Book for June... Not May, but June.. get it, got it, good!

The Book 0f the month for June:Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn :Ella Minnow Pea' is a delightfully diverting novel filled with wit and imagination. Its lovingly crafted structure is a real breath of fresh air -- one would be hard pressed to find another book like it out there. One must admire Mark Dunn not only for his lively imagination but for his awe-inspiring power over words. It is fun to see how he manages to continue telling his story while avoiding use of a growing number of letters in the alphabet. Never once does his prose sound forced or simple, even after he must resort to using his remaining letters to phonetically sound out his words. The plot (citizens on an island off the coast of the US rebel after their government begins restricting their use of the alphabet) could have easily been silly, cliched and like a poor man's 'Animal Farm' but instead forges out its own solid identity and endears itself to the reader through its inventiveness and wit... The date for our June meeting is Monday, the 30th from 7-9pm.
Meeting places: Aroma Di Roma, 5327 E. 2nd Street, Long Beach, CA 90803 And a our second location at Vint's also on Monday on Second Street, Vint's American Grill 4722 E. 2nd StreetLong Beach, CA 90803... Please come join us... All are welcome if you have read the book.

The Book Club is Growing

The Belmont Shore book club was Into the Wild this week, doubling our numbers from last month. Thank you for coming... Sean Penn would be pleased!!! He said that he was going to come but was held up in traffic. I think I would rather hang out with his brother Chris though. Does anyone else agree? I think that Cyrus already talked with him :) Come out and Plaaaayyyyy... We are looking at two sites in order to keep our talks more intimate...
Hope to see you next month!

Book Of the Month for May...

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
by Jonathan Safran Foer

Jonathan Safran Foer has written a novel for our times, a story so deeply affecting and wise that it has to potential to have an impact far beyond that of most novels. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a collage about the world we live in: its terrorism, its beauty, its love, its mysteries, its absurdities, its people. Oskar is a precocious nine-year old who writes letters to famously intelligent people asking to be their protégé, invents a "googolplex" of devices (such as an ambulance that tells people when a loved one is inside and a lollipop that tells people how they are feeling), who knows a tremendous amount of facts (many of which he wishes he didn't know) - and who has lost his beloved father in the World Trade Center bombings. Oskar harbors a secret about that day that he cannot bring to share with anyone, not even his mother or grandmother. When he discovers a strange key among his father's possessions, he sets out in the five boroughs of New York to see what it unlocks. His narrative is punctuated by that of his grandfather, a man left speechless by what he experienced during the bombing of Dresden, and his grandmother, also a survivor of the Dresden firebombing, who loves Oskar in ways his mother cannot and who tries to make sense of why her husband left her before the birth of their son. The relationships are complex and heartfelt, and are marked by an affection that will make readers laugh from the pleasure of them. Just when you think Foer can't get any deeper with his insights, he does.


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The date for our next meeting is Monday, May 26th from 7-9pm.
Meeting place: Aroma Di Roma, 5327 E. 2nd Street, Long Beach, CA 90803; And a our second new location at Vint's American Grill 4722 E. 2nd StreetLong Beach, CA 90803 across from Super Mex...

Book Club this Monday!!!! Excitement...

Welovel0ngbeach Book of the Month: Into the Wild by Jack Krakauer


What would possess a gifted young man recently graduated from college to literally walk away from his life? Noted outdoor writer and mountaineer Jon Krakauer tackles that question in his reporting on Chris McCandless, whose emaciated body was found in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness in 1992.


The date for our next meeting is Monday, April 28th from 7-9pm.
Meeting place: Aroma Di Roma, 5327 E. 2nd Street, Long Beach, CA 90803