Sea lion video from our trip to Bodega Bay

by ncbarngirl

What a great photo!

Two New Book Reviews:

Beyond the Sky and Earth: A Journey into Bhutan by Jamie Zeppa is a wonderful story of a Canadian woman who, on an impulse, decides to join a teaching program in Bhutan. I had to look up where Bhutan was (for the record, it's south of China and east of India) - but really enjoyed learning about the culture and her true experiences...the book club also really liked the non-fiction work, but admittedly, it starts out slow, so you have to be in for the commitment. The book gets better when the main character starts to enjoy and understand the culture a bit more.

The other book club read was The Devil in White City by Erik Larson. The turn of the century in America was a fascinating time - Larson does a great job of "name dropping" (Edison, Susan B. Anthony, and more) and some of what is read would make for great trivia questions. Why did Westinghouse become a mainstay of electricity in the US? Who invented the first ferris wheel? Another slow starter with a focus on too many characters (without adequate development), but a great gathering of all the detailed records of the time and turning two seemingly independent pieces of history into one compelling story.

With my commute now into the city, I also had a chance to read Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie which was recommended by a fellow book club member. I enjoyed this book - a quick read with interesting background of the re-education of young people during the reign of Mao. It reminded me a bit of Wild Swans because of the time period covered but was interesting from a male perspective and a little closer to a love story, without the "happily ever after."

Up next, Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reicl (former NYTimes food critic) and The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.

My favorite photo for the day. I thought it was green in California after all our rain but there's no comparison.


by mauriziomalangone

Exciting morning at the office, see me waving in the background?

I'm now graduated to having not one, but TWO book clubs. So, I thought it might be interesting to keep track of what we're reading, and what we think of the books. Both so we can reflect later, and I'm also feel a little more accomplished about that BART ride every day.

Book Club #2 read Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. If I could summarize our club's thinking - we enjoyed the theory, but understood it pretty early on, and then felt we were just reading examples of the same theory over and over. I guess there is something to be said for repetition. With a bunch of women in the room, there was some fascination with the High Class / Low Class name evolution and lots of discussion about whether having an easy-to-pronounce or unique name had more benefits.

Book Club #1 was reading The History of Love: A Novel by Nicole Krauss.
A great book written by a young woman in our same age range, which makes us appreciate it all the more. Wonderful writing style and great character development, though a bit hard to follow at time, and left us all comparing notes on what actually happened.

Up next, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson and
Beyond the Earth and Sky: A Journey into Bhutan by Jaime Zeppa. On the side, I'm also reading The Celestine Prophecy. Stay tuned.

by worldtripper3