Hi everyone, first up, here is the info on our September Book Club meeting & read:
SSCL September Adult Book Club Meeting, Friday, September 10, 2021
Time: 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Location: Large half of Community Room at the library
September Read: Learning To Speak Southern by Lindsey Rogers Cook (288 pages)
Learning To Speak Southern, is available for instant checkout as an eBook and audiobook through Hoopla, as an eBook and audiobook through The Digital Catalog (Libby app/send to Kindle eReader through web version catalog found at https://stls.overdrive.com/ and will be coming to StarCat as a print book shortly.
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Join September Book Club Meeting From Home Via Zoom: If you wish to join the September meeting via Zoom, please let me know at least 24 hours before our September 10 meeting. You can send me an email: REIMERL@STLS.ORG or call me at the library at 607-936-3713 x212
The notes for our July & August Book Club meetings follow.
Have a great day!
Linda Reimer, SSCL
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July Book Club Notes:
Our July Book Club gathering was via Zoom on Friday, July 9, 2021.
Our July read was Searching For Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok.
The cliff notes overview of the story, is that it tells the tale of the extended family of the main character, with an emphasis on the experiences of the main character, Sylvie, and her younger sister Amy.
The story also offers insight into the immigrate experience.
Sylvie and Amy are the daughters of Mr. & Mrs. Lee, who immigrated to the United States from China.
When the sister’s parents arrived in America, referred through in the text as “Ma” and “Pa”, they took manual jobs to make ends meet and money was very tight. So when Sylvie was two years old, they sent her to live with Mrs. Lee’s mother and cousin in the Netherlands ostensibly so she could have a better childhood. During the seven years Sylvie was living in the Netherlands, Amy was born in the U.S.; and being several years younger than Sylvie she was raised as the cosseted baby of the family. Sylvie returns to the U.S. to live with Ma, Pa & Amy when she is nine. The girls then spend the rest of their childhood and early adulthood living together and bonding as sisters.
When the story opens, Amy has taken a break from college, and Sylvie has already graduated from college, is successful in her profession, is married and has just flown to the Netherlands for the first time since she left years before; to visit their dying grandmother.
Not surprisingly, Amy looks up to her successful elder sister who seems to have it all. But of course, Amy’s perspective is that Sylvie has it all – Sylvie does not see herself as being successful and has found it hard to fit in while living in the Netherlands with her grandmother and second cousin’s family, while living with Amy and their parents in New York or, while going to school and working in America.
After Sylvie travels to the Netherlands, she disappears.
And then the story turns into a bit of a coming of age tale, as cosseted Amy now find herself taking charge of the search for Sylvie and uncovering not only what really happened to Sylvie; but answering the in-depth questions of why it happened as well.
The book club attendees at our July meeting enjoyed the book and its different facets and would recommend the read to others. And as only two of our book club members were able to attend the July meeting, I won’t give away the ending of the story by relaying what really happen to Sylvie Lee!
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August Book Club Notes:
Our August Book Club meeting was held at the library from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. on Friday, August 13.
Our August read was: The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan
The Keeper of Lost Things follows three groups of characters. As the book opens readers are introduced to two sets of characters, one set living in the present and one set living forty years in the past. Additionally, a third set of characters is introduced in each of ten short stories, which are interspersed at appropriate points in the book, including at the very beginning of the book, and which relay the story of how the lost things of the title got lost, and were found by Anthony Peardew.
The first group of characters, living in the present day, includes Anthony, a writer of short stories, the keeper of lost things and fiancée of a much loved and lost lady named Theresa, Anthony’s personal assistant Laura, his gardener Freddy and a sensitive teenager neighbor of Anthony’s named Sunshine.
The second group of characters, Eunice and Bomber are introduced living forty years in the past. Their story opens on the same day that Theresa died, with Eunice, who had been unhappy with her job, walking down the street, past the bakery in front of which Theresa died, on her way to a job interview with Bomber. As she walks she discovers a small keepsake on the ground, which she picks up and takes with her. She arrives at the office of a small publishing company, where she meets the owner/publisher Bomber and his canine assistant Douglas. Eunice interviews for the job, Bomber hires her and they become the best of friends, working and taking vacations together for decades.
And the third group of characters, consists of the characters in each short story. The short stories are fascinating as they add backstories for each of the lost and found objects. For example, the second short story focuses on a puzzle piece found in the street. And readers then learn the story of Sisters Maud and Gladys. Maud was a spoiled child who never rose above her self-centered-I-am-the-center-of-the-universe ideology; fortunately, for her family, when she was a young woman she married a rich man and moved away. In contrast, Maud’s sister Gladys was a good girl and a good daughter to their parents, living with them and taking care of them as they aged. Readers learn that when the sisters parents died, they left their house to Gladys, with the stipulation that Maud could live there too if she ever needed to. And as Murphy’s Law stipulates – that is exactly what happened. Maud’s husband died unexpectedly, and she discovered there wasn’t a penny left in his estate; so she moved into the family home and upended Gladys’s quiet life; coming across like a self-centered hurricane. During that time, Maud’s one big ambition is to finish a huge puzzle. And resentful, and put-upon Gladys knows this, so she steals a piece of the puzzle and drops it in the road while she is out on a walk. Thus the puzzle piece is “lost” and Anthony subsequently finds it.
The basic gist of this fun, escapist tale, is that present-day Anthony was engaged to Theresa who died suddenly while standing outside a bakery, forty years ago. Just before Theresa’s death she gave Anthony the small keepsake she received at her first communion, and made him promise that he would always keep it safe. On the day Theresa died, a distracted Anthony had the keepsake in his pocket and lost it. Thus Anthony felt he broke his promise to Theresa; and in the aftermath of her death he started to pick up lost objects he discovered, on his walks and travels, with the intent to return them to their owners one day. Anthony dies shortly after the book opens and leaves his assistant Laura his house and his money; with only one caveat – she must return all the lost things he found to their rightful owners.
As you might expect, the tales of the present and past characters eventually merge, and the book comes full circle in two main senses; firstly, the book opens with the first of the ten short stories, describing how Anthony found a box of ashes on a train, and ends with the ashes being returned to the person who lost them, with an explanation of just whose ashes they are and why they are important to the person that lost them. And secondly, the romance and engagement of Anthony and Theresa is echoed in the eventual romance and engagement of Anthony’s assistant Laura and her beau Freddy, a couple who by the end of the book have overcome a few obstacles, and who are engaged and looking forward to their wedding just as Anthony and Theresa were many years before.
And in a nutshell those are the three sets of characters and an overview of the novel The Keeper of Lost Things.
The book was enjoyed by book club members; although several members made comment on the fact that the main female characters in the book Laura and Eunice, allowed themselves to play second fiddle to men; in Laura’s case Anthony and in Eunice’s case Bomber; and they would have liked to have seen those two female characters empowered without their futures being so tied to the wishes of and desires of, respectively, Anthony and Bomber.
In Laura’s case, the course of her life, during the book, is in large part dictated by the caveat Anthony placed in his will – she inherits his entire estate with the stipulation that she return the lost items Anthony found to their owners, and that turns out to be a full time job. And in Eunice’s case, the course of her life is directed by Boomer, as he is the love of her life, but he can’t love her back, so she accepts a subservient role as his office assistant to be near him and keep him in her life.
The author of the Keeper of Lost Things, Ruth Hogan, is female and is sixty years of age; so perhaps she didn’t intend for readers to see Laura and Eunice as being somewhat subservient to Anthony and Bomber. And one could also say that Laura and Eunice could have taken a different routes – Laura could have refused to accept Anthony’s estate with his stipulation regarding the lost items; and Eunice could have quit working with Bomber at some point, taken a job elsewhere and looked for love with someone else. And both women do grow during the story and become more empowered as individuals – though the subservient point is certainly a valid one.
Other than that one point, the book club members enjoyed the book and recommend it!
–End of Book Club Notes!
SSCL Book Club for Adults 