Thursday, April 30, 2009

April Flowers

A small group of us met on Tuesday to discuss the book, The Florist's Daughter, by Patricia Hampl.

Opinions ranged from favorable to unfavorable. A couple of readers were disappointed, having had higher expectations set by the reputation of the book and its author. One person in the group lamented not having more of a story to the book, and others agreed that the book would be meaningful primarily to people with a great deal of interest in the city of St. Paul.

While the subject matter of the book did not bowl people over, many of us commented favorably on the writing style and prose. A few people were familiar with the author's reputation as a poet.

Patricia Hampl is currently a Regents Professor and McKnight Distinguished Professor at the University of Minnesota. She will be one of three featured speakers at a Memoir Writing Festival being held May 16th and 17th at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

More Items of Interest

Minnesota author Lorna Landvik, (whose book Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons was well received by our book reading club), will be visiting, in person, neighboring Woodbury on Saturday, April 4th.

She will be discussing her latest books: The View from Mount Joy, and Tis the Season.

Lorna's visit is co-sponsored by the Washington County-Stafford Library, in Woodbury, and she will be speaking at the Central Park Amphitheatre in Woodbury. The event is free and open to the public.

Our book club reading for April is by another Minnesota author, Patricia Hampl. Entitled The Florist's Daughter, the book is a biographical memoir of growing up in St. Paul. Annette will lead the discussion when we meet on April 28th at 6:30 p.m. in the library. See you there!

March Meeting

Many thanks to Diane, who offered the following summary of our book club meeting in March:

Eight members of the Park Grove Library Book Club met (March 24th). We were led in a discussion of Choosing Civility, P.M. Forni, by Cora. Mostly the book was well received and everyone commented that they learned some new pointers or were reminded of courtesies they had forgotten. One comment was that the book would be just right to be used in schools to teach social expectations and the importance of considering others first. Some thought the book was textbookish and was "preaching to the choir."

The author will be at the Woodbury branch of the library on April 21 at 7 p.m. The event is free but requires a ticket, which must be picked up from the library prior to the event. Several members of our club plan to attend. The event is part of a county-wide initiative sponsored by the library. More information on the One County, One Book event is available at the library web site.

Read more about the Civility Project from the author's web site at John Hopkins University.