So, I felt like the first meeting of our informal internet book club went pretty well. And I totally meant to announce the next book earlier this week but then I saw something shiny and forgot.
Actually, I have to tell y’all that my blog friend, Chelsea, sent me a copy of The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls and I read it in less than forty-eight hours. It was fascinating. Absolutely a must read if you haven’t read it already, although I’m so glad I read Half Broke Horses first because I knew the family history.
On Tuesday morning I headed over to Borders to peruse the shelves, even though I already had a pretty good idea of the book I was going to choose. But I have to allow myself some time to obsess over these things.
And so, after much deliberation, I’ve decided our next book should be Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay.
Here’s an excerpt from the review in Publishers Weekly:
“De Rosnay’s U.S. debut fictionalizes the 1942 Paris roundups and deportations, in which thousands of Jewish families were arrested, held at the Vélodrome d’Hiver outside the city, then transported to Auschwitz. Forty-five-year-old Julia Jarmond, American by birth, moved to Paris when she was 20 and is married to the arrogant, unfaithful Bertrand Tézac, with whom she has an 11-year-old daughter. Julia writes for an American magazine and her editor assigns her to cover the 60th anniversary of the Vél’ d’Hiv’ roundups. Julia soon learns that the apartment she and Bertrand plan to move into was acquired by Bertrand’s family when its Jewish occupants were dispossessed and deported 60 years before. She resolves to find out what happened to the former occupants: Wladyslaw and Rywka Starzynski, parents of 10-year-old Sarah and four-year-old Michel. The more Julia discovers—especially about Sarah, the only member of the Starzynski family to survive—the more she uncovers about Bertrand’s family, about France and, finally, herself.”
So if that sounds like something you want to read or at least something you might attempt to read, here’s what you need to do:
1. Go get a copy of the book or download it on your Kindle or your iPad or straight into the microchip implanted in your brain. Amazon has it on sale for $6.36 right now.
2. Read the book. If you just use it as a coaster it limits the impact.
3. On Thursday, March 31st, I’ll write a post with my thoughts on the book. I’ll probably ditch the discussion questions this go round because no one really seemed to care about them. So we’ll just share our thoughts and insights.
4. That’s it.
5. Except feel free to suggest other future book suggestions in the comments. I’m always open to any input.
See y’all tomorrow. It’s Fashion Friday and rumor around Big Mama, Inc. is that there might be a giveaway. See how book club brings out the giveaways? It’s just all part of my continuing quest to be the middle-class suburban mom version of Oprah.