Summer Time Pleasures
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What's in a Name?
Book titles reveal stories as fascinating as the one inside.
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Recently, my cousin in New York recommended a book to me that had absorbed her so fully that she completely missed her subway stop on her way home from work. “It’s called As God Commands,” she told me, “written by Niccolo Ammaniti and translated by Jonathan Hunt.” As her literary taste had never disappointed me in the past, I went in pursuit of the book. An online search of the Toronto Public Library yielded Come Dio Comanda, the original Italian version, but nothing in English. Local bookstores? Nothing by that name, in any language. Had I not decided to browse the “A” aisle and see what other books by Ammaniti were there, I would not have discovered that the book I was looking for was indeed in stock, multiple copies in fact, published as The Crossroads. The Crossroads! Whatever had that to do with the original title? Who chose it? And why? Not the translator (because it had already been published elsewhere in English under the original name), and clearly not the author.
To continue reading What's in a Name? click here.
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Reading Pleasures
The summer is a time for many people to lighten their workloads, take vacations, and generally, try to surround themselves with family, friends and fun events. To help you in this endeavor, we have put together our Bookclub-in-a-Box discussion list for 2010 and 2011.
These books can put you ahead in your fall reading schedule or simply provide you with an alternative to books you planned to read next year.
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Drinking Pleasures
While you are sitting in the sun or shade, at the water or in your backyard, enjoying your book, try some Pimm's Special Lemonade or Special Iced Coffee. Both these delicious recipes are available on our website.
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Quirky coincidence? Plot device? Pathetic fallacy?
It's not just for fiction anymore!
At the very moment that Bookclub-in-a-Box’s Marilyn Herbert was delivering a talk about the novel Fault Lines, an earthquake hit the Toronto area. It seems that Nancy Huston’s literary power has the ability to ripple out from the epicentre of her literary fiction.
This book is highly recommended, but it now comes with a warning: read at your own risk!
Have a quirky, funny or touching book club story you'd like to share? Please do so by contacting us! It might appear in a future newsletter!
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New Discussion Guide!
.jpg) The Bookclub-in-a-Box discussion guide for Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows' The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is now available!
Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows have recreated the wartime atmosphere in postwar London and Guernsey through their charming character, journalist, Juliet Ashton, and her relationship with the islanders. It all starts with a letter from a farmer, Dawsey Adams, who was trying to track down books by Charles Lamb. Juliet’s name and address are written inside the single copy of Lamb’s essays that Dawsey possesses. None of the Guernsey bookstores had survived the war and Dawsey is looking for help. Juliet responds and the rest is intriguingly revealed in the novel’s subsequent correspondences between Juliet and the Guernsey inhabitants.
The discussion guide for The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is available in both PDF and print versions.
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Have a wonderful summer!
Marilyn Herbert
& the Bookclub-in-a-Box team
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