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The votes are in...
Please note the new date! Sorry for any inconvenience! Hopefully everyone can still attend.
(Time Tested had an author event come up for the 14th)

We will be discussing Watership Down by Richard Adams. Please arrive between 6:30 and 7 so that you can browse and shop in the store - Time Tested has a lot of great new and used books! - and get situated. The meeting discussion will begin at 7.

Reminder: Time Tested is happy to order a book for you if they don't have it on the shelves - and it's easy! Just call or stop by... they put in orders on Tuesdays and it is often available that Thursday. Be sure to let them know you are with the Sacramento Women's Book Club.

Book synopsis:
Amazon.com Review
The story follows a warren of Berkshire rabbits fleeing the destruction of their home by a land developer. As they search for a safe haven, skirting danger at every turn, we become acquainted with the band and its compelling culture and mythos. Adams has crafted a touching, involving world in the dirt and scrub of the English countryside, complete with its own folk history and language (the book comes with a "lapine" glossary, a guide to rabbitese). As much about freedom, ethics, and human nature as it is about a bunch of bunnies looking for a warm hidey-hole and some mates, Watership Down will continue to make the transition from classroom desk to bedside table for many generations to come.

Please bring a dish to share with the group (whatever you like!). Thanks!

We will be discussing The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Please arrive between 6:30 and 7 so that you can browse and shop in the store - Time Tested has a lot of great new and used books! - and get situated. The meeting discussion will begin at 7.

Reminder: Time Tested is happy to order a book for you if they don't have it on the shelves - and it's easy! Just call or stop by... they put in orders on Tuesdays and it is often available that Thursday. Be sure to let them know you are with the Sacramento Women's Book Club.

Book synopsis:

Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
In the Republic of Gilead, formerly the United States, far-right Schlafly/Falwell-type ideals have been carried to extremes in the monotheocratic government. The resulting society is a feminist's nightmare: women are strictly controlled, unable to have jobs or money and assigned to various classes: the chaste, childless Wives; the housekeeping Marthas; and the reproductive Handmaids, who turn their offspring over to the "morally fit" Wives. The tale is told by Offred (read: "of Fred"), a Handmaid who recalls the past and tells how the chilling society came to be. This powerful, memorable novel is highly recommended for most libraries.

Please bring a dish to share with the group (whatever you like!) or let us know in your RSVP if you want to provide drinks. Thanks!

We will be discussing The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Please arrive between 6:30 and 7 so that you can browse and shop in the store - Time Tested has a lot of great new and used books! - and get situated. The meeting discussion will begin at 7.

Reminder: Time Tested is happy to order a book for you if they don't have it on the shelves - and it's easy! Just call or stop by... they put in orders on Tuesdays and it is often available that Thursday. Be sure to let them know you are with the Sacramento Women's Book Club.

Book synopsis:
Death himself narrates the World War II-era story of Liesel Meminger from the time she is taken, at age nine, to live in Molching, Germany, with a foster family in a working-class neighborhood of tough kids, acid-tongued mothers, and loving fathers who earn their living by the work of their hands. The child arrives having just stolen her first book–although she has not yet learned how to read–and her foster father uses it, The Gravediggers Handbook, to lull her to sleep when shes roused by regular nightmares about her younger brothers death. Across the ensuing years of the late 1930s and into the 1940s, Liesel collects more stolen books as well as a peculiar set of friends: the boy Rudy, the Jewish refugee Max, the mayors reclusive wife (who has a whole library from which she allows Liesel to steal), and especially her foster parents. Zusak not only creates a mesmerizing and original story but also writes with poetic syntax, causing readers to deliberate over phrases and lines, even as the action impels them forward. Death is not a sentimental storyteller, but he does attend to an array of satisfying details, giving Liesels story all the nuances of chance, folly, and fulfilled expectation that it deserves. An extraordinary narrative.–Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Please bring a dish to share with the group (whatever you like!) or let us know in your RSVP if you want to provide drinks. Thanks!

We will be discussing Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg. Please arrive between 6:30 and 7 so that you can browse and shop in the store - Time Tested has a lot of great new and used books! - and get situated. The meeting discussion will begin at 7.

Reminder: Time Tested is happy to order a book for you if they don't have it on the shelves - and it's easy! Just call or stop by... they put in orders on Tuesdays and it is often available that Thursday. Be sure to let them know you are with the Sacramento Women's Book Club.

Book synopsis:
Set in a small Alabama train stop town in the 1930s, this gem of a book almost could have been shelved as just another light romantic comedy. Various women's voices tell anecdotes of Whistle Stop, as the chapters jump back and forth through time. We hear from Mrs. Threadgoode, reminiscing fondly from her nursing home in the 1980s, and the chatty Dot Weems, editor of the gossipy town newsletter (1929-1969), and then listen in on spirited dialogue set in the town of Whistle Stop itself. The storytellers never find use for the label "lesbian," nor do they see fit to take us behind closed doors, but this is nevertheless the irresistible story of a fierce and true love between two women, Idgie and Ruth. After Idgie saves Ruth from an abusive marriage, these two friends become partners in running the Whistle Stop Cafe, where no one, "not even hobos and colored," is turned away for inability to pay. Readers are set down in the corner booth to eavesdrop on the comings and goings of an array of eccentric, ragtag characters who drop in for buttermilk biscuits, Big George's barbecue, and, eventually, news about their own hometown murder mystery. Among revelations big and small, Fannie Flagg mixes direct and empowering confrontations with racism, sexism, and ageism with the colorful and endearing language of the depression-era South and the cafe's recipes for grits, collard greens, and, of course, fried green tomatoes.

Please bring a dish to share with the group (whatever you like!) or let us know in your RSVP if you want to provide drinks. Thanks!

We will be discussing Loving Frank by Nancy Horan. Please arrive between 6:30 and 7 so that you can browse and shop in the store - Time Tested has a lot of great new and used books! - and get situated. The meeting discussion will begin at 7.

Reminder: Time Tested is happy to order a book for you if they don't have it on the shelves - and it's easy! Just call or stop by... they put in orders on Tuesdays and it is often available that Thursday. Be sure to let them know you are with the Sacramento Women's Book Club.

Book synopsis:
Horan's ambitious first novel is a fictionalization of the life of Mamah Borthwick Cheney, best known as the woman who wrecked Frank Lloyd Wright's first marriage. Despite the title, this is not a romance, but a portrayal of an independent, educated woman at odds with the restrictions of the early 20th century. Frank and Mamah, both married and with children, met when Mamah's husband, Edwin, commissioned Frank to design a house. Their affair became the stuff of headlines when they left their families to live and travel together, going first to Germany, where Mamah found rewarding work doing scholarly translations of Swedish feminist Ellen Key's books. Frank and Mamah eventually settled in Wisconsin, where they were hounded by a scandal-hungry press, with tragic repercussions. Horan puts considerable effort into recreating Frank's vibrant, overwhelming personality, but her primary interest is in Mamah, who pursued her intellectual interests and love for Frank at great personal cost. As is often the case when a life story is novelized, historical fact inconveniently intrudes: Mamah's life is cut short in the most unexpected and violent of ways, leaving the narrative to crawl toward a startlingly quiet conclusion. Nevertheless, this spirited novel brings Mamah the attention she deserves as an intellectual and feminist.

Please bring a dish to share with the group (whatever you like!) or let us know in your RSVP if you want to provide drinks. Thanks!