December 2008 Archives

We met at lunch on Monday, Dec. 1.  The only ones who had read the book, The Lightning Thief, were Ms. Tyler and Mrs. Barnes!  Ms. Tyler gave a quick summary and told everyone it doesn't take long to read--if you like Harry Potter, you'll like this!  We decided to take another stab at it for January and have another chance to read The Lightning Thief--if you have time during the holidays, you can even move on to the sequels, The Sea of Monsters, The Titan's Curse, and The Battle of the Labyrinth.  The library has several copies of the first book and at least one copy of the others.  We'll meet in January on the 12th, since the first Monday we'll just be getting back from vacation.  See you then! 

We met on Thursday, Nov. 20--a week early because of Thanksgiving.  We talked about Books 3 and 4, and the differences between the two main translations (such as the chapter headings "Lacerations" vs. "Strains") and how there are several love/relationship triangles in the story.  Father Zossima comes out with more wisdom and everyone is expecting there to be a miracle when he dies.  Some questions arose:  Why do women seem to like the bad guys instead of the nice guys?  Is Fyodor the father of Smerdyakov?   How can a father and son both love the same woman?  Not a pleasant thought.

The incident where the schoolboys are throwing rocks at each other is going to turn into a bigger part of the story later on--we'll understand better why the smaller boy was so angry and bit Alyosha when he was only trying to help him.

The guys decided we could read more of the book over the Christmas holidays than we originally planned--so we'll read Books 5-8 for our January 29 meeting.  Then we may be able to finish the book in February--to be determined by the guys in the group.