Vista Womens Book Club meets the 3 rd Wednesday at 6 pm, at Rancho Grande El Toro
Mexican Restaurant, 825 Wlliamston St, Vista CA
Hello Booklovers:
Our recent book club meeting was vibrant and excellent. We discussed the Book Swan Song by Erin Hilderbrand. The swan song is a metaphorical phrase for a final gesture, effort, or performance given just before death or retirement. The phrase refers to an ancient belief that swans sing a beautiful song just before their death while they have been silent (or alternatively not so musical) for most of their lifetime. Did the main character die? Was it truly a Swan Song? Is it just heart attack where he will survive to live in another book? Some of our members are familiar with the Nantucket island, and we bounced around ideas for the movie version – who would be the leading role? However, it was interesting that we all interpreted the final chapter.
The themes and ideas we explore open us to insights on how we view the world. If you haven’t been to our book club yet, you are invited to attend even if you haven’t finished the book. We have extra copies of our books that we have read that you can borrow. We had two guests who added some wonderful insight, and they enjoyed our group and said they would be back next month.
In March, our book is North Woods by Daniel Mason.
In April, – Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger
In May, Educated by Tara Westover
Preview of the upcoming books:
March Book – North Woods by Daniel Mason
The novel’s events span a period from the mid-1600s to the present day and transpire
against the backdrop of a single location: a fictional region of western Massachusetts
known simply as the “north woods”. Many different characters inhabit this spot, first in a
rustic cabin and later in a yellow house built next to the cabin. The text tells the stories
of each generation largely through limited third-person narration from the perspective of
the principal character living there during a particular era. Some segments of the novel
unfold through first-person narration in the form of letters or memoranda written by the
main character of a particular section. The book follows the lives of a varied set of
characters over a broad swath of US history.
April 2026 – Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger
This book is a mystery and coming-of-age novel narrated from the perspective of Frank
Drum and set in Minnesota. The plot centers on a series of deaths that strike the
fictional town of New Bremen in 1961. For thirteen-year-old Frank Drum it was a grim
summer in which death visited frequently and assumed many forms. Accident. Nature.
Suicide. Murder.
Told from Frank’s perspective forty years after that fateful summer, Ordinary Grace is a
brilliantly moving account of a boy standing at the door of his young manhood, trying to
understand a world that seems to be falling apart around him. It is an unforgettable
novel about discovering the terrible price of wisdom and the enduring grace of faith.
May Book – Educated by Tara Westover
Educated is a 2018 memoir by American author Tara Westover. Westover recounts
overcoming her survivalist Mormon family in order to go to college and emphasizes the
importance of education in enlarging her world. She details her journey from her
isolated life in the rural mountains of Clifton, Idaho to completing a PhD program in
history at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. She started college at 17
having had no formal education. She explores her struggle to reconcile her desire to
learn with the world she inhabited with her father.
On September 13, 2020, The New York Times reported that the book had spent 132
consecutive weeks on the Hardcover Non-Fiction Best Seller list.[2] It won a 2019 Alex
Award and was shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, PEN America's Jean
Stein Book Award, and two awards from the National Book Critics Circle Award.[3]
