Next MUSE Group

Hope you can join us July 12th for a discussion of "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins.  This is book one of a  trilogy.  Watch this blog for a review of the book (coming soon!). 
The group meets at 6:30 in the Dean's Conference Room, Main Building, Kent State University, East Liverpool, OH.  Everyone is welcome.  Refreshments will be served. 

The Help By Kathryn Stockett

Margaret Mead said "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”  Three such people, Aibileen, Minnie, and Skeeter, conspire to change their corner of the world by revealing what it is like to be a black maid working for a white woman in Jackson Mississippi in 1962.

Aibileen is a genteel black maid, raising her 17^th white child in the Leefolt household. She has returned to work after a grieving for her son who was killed in an industrial accident.  Minnie, plump, sassy, and angry is Aibileen’s closest friend.  She’s known for her sharp tongue and her cooking; chocolate pie is her specialty as well her weapon.  Recently fired and blacklisted by Hilly, the pretentious leader of the Junior League, she takes a job with a Jackson newcomer.  Skeeter, who Aibileen says is “the kind that speak to the help,” is a raw-boned, middle-class, 22 year old graduate of Ole Miss, back in town and working for the local paper.  She tries to coerce the fearful maids into talking about “what you get paid, how they treat you, the bathrooms, the babies, all the things you’ve seen, good and bad”   She wants them to talk about life with the white ladies, or as one reviewer put it, “the pure, down and out bitchery of the white ladies who become dissatisfied with their maids and proceed to ruin their lives.”  Reluctantly, Aibileen and Minnie steal away and tell their stories.  Skeeter writes the book. 

The Help, rejected by 45 literary agents before being picked up by Penguin Books, has been on the New York Times Bestseller list for two years and has sold 3 million copies. It is on my own list of “favorite books of all-time.”  I found it to be funny, shocking, compassionate, and highly readable.  With lovable heroines and despicable villains, it is sure to be a blockbuster movie as well.  The Help, the movie, will be released on August 12^th.   Be sure to get a copy of the book to read before then.  And join the MUSE group on June 7^th at 6:30 in the Main Building of Kent State to talk about the experience.  Chocolate pie, although Minnie’s recipe will NOT be used, will be served.  (Susan Weaver is director of library services at Kent, East Liverpool.  Contact her at sweaver@kent.edu)

ROOM by Emma Donoghue

Meet Jack.  He’s five.  He’s living in an 11 by 11 foot room with Ma.  Sometimes, when “Old Nick” comes by for the night, Jack sleeps in the Wardrobe.

Well there you have it.  That’s all I can write without revealing some plot points.  So if you don’t want to spoil the story, quit reading now, go get the book and experience one of the most original, horrific, funny, suspenseful, and heart-felt novels to hit the shelves in recent years

Jack tells the story so, as readers, we know only what Jack knows. Life within the Room seems unusual but not terrible.  Jack is happy in his daily regimen of exercise, watching TV (but not too much because “it rots our brains”), playing with a snake made of eggshells, coloring on toilet paper.  But then there are the clues; Ma’s screams and her dislike of Old Nick.  A sense of fear and dread builds as we begin to “get it” even though Jack doesn’t.  They are being held captive!

The story then takes a turn and through some harrowing, thrilling pages, Ma and Jack escape the Room.  But there is no “happily ever after” following such an ordeal.  There is so much they have missed out on or not experienced at all, that it is overwhelming for both mother and son.  Seeing the real world through Jack’s eyes is at once funny and heart-wrenching.  Donoghue pulls it all together and provides an ending that is just right, both honest and satisfying.   

This is a memorable book, one that you won’t be able to get out of your head for weeks. You will be sucked into Jack’s world and you will reconsider your own.  For a book discussion, there are many facets to explore:  familial love, discovery and rediscovery, aggression, human suffering, resilience and isolation to name a few.   

Check out Donoghue's fabulous web site which features an interactive drawing of the ROOM.

Summer Reading Club

We have decided to extend MUSE Group and do a summer session!  Each session will begin at 6:30 in the Main Building.  Since it's summer (almost), I thought perhaps you would like to shun the heavy reads and poetic prose and go with something more entertaining and easy to read.  I have chosen these books because of their high interest level, popularity, and because I liked them!  

The books and dates are: 

May 3:  ROOM by Emma Donoghue

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June 7: The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  

July 12:  The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  (Book one of the trilogy)

Check back here for more information about the books.

Writing in the Age of Silence

I didn’t expect to like this book.  It’s a memoir.  Not that I don’t like memoirs.  It’s just that recently I’ve been reading lighter, escape-type novels and I prefer to stick with that.  And besides… I didn’t even know this Sarah Paretsky (the author)!  But the book, Writing in the Age of Silence, was recommended by a friend and it was short.  I wouldn’t have to suffer for long.

            Obviously, millions of other readers know Paretsky.  She was recently named the 2011 Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America and is the best-selling author of a series of crime novels starring detective V I Warshawski.  And I didn’t suffer at all; I enjoyed every word of Paretsky’s thoughtful reflections on her dysfunctional family and her rural Kansas upbringing, her literary and political growth, and the development of her female detective.  Most importantly, she talks about how these things affected her as a writer and how she and other authors continue to struggle to find their voice. She writes “Every writer’s difficult journey is a movement from silence to speech.  We must be intensely private and interior in order to find a voice and a vision—and we must bring our work to an outside world where the market, or public outrage, or even government censorship can destroy our voice.”  She goes on, in the last chapter, to elaborate on each of these forces that work against the modern day writer.

            In another chapter she talks of the American spirit of individualism and how the stereotypical P. I. was the embodiment of this trait. Paretsky credits authors Chandler, Daly, and Hammett for influencing her as she created Warshawski.  V I Warshawski, operating in Paretsky’s beloved Chicago, is not only individualistic, she is a woman detective operating in the male-dominated world of crime fighting.  There is no possible way that Paretsky’s feminism and some of her persona isn’t present in the DNA of Warshawski. 

            This is certainly good reading material for anyone who is an author, whether aspiring or accomplished.  Warshawski fans, as well as fans of biographies and memoirs, and simply anyone who enjoys a soul-searching look into the times we Americans are living in, will appreciate this book.  As for me, I’ve just downloaded Body Works, Paretsky’s latest crime novel, which the N Y Times has named one of the Top Mysteries of 2010.

            Dr. Karen Boyle, Professor of English at Kent State University at East Liverpool will lead the discussion of Writing in the Age of Silence at the MUSE Group.  The meeting is April 12^th, in the Main Classroom building at 6:30 pm and all are welcome to attend.

Past MUSE Selections

The fall season of MUSE group featured these books:

• Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
• Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
• Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

To find out more about these novels, check out the reading guide.

MUSE Group Recipes

The last 2 meetings of the MUSE group have included some tasty dishes accompanied by wine or soft drinks. Here, by your request, are recipes for two of the favorites:

CLAM CHOWDER (or shall we call it Kitteridge Chowder?)
2 cans New England clam chowder
1 can cream of of potato soup
1 can cream of celery soup
1 pint whipping cream ( or half and half, not quite as rich)
1 can diced clams
Mix all ingredients in crock pot and cook on low for 4 hours.  May need to turn to high for the last half hour.

REUBEN DIP (Millennium Dip?)
8 oz. deli corned beef, finely chopped
1 package (8 oz) cream cheese
1 can (8 oz) sauerkraut, rinsed and drained
1 cup sour cream
1 cup shredded Swiss cheese

Combine ingredients in min-slow cooker.  Cover and cook for 2 hours or until cheese is melted. Stir.  Serve warm with rye bread (cut into 2 inch squares) or rye crackers.