more books to choose from. Here are my suggestions for reading: The five books below are relatively short and easy to read. Some of them I regard very highly.

1. Into the Wild http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Wild -- A movie will be out 2007.
2. The Kite Runner http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kite_Runner -- 雪 recommended it highly to us -- A movie will be out 2007.
3. A Thousand Splendid Suns http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Thousand_Splendid_Suns
4. Reading Lolita in Tehran http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Lolita_in_Tehran
5. The thirteenth Tale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirteenth_Tale_(novel)
Click on this and click again and again untill you get this cool site http://www.thethirteenthtale.com/ -- Thanks to 竹林子's brilliant idea on audio book, we found and checked from MCPL the Thirteenth Tale on CD. We took it on our trip to Colorado. It was a welcome surprise during our otherwise a long and boring 2 days drive along I-70 west.

Next Meeting

Hi, congrats to us all for a fabulous start. And a special thank you to Xihu for all her selfless efforts and thougtful guidance, leading us to a better road and a higher ground!

Read a Chinese couplet last night, and I think it is relevant:

鱼无水则鳞枯，人无书则神索

Now, back to the topic of our next meeting:

I am enjoying reading what Xihu recommended, Jane Austen Book Club. I hope to finish it by this coming Sunday so whoever is interested in a quick read can borrow it from Xihu. I will bring it with me when we see each other on Sunday.

Xihu had done a great introduction of this book, and I thought I could follow it up by relaying some of the stories (very contemporary) to you. So, a book club story to our book club members, for 15 min or 20 min.

Here's a link that might be of interest some of you.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Cll6AAAACAAJ&dq=jane+austen+book+club

7月30日--第一次活动

1。自我介绍 -- "To read or not to read" 是一个严肃的命题。答卷还令人满意.

• 读书是获取间接经验的桥梁



• 行万里路，读万卷书的目标



• 少女的憧憬，残酷的现实，幻想的破灭



• 文学的禁锢，精神的饥渴



• 每人都有《青春之歌》



• Every book is created equal



• 书中有做人的道理；读书是消遣的活动

2。追风筝的人 -- Khaled Hosseini, Spinning Tales of a Faraway Home

• 菲儿review

3。The Jane Austen Book Club

• Who is Jane Austen -- Appeal of Jane Austen to morden readers --A Banner year for Jane Austen
• There's something about Jane
• If you want to read all her works on line click here.

热烈祝贺悠游读书会成立！

哇，侠女们突然该走性感路线啦！文武双全的侠女更诱人哦。祝悠游读书会越办越红火！！！