http://www.socialwave.net/forums/97/ http://www.socialwave.net/images/socialwave_logo_sm.gif http://www.socialwave.net/forums/97/ Join the Social Wave Book Club as we discuss Mother on Fire: A True Motherf%#&#036;@ Story About Parenting! by writer, performer, and NPR commentator Sandra Tsing Loh.<br /> Prompted by her own midlife crisis, Sandra Tsing Loh throws her frantic energy into the harrowing heart of contemporary, dysfunctional Los Angeles life when she realizes that she can’t afford private school for her daughter, and her only alternative is her neighborhood’s public school, Guavatorina, where most of the kids speak Spanish and qualify for free lunches. In a theater-of-the-absurd-style odyssey, Mother on Fire documents Loh’s “year of living dangerously” among pompous school admissions officials, Prius-driving parents, mafia dons of public radio, vindictive bosses, and old friends with new money as she first kisses ass—and then kicks it.<br /> Book Club Meeting: "Mother on Fire"<br /> Details: Thu, Jan 22nd (7:00pm - 8:30pm)<br /> City: Campbell<br /> Cost: cup o' joe /topics/5903/ Fri, 12 Dec 2008 09:17:59 PST 5903 Join the Social Wave Book Club as we discuss The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls.<br /> Jeannette Walls, a regular contributor to MSNBC.com, grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. In the beginning, the family lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Later, when the money ran out, or the romance of the wandering life faded, the Walls retreated a the dismal West Virginia mining town. As the dysfunction of the family escalated, Jeannette and her brother and sisters had to fend for themselves, supporting one another as they weathered their parents' betrayals and, finally, found the resources and will to leave home.<br /> What is so astonishing about Jeannette Walls is that she describes her parents with such deep affection and generosity. Hers is a story of triumph against all odds, but also a tender, moving tale of unconditional love in a family that despite its profound flaws gave her the fiery determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms.<br /> Book Club Meeting: "The Glass Castle: A Memoir"<br /> Details: Thu, Dec 11th (7:00pm - 8:30pm)<br /> City: Campbell<br /> Cost:<strong><I>...more</I></strong> /topics/5649/ Sat, 01 Nov 2008 11:21:55 PDT 5649 Join the Social Wave Book Club as we discuss Skipping Christmas by John Grisham.<br /> Luther and Nora Krank are fed up with the chaos of Christmas. The endless shopping lists, the frenzied dashes through the mall, the hassle of decorating the tree... where has all the joy gone? This year, celebrating seems like too much effort. With their only child off in Peru, they decide that just this once, they'll skip the holidays. They spend their Christmas budget on a Caribbean cruise set to sail on December 25, and happily settle in for a restful holiday season free of rooftop snowmen and festive parties.<br /> But the Kranks soon learn that their vacation from Christmas isn't much of a vacation at all, and that skipping the holidays has consequences they didn't bargain for...<br /> A modern Christmas classic, Skipping Christmas is a charming and hilarious look at the mayhem and madness that have become ingrained in our holiday tradition. /topics/5368/ Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:28:16 PDT 5368 Join the Social Wave Book Club as we discuss Talk Talk by T. Coraghessan Boyle.<br /> A review in Booklist says:<br /> "Boyle sculpts his bold but meticulous new novel out of a frightening premise, a case of identity thef...in an extreme version: identity takeover. The storyline...starts innocently enough when hearing-impaired college instructor Dana Halter is stopped on her way to the dentist for running a traffic sign. The witnessing policeman is quickly joined by a whole troop of cops, and Dana is led off to jail in handcuffs and treated like a common criminal. As it turns out, she has a rap sheet and a list of warrants a mile long--obviously (obvious to her, that is) a case of someone else using her name. This person has stolen her identity to construct an entirely false life, from purchasing a house and car to marrying under the assumed name. Dana and her boyfriend embark on a dangerous journey not only to discover the identity of the thief but also to stop him, and here the novel develops into a transcontinental -- and breathtaking -- thriller. "<br /> Book Club Meeting: "Talk Talk"<br /> Details: Thu, Sep 4th (7:00pm - 8:30pm)<br /> City: Campbell<br /> Cost:<strong><I>...more</I></strong> /topics/5184/ Sun, 20 Jul 2008 10:19:01 PDT 5184 Join the Social Wave Book Club for a little summer sci-fi fun with Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards.<br /> Description on Amazon.com:<br /> "Ender Wiggin is a very bright young boy with a powerful skill. One of a group of children bred to be military geniuses and save Earth from an inevitable attack by aliens...Ender becomes unbeatable in war games and seems poised to lead Earth to triumph. Meanwhile, his brother and sister plot to wrest power from Ender. Twists, surprises and interesting characters elevate this novel into status as a bona fide page turner." /topics/5024/ Sun, 15 Jun 2008 09:17:27 PDT 5024 Between the 100F heat and some last-minute craziness, it looks like attendance was going to be very sparse for our originally scheduled meeting. Let's reschedule for Thursday, June 5, 7pm, at Coffee Society!<br /> Join the Social Wave Book Club for a dip into the wild and wonderful world of Jon Stewart and The Daily Show with their book, America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction.<br /> Amazon.com writes:<br /> "Featuring a foreword by Thomas Jefferson, a Dress the Supreme Court layout, and, oddly enough, a profile of George "The Iceman" Gervin, America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction, from Jon Stewart and the writers of the Emmy Award-winning The Daily Show, is by far one of the most irreverent and wittiest (and may we add smartest) political books you're likely to encounter."<br /> Book Club Meeting Rescheduled: Jon Stewart "America"<br /> Details: Thu, Jun 5th (7:00pm - 8:30pm)<br /> City: Campbell<br /> Cost: cup o' joe /topics/4688/ Thu, 03 Apr 2008 09:04:25 PDT 4688 Join the Social Wave Book Club for a dip into the world of non-fiction with Jeffrey Toobin's The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court.<br /> Based on exclusive interviews with justices themselves, The Nine tells the story of the Court through personalities—from Anthony Kennedy's overwhelming sense of self-importance to Clarence Thomas's well-tended grievances against his critics to David Souter's odd nineteenth-century lifestyle. There is also, for the first time, the full behind-the-scenes story of Bush v. Gore—and Sandra Day O'Connor's fateful breach with George W. Bush, the president she helped place in office.<br /> Jeffrey Toobin is a CNN senior legal analyst and staff writer at New Yorker magazine.<br /> Book Club Meeting: Jeffrey Toobin's "The Nine"<br /> Details: Thu, Apr 3rd (7:00pm - 8:30pm)<br /> City: Campbell<br /> Cost: cup o' joe /topics/4502/ Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:23:09 PST 4502 Join the Social Wave Book Club for a comedic interlude with Bob Newhart's I Shouldn't Even Be Doing This!.<br /> Now, at last, comedian Bob Newhart puts his brilliant and hysterical world view on paper. Never a punch-line comic, always more of a storyteller, he tells anecdotes from throughout his life and career, including his beginnings as an accountant and the groundbreaking success of his comedy albums and his two primetime TV show: The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart. He also gives his wry, comedic twist to a multitude of topics, including golf, drinking, and family holidays.<br /> Book Club Meeting: Bob Newhart's latest!<br /> Details: Thu, Feb 28th (7:00pm - 8:30pm)<br /> City: Campbell<br /> Cost: cup o' joe /topics/4386/ Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:32:49 PST 4386 I believe it's my turn to pick a book, so here are my suggestions:<br /> Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream by Hunter S. Thompson<br /> http://www.amazon.com/Fear-Loathing-Las-Ve...00440845&sr=1-1<br /> Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez<br /> http://www.amazon.com/Love-Time-Cholera-Op...00440781&sr=8-2<br /> This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin<br /> http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b/103-05...-keywords=music on the brain<br /> /topics/4325/ Tue, 15 Jan 2008 03:48:33 PST 4325 Join the Social Wave Book Club for a thriller of a ride with The Cobra Event by Richard Preston. It's sure to keep you turning the pages, and it promises to be good fodder for discussion.<br /> Melissa Kuzma Rockicki writes in Library Journal:<br /> "Preston, author of the nonfiction bestseller, The Hot Zone, makes his fiction debut with this frightening tale of biological terrorism. When two completely unrelated people die horrifically in New York City, Alice Austen, a young doctor working for the Centers for Disease Control in Washington, D.C., is called in to investigate. What Austen finds in New York is like nothing she has ever seen... More victims follow, and soon she realizes that the mystery illness was caused by a man-made virus that spreads as easily as the common cold. Drawing on her findings, a team of government scientists is formed...their job is to find the person behind the virus and to stop him before he causes a worldwide outbreak."<br /> Book Club Meeting - "The Cobra Event"<br /> Details: Thu, Jan 24th (7:00pm - 8:30pm)<br /> City: Campbell<br /> Cost: cup o' joe /topics/4185/ Mon, 10 Dec 2007 04:44:00 PST 4185 Join the Social Wave Book Club for a dive into Gen-X pop-culture analysis with Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto by Chuck Klosterman.<br /> As the book cover says:<br /> Countless writers and artists have spoken for a generation, but no one has done it quite like Chuck Klosterman. With an exhaustive knowledge of popular culture and an almost effortless ability to spin brilliant prose out of unlikely subject matter, Klosterman attacks the entire spectrum of postmodern America: reality TV, Internet porn, Pamela Anderson, literary Jesus freaks, and the real difference between apples and oranges.... Whether deconstructing Saved by the Bell episodes or the artistic legacy of Billy Joel, the symbolic importance of The Empire Strikes Back or the Celtics/Lakers rivalry, Chuck will make you think, he'll make you laugh, and he'll drive you insane -- usually all at once. /topics/4083/ Fri, 09 Nov 2007 02:13:29 PST 4083 <br /> Join the Social Wave Book Club for a discussion of Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris.<br /> <br /> Bookmarks Magazine writes: "Anyone who has spent time in corporate America will recognize the inhabitants of Joshua Ferris's office: the Gossip, the Whiner, the Stapler Thief—and why not? Statistically, Americans spend more time with coworkers than with their families. Ferris, a former cubicle dweller himself, has created a rich cast of characters whose depth and realism surprised reviewers...While the piercing, razor-sharp wit will keep readers laughing out loud, the plot twists and sudden character revelations make Then We Came to the End an insightful, intelligent commentary on humanity and individualism in the workplace."<br /> <br /> Book Club Meeting - "Then We Came to the End: A Novel"<br /> Details: Thu, Oct 4th (7:00pm - 8:30pm)<br /> City: Campbell<br /> Cost: cup o' joe /topics/3688/ Fri, 17 Aug 2007 10:47:15 PDT 3688 <br /> This is funny...in an effort to be amongst the first to publish book reviews of the last installment of the Harry Potter series, newspapers were hiring speed readers to crush the book and spit out a review in time for the morning edition the following morning. Talk about taking the 24 hour news cycle and instant gratification to a new level. The British tabloid, the Sun, hired a speed reading champ who polished off the book in 47 minutes and one second! Ok, who was holding the stopwatch and was it really one second over 47 minutes or did they round up from 47 minutes and .5 seconds?<br /> <br /> Ok, but nobody's written the review that we're really all waiting for. How does Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows stack up against the iPhone?<br /> <br /> Hurry Potter: speed-reading critics rush reviews (Reuters) <br /> /topics/3586/ Sat, 21 Jul 2007 03:48:49 PDT 3586 Reviewed: Dreaming in Code<br /> Author: Scott Rosenberg · <br /> Description: Two dozen progammers, three years, 4,732 bugs, and one quest for transcendent software. This is a true story of the misadventures of one programming team trying to change the world through software and making every mistake possible along the way.<br /> Review Title: An Absolutely Cathartic Read for Anyone who Programs<br /> My Rating: Thumbs Up!<br /> My Opinion: If you're programer, you have to read this book. Maybe you'll learn something in it. Maybe you won't, but you'll feel a whole lot better about every programming screw up you've ever made after reading this because this book shows you how people who are probably smarter, richer, and more talented than you end up making the exact same mistakes you make and suffer from the same frustrations that you have with that bug that just wont go away.<br /> To a programmer, this book reads like a slasher horror movie. You have moments when you think, "No don't open that door" fully knowing what's about to happen. When the inevitable carnage comes, I found myself chuckling with elation that I was far from the first person to ever make that<strong><I>...more</I></strong> /topics/3570/ Wed, 11 Jul 2007 01:43:57 PDT 3570 "Hosseini chronicles 45 years of Afghanistan's volatile history in a story of family, friendship, compassion and love. A Thousand Splendid Suns showcases the people of a country thrust into the spotlight and artfully depicts the country's shifting ideas about women."<br /> http://www.commonwealthclub.org/sv/<br /> The entry fee is lower if you're a Commonwealth member. Also, the venue is actually the Santa Clara Convention Center Theater. I couldn't fit Theater in the Venue edit box.<br /> Not sure if I can make it, but it looks interesting.<br /> Khaled Hosseini | Good Lit: Writers in Conversation<br /> Details: Thu, Jul 5th (6:30pm - 9:00pm)<br /> City: Santa Clara<br /> Cost: &#036;18 or &#036;12 /topics/3490/ Mon, 18 Jun 2007 04:46:54 PDT 3490 On the Road by Jack Kerouac<br /> Amazon.com<br /> On The Road, the most famous of Jack Kerouac's works, is not only the soul of the Beat movement and literature, but one of the most important novels of the century. Like nearly all of Kerouac's writing, On The Road is thinly fictionalized autobiography, filled with a cast made of Kerouac's real life friends, lovers, and fellow travelers. Narrated by Sal Paradise, one of Kerouac's alter-egos, On the Road is a cross-country bohemian odyssey that not only influenced writing in the years since its 1957 publication but penetrated into the deepest levels of American thought and culture. --This text refers to the Paperback edition<br /> Book Club Meeting - "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac<br /> Details: Thu, Aug 16th (7:00pm - 8:30pm)<br /> City: Campbell<br /> Cost: cup o' joe /topics/3477/ Fri, 15 Jun 2007 02:06:11 PDT 3477 <br /> Join the Social Wave Book Club for a discussion of Michael Crichton's Next.<br /> <br /> Publisher's Weekly writes of Next: "Bestseller Crichton once again focuses on genetic engineering in his cerebral new thriller, though the science involved is a lot less far-fetched than creating dinosaurs from DNA. In an ambitious effort to show what's wrong with the U.S.'s current handling of gene patents and with the laws governing human tissues, the author interweaves many plot strands, one involving a California researcher, Henry Kendall, who has mixed human and chimp DNA while working at NIH. Kendall produces an intelligent hybrid whom he rescues from the government and tries to pass off as a fully human child. "<br /> <br /> Please note that, in an attempt to support locally-owned businesses, we'll be meeting this month at Coffee Society at The Pruneyard and we've changed the meeting date to Thursday, June 14. <br /> <br /> Book Club Meeting - Michael Crichton's "Next"<br /> Details: Thu, Jun 14th (7:00pm - 8:30pm)<br /> City: Campbell<br /> Cost: cup o' joe /topics/3355/ Mon, 14 May 2007 02:27:51 PDT 3355 O.k., in our book club meeting I promised to post links to a couple of articles examining the veracity of Augusten Burroughs's memoir, "Running with Scissors". Here you go! I'll be interested to hear what everyone thinks.<br /> Here is the article published in Vanity Fair, "Ruthless with Scissors":<br /> http://www.vanityfair.com/fame/features/20...burroughs200701<br /> QUOTE Running with Scissors, Augusten Burroughs's memoir of a shattered childhood, has spent more than two years on the New York Times best-seller list, spawned a Hollywood movie, and earned him literary stardom. It has also drawn a lawsuit from the Turcotte family, with whom he lived, and who are challenging the truth of his brutal, shocking portrait of them.<br /> Burroughs is interviewed by Robert Chalmers of The Independent newspaper, in an article entitled "Augusten Burroughs: Mad, brilliant and dangerous to know": <br /> http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/f...ticle341438.ece<br /> QUOTE At the age of 12, his mother sent him to live with a deranged, scatalogically obsessed psychiatrist; he was fed drugs, sexually abused and became a vicious alcoholic. Now, his cult memoir has been taken up by Hollywood and Augusten Burroughs claims he's happy at last. But can you believe a word he says? /topics/3213/ Mon, 02 Apr 2007 02:49:21 PDT 3213 <br /> Join the Social Wave Book Club for a discussion of Ali Smith's The Accidental. <br /> <br /> The Accidental is the story of a mysterious stranger, Amber, whose sudden appearance during a family&rsquo;s summer holiday transforms four unhappy people. Each of the Smarts&ndash;parents Eve and Michael, their 17 year old son Magnus, and their 12 year old daughter Astrid&ndash;encounter Amber in his or her own solipsistic way, but somehow her presence allows them to see their lives (and their life together) in a new light.<br /> <br /> Jeff Turrentine of The Washington Post writes: "Smith is a dazzling talent, fearlessly lassoing different styles and ideas and playfully manipulating them. Though The Accidental is not a conventionally funny novel, readers may find themselves laughing -- in surprise and delight -- at the way Smith takes a literary trope and riffs on it until she's turned it inside out, the way a great jazz musician might." <br /> <br /> The Accidental was awarded the prestigious Whitbread Award and was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, the Orange Prize, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.<br /> <br /> Book Club Meeting - The Accidental<br /> Date: 4/26/07 <br /> <br /> City:<strong><I>...more</I></strong> /topics/3192/ Sat, 31 Mar 2007 04:55:33 PDT 3192 <br /> Join the Social Wave Book Club for a discussion of Augusten Burrough's Running with Scissors: A Memoir.<br /> <br /> Booklist writes:<br /> <br /> It's hard to imagine a childhood more disturbing and relentlessly surreal than the one the author describes in this memoir. When his violent, nearly homicidal parents divorce, young Augusten lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, with his mother, a confessional poet battling a mental illness that manifests itself in consuming self-absorption and psychotic episodes. Deciding she needs more space for personal exploration and art, Augusten's mother packs her 12-year-old son off to the home of psychiatrist Dr. Finch, a wildly eccentric egomaniac; most of this memoir centers on Augusten's teenage years spent in this uncontrolled, profoundly bizarre household. <br /> <br /> And Publishers Weekly says: <br /> <br /> Beautifully written with a finely tuned sense of style and wit...this memoir of a nightmarish youth is both compulsively entertaining and tremendously provocative.<br /> <br /> Book Club Meeting - Running with Scissors<br /> Date: 3/29/07 <br /> <br /> City: Campbell<br /> <br /> Cost: cup of joe /topics/3125/ Mon, 12 Mar 2007 05:52:47 PDT 3125