Greetings, First Friday Book Club Members:
Just a reminder that our July 10 meeting is still scheduled to take place:
Where: McKinney Community Center
2001 S. Central Expressway, McKinney, TX 75070
(located just off 75 between Eldorado and Towne Lake)
When: Friday, July 10, 2020 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
If you subscribe to the City's newsletter, you may have seen our book club recently as part of the activity re-opening announcements.
Wasn't it Andy Warhol who said we will all get our 20 minutes of fame? Well, there you are.
You might have also noticed that everyone is now required to wear masks during events at City facilities.
So, that means us.
That said, one small mask joke is in order:
On a more literary note:
Our reading for July 10 is The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith.
This is the opening novel of a twenty-part series and provides the back story and characters that appear throughout all of the books.
The alternative reading this month is Hotel Paradise by Martha Grimes: "part of a series of dreamy, sem iautobiographical mysteries, set in the post-World-War II South, about Emma Graha
m, a 12-year-old sleuth who is smarter, funnier and more dev ious than most licensed grown-ups in the trade." [NYT review is at https://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/books/review/the-hotel-detective-age-12.html ] There might be some similarities between the two books. What do you think? Other questions to consider before we meet:
In what ways is The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency not a conventional mystery novel?
What do you think about Botswana? Have you been to Africa?
Have you read any other books with a similar setting?
How does the author sustain the reader’s interest, in the absence of tension, violence, and suspense that drive most mysteries?
Is The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency a feminist novel? Does the fact that its author is a man complicate such a reading?
How well does Alexander McCall Smith represent a woman’s character and consciousness in Mma Ramotswe? Some Mma Ramotswe quotes:
“Women are the ones who know what’s going on. They are the ones with eyes. Have you not read Agatha Christie?”
"You could think and think and get nowhere, but you still had to eat your pumpkin."
"People want to be left alone to look after their cattle.”
[The cast from the BBC/HBO TV series]
See you all next week!
Tami
Book club web page = First Friday Book Club
Book club Facebook = https://www.facebook.com/FirstFridayBookClub
