Are you blessed with great girlfriends in your neighborhood, office or apartment? The women on my street may vary in age, marital status and a lot of other things, but we still love to get together for our ‘no stress’ book club. (‘No stress’ in that you don’t ever HAVE to read the book – you’re just welcome to join us and we’re happy to have you!)

One of my neighbors, Judy, has the entire list of books that we’ve read over the past nine years. She always reads the book for book club and loves to read, and tell us about, lots of other books. She was kind enough to share this book review with you.

From Judy, keeper of the list of books and mega reader:

The ladies in my neighborhood stated a book club a number of years ago.  We have enjoyed many novels since its inception.  One of my favorites is Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks.  It is set in the 1660’s in a small village in England during the time of the Bubonic Plague.  The citizens realize the plague has come to their village and decides to quarantine themselves to help prevent the spread of the disease.  This story involves the interaction of the townspeople as they become more and more isolated from the rest of the world.  Issues of grief, fear, profiteering, science and faith are all addressed in the storyline.

As my book club started to discuss this book, we realized that many of the same issues brought forth is this novel are still part of our lives today.  How influential is a church in a community’s decisions? Is grief a solitary burden? What place does scientific medical research play in our religious beliefs?  Could a village effectively quarantine itself?  The discussions generated by this thought provoking novel made fors one of our most intriguing meetings.

What books have generated great conversations for your book club? What books do you recommend? Please share! And THANKS JUDY!

Tags: Book, Book Club, book review, Bubonic Plague, england, Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize

This entry was posted on Monday, September 1st, 2008 at 5:17 pm and is filed under Book Club, Books, Product Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.