A First

The first fella to ever be invited to meet with the Bluestockings...and he was so well behaved!

Thanks, KB, for the summery meal with a table to match (plus snack mix!). 

All the Light We Cannot See

Great book, wonderful friends, and a most delightful dinner for the Bluestockings tonight! 

Bluestocking Retreat 2015

Last year's retreat report could have been written for the 2015 trip! There was one small change; this year we watched The Great Santini as a follow-up to our January and February reads.

Our visit to G.J. Ford gave us ideas for new reads and confirmed some that we had already considered. Our reading list for the year is set and we can't wait to read and discuss our choices!

2015

1/15/15 - jc - The Great Santini by Pat Conroy

2/20/15 - 2/22/15 - retreat - The Death of Santini by Pat Conroy 

3/12/15 - mc - All The Light We Cannot See: A Novel by Anthony Doerr

4/16/15 - ew - Under the Wide and Starry Sky by Nancy Horan

5/14/15 - as - Motherland by Maria Hummel

6/18/15 - aw - Ordinary Grace by Kent Krueger

7/16/15 - kb - The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant

8/20/15 - pb - Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

9/10/15 - cc - The Circle by Dave Eggers

10/8/15 - as - Guests on Earth by Lee Smith

11/19/15 - kb - Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

12/17/15 - ew - A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote

1/21/16 - pb - The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

A Bluestocking Christmas

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/books/review/100-notable-books-of-2014.html?_r=0

Our Tenth Anniversary!

The first meeting of our Bluestocking Society was in April, 2004. Must have been a good idea, because last night we celebrated our tenth anniversary! That's a LOT of books read, discussions held, and dinners shared over the years. Our hostess and (amazing) meal were throwbacks to that first meeting. 

Our book was The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman. All of us liked this well written and thought provoking book with so many memorable quotes. My favorite is this: It occurs to him that there are different versions of himself to farewell- the abandoned eight-year-old; the delusional soldier who hovered somewhere in hell; the lightkeeper who dared to leave his heart undefended. Like Russian dolls, these lives sit within him. 

We all have lives that sit within us, made up from the chronological layers of our significant experiences. I've never thought of it like that but won't soon be forgetting the analogy of the Russian dolls.

The Orphan Train

The Bluestockings voted The Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline as one of our best picks yet!

We're already anticipating next month's meeting, the tenth anniversary of The Bluestocking Society. A surprise is promised!

Bluestocking Retreat 2014

The Bluestocking Society went on our annual 'retreat' last weekend and no, we did not take even one picture of the group (sadly, we were missing two). We ate, laughed, shopped, discussed and watched The Reivers, and spent an extraordinary amount of time at the bookstore. We even managed to finalize the list of books we will read this year. So many books, so little time; we had to leave out a few that will go on our maybe-in-the-future list. 

2014

1/16/14 - kb - Behind the Beautiful Forever by Katherine Boo

2/14/14-2/16/14 - The Reivers by Faulkner
3/20/14 - pb - Orphan Train: A Novel by Christina Baker Kline
4/17/14 - cc - The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
5/15/14 - mc (for jc) - The Woman Who Heard Color by Kelly Jones
6/19/14 - aw (for mc) Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
7/17/14 - as - Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
8/21/14 - jc (for aw) - The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
9/18/14 - ew - Me Before You by Jo Jo Moyes
10/16/14 - kb - Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman
11/20/14 - pb - The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker
12/18/14 - cc - Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan
1/15/15 - jc - The Great Santini and The Death of Santini by Pat Conroy