Time to Choose a Book!

Well, we've succeeded in sending Marie off to Shanghai armed with some goodies and ready to have a grand adventure! We hope to be kept in the loop through Marie's newly begun China blog.

Thanks so much, Jarby, for hosting. Your home is looking very beautiful with all your new "developments"! Love the new living room furniture and the family room fireplace. Gorgeous! The appetizers were lovely and was enchanted by the "hanging wine" on the deck.

It is time to choose a book for our next gathering. I've been searching through my lists of what I've been wanting to read next and I have 2 suggestions. I'd LOVE to hear from everybody about what they'd like to read next, as well! Please reply either to this post or the e-mail that accompanies it with any suggestions you'd like to add to the mix.

1) Shanghai Girls by Lisa See - for obvious reasons!
In 1937 Shanghai—the Paris of Asia—twenty-one-year-old Pearl Chin and her younger sister, May, are having the time of their lives. Both are beautiful, modern, and carefree—until the day their father tells them that he has gambled away their wealth. To repay his debts, he must sell the girls as wives to suitors who have traveled from Los Angeles to find Chinese brides. As Japanese bombs fall on their beloved city, Pearl and May set out on the journey of a lifetime, from the Chinese countryside to the shores of America. Though inseparable best friends, the sisters also harbor petty jealousies and rivalries. Along the way they make terrible sacrifices, face impossible choices, and confront a devastating, life-changing secret, but through it all the two heroines of this astounding new novel hold fast to who they are—Shanghai girls.

 2) The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman.
In 70 C.E., nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on Masada, a mountain in the Judean desert. According to the ancient historian Josephus, two women and five children survived. Based on this tragic and iconic event, Hoffman’s novel is a spellbinding tale of four extraordinarily bold, resourceful, and sensuous women, each of whom has come to Masada by a different path. Yael’s mother died in childbirth, and her father, an expert assassin, never forgave her for that death. Revka, a village baker’s wife, watched the horrifically brutal murder of her daughter by Roman soldiers; she brings to Masada her young grandsons, rendered mute by what they have witnessed. Aziza is a warrior’s daughter, raised as a boy, a fearless rider and an expert marksman who finds passion with a fellow soldier. Shirah, born in Alexandria, is wise in the ways of ancient magic and medicine, a woman with uncanny insight and power. The lives of these four complex and fiercely independent women intersect in the desperate days of the siege. All are dovekeepers, and all are also keeping secrets—about who they are, where they come from, who fathered them, and whom they love.

Look forward to hearing from everyone. If you like, I can host the next gathering. Katie