AdviceDiva.Com 2007 Book Club Picks

Red Stevens owned everything a man could ask for and gave his family a piece of that everything. However, right before he died Red Stevens realized one thing. Red looked down along the long list of things he gave his family and suddenly came to the conclusion that he had given them nothing by giving them everything. While most of his family were lost causes because of his mistake, one stood out with potential to learn. That one was in store for the year to end all years. That one was his nephew Jason. The Ultimate Gift, written by Jim Stovall, is a story of Red Stevens, an accomplished man, who learned too late that giving material things is more like taking than giving. He learned too late for all except his nephew Jason.

The Ultimate Gift Book Review

Three children wander into some woods near Dublin, but only one is found, hysterical and bloodied. Some 20 years later, he's a detective investigating a child's murder in the same woods. A 12-year-old girl is found murdered at an archaeological site at the center of a controversial highway construction project. Katy Devlin was a popular girl who had recently been accepted to the Royal Ballet School; her father is an outspoken opponent of the new roadway. But what haunts Detective Rob Ryan about this case is its location: the quiet town of Knocknaree, Ireland -- in the very woods where he used to play as a child, in the very woods where he was found alone and covered in blood.

In The Woods Book Review

Three women who share one fate: the Boleyn Inheritance ANNE OF CLEVES: She runs from her tiny country, her hateful mother, and her abusive brother to a court ruled by the terror of a vengeful king who despises her. Her Boleyn Inheritance: accusations and false witness. KATHERINE HOWARD: She is in love -- but not with the diseased old man who made her queen and beds her night after night. Her Boleyn Inheritance: the threat of the axe. JANE ROCHFORD: She is the Boleyn girl whose testimony sent her husband and sister-in-law to their deaths. Throughout Europe, her name is a byword for malice, jealousy, and twisted lust. Her Boleyn Inheritance: a fortune and a title, in exchange for her soul. The Boleyn Inheritance is a novel drawn tight as a lute string about three women whose positions brought them wealth, admiration, and power as well as deceit, betrayal, and terror.

October 28, 2007 Book Review

Discover the impact of the human footprint in The World Without Us. Take us off the Earth and what traces of us would linger? And which would disappear? Alan Weisman writes about which objects from today would vanish without us; how our pipes, wires, and cables would be pulverized into an unusual (but mere) line of red rock; why some museums and churches might be the last human creations standing; how rats and roaches would struggle without us; and how plastic, cast-iron, and radio waves may be our most lasting gifts to the planet. But The World Without Us is also about how parts of our world currently fare without a human presence (Chernobyl; a Polish old-growth forest, the Korean DMZ) and it looks at the human legacy on Earth, both fleeting and indelible.

September 23, 2007 Book Review

In nineteenth-century China, when wives and daughters were foot-bound and lived in almost total seclusion, the women in one remote Hunan county developed their own secret code for communication: nu shu ("women's writing"). With the arrival of a silk fan on which Snow Flower has composed for Lily a poem of introduction in nu shu, their friendship is sealed and they become "old sames" at the tender age of seven. As the years pass, through famine and rebellion, they reflect upon their arranged marriages, loneliness, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood. But when a misunderstanding arises, their lifelong friendship suddenly threatens to tear apart.

August 24, 2007 Book Review

Guy Montag was a fireman whose job it was to start fires... The system was simple. Everyone understood it. Books were for burning...along with the houses in which they were hidden. Guy Montag enjoyed his job. He had been a fireman for ten years, and he had never questioned the pleasure of the midnight runs nor the joy of watching pages consumed by flames...never questioned anything until he met a seventeen-year-old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid. Then he met a professor who told him of a future in which people could think...and Guy Montag suddenly realized what he had to do!

June 20, 2007 Meeting Notes.

Fragments of a Great Secret have been found in the oral traditions, in literature, in religions and philosophies throughout the centuries. For the first time, all the pieces of The Secret come together in an incredible revelation that will be life-transforming for all who experience it. The Secret contains wisdom from modern-day teachers -- men and women who have used it to achieve health, wealth, and happiness. By applying the knowledge of The Secret, they bring to light compelling stories of eradicating disease, acquiring massive wealth, overcoming obstacles, and achieving what many would regard as impossible.

May 20, 2007 Meeting Notes.

When world-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a mysterious symbol -- seared into the chest of a murdered physicist -- he discovers evidence of the unimaginable: the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati...the most powerful underground organization ever to walk the earth. The Illuminati has now surfaced to carry out the final phase of its legendary vendetta against its most hated enemy -- the Catholic Church. An explosive international thriller, Angels & Demons careens from enlightening epiphanies to dark truths as the battle between science and religion turns to war.

April 23, 2007 Meeting Notes.

Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate - a life and a role that she has never challenged...until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister - and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.

March 23, 2007 Meeting Notes.

So when are you getting married? Is a question often posed to 34 year-old Nicolette Montana (Nikki). She wanders aimlessly from one dead-end relationship to another and now finds the dating game one big bore. To stop all the nagging by family and friends, she fakes a Las Vegas wedding. On her return trip to Dallas, ironically, she meets the dashing and successful, Byron Matthews. Nikki becomes entangled in a web of deception when her family insists on meeting her mysterious husband at a family gathering. Byron comes to the rescue, not only to save a damsel in distress, but to have fun with her little charade. What begins as a not-so-innocent prank, brings much more than Nikki and Byron ever expected.

March 3, 2007 Meeting Notes.

When the dashing Max de Winter finds a new wife while vacationing in Italy, he feels happy for the first time since Rebecca, his first wife, died. However, de Winter's grim housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, is obsessively devoted to the first Mrs. de Winter and won't let the newlyweds forget Rebecca. As the tension escalates, Mrs. Danvers grows more desperate - and more deadly. Noted actor Anna Massey memorably narrates this tense title. First published in 1938, this classic gothic novel is such a compelling read that it won the Anthony Award for Best Novel of the Century.

Our meeting for this book is TBA. Notes to follow.