The Ladies Literary and Tea Society
meeting monthly in Santa Cruz since 1996
www.pdas.com/bookclub/
*Note: It’s not too late to join the fun of the Solstice Gala! RSVP by clicking here.

Title: The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion
Author: Fannie Flagg

I heard a review of this book on National Public Radio and decided to read it even though I don’t often care for the books reviewed there. It starts slowly, meaning I was wondering if I would get as far as page 10. The book quickly picks up. I read until midnight, then woke up really early thinking about it and finished it before breakfast. The book is in two parts which are woven together to create a contrast between an unbelievably insipid present-day woman and the enchantingly and perhaps unrealistically vivid lives of a family of World War Two era sisters. The book is full of messages; some topics are a little unsavory but even so I imagine it would be an excellent discussion book for a high school class studying America during World War II. It is well and cleverly written. And I was surprised at how much I learned. I won’t say about what exactly. Read the book and find out.
Denise Becker
_____________________________________
Title: A la Recherche du Temps Perdu
Author: Marcel Proust

Thanks to one of our book club members who signed up for a “Life-long Learners” course focused on Marcel Proust’s A la Recherche du Temps Perdu (in English, of course), I borrowed her copy when her class was ended. This is a 2002 publication of a translation by Lydia Davis. I am enjoying it more than I could ever have imagined. Perhaps it takes a walk into one’s eighth decade of life to accumulate the patience and understanding required for the fullest appreciation for Proust’s gifts. It stuns me when I read one sentence at least a page long describing a nearly instantaneous but emotional event. He is a masterly word-painter of the kinds of experiences that one forgets, but can be brought forth in an instant with great clarity and joy when reading such a passage that evokes a memory similar to one’s own.
I know the book must end soon: I will delay that eventuality for as long as I can.
Gwen Shupe
__________________________
Title: The Garden of Heaven
Author: Hafiz, translated by Gertrude Bell

Hafiz was a 14th century Persian poet, born in Shiraz. These are delicate love-songs meant to be recited or chanted. They are wonderfully visual and sensual in the English translation; I would imagine they are even more so in the original Persian. Here is an example:
God send to thee great length of happy days!
Lo, not for his own life thy servant prays;
Love’s dart in thy bent brows the Archer lays,
Nor shoots in vain.
Carolyn Woolston
___________________________________

I read E.M. Forster’s Howard’s End every four or five years.
This novel is a deeply explored examination of the shattering changes that took place in English society during the late 19th and early 20th century. The primary question posed by the book is: “Who will inherit England (Howard’s End)? At the end, note who that is, and who his parents are.
Lorene Hall
ps: Howard’s End is one of the great English novels; you don’t have to be
interested in English history to love it forever.
pps: The film, with Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins captures the
book beautifully – an uncommon occurrence, unless you happen to
be Merchant & Ivory.