November Meeting Details

Hey Bookenders! 

Ahhh only 2.5 weeks til the end of the semester! I hope you're rising above all the stress :D

Here are the details for our November meeting /
Book: The Book Thief / Marcus Zusak (as you know)
Date: 25 November 2016
Time: 4:00-5:00 pm
Place: Koffler House, 569 Spadina Ave
             Quiet Room (3rd floor) -- we won't need to be quiet, don't worry

Also, a last reminder about our movie night / 
Film: V for Vendetta
Date: 22 November 2016 (this Tuesday)
Time: 6:30-9pm (ish)
Place: Hart House, North Dining Room

Hope you can come!

Best,

Taneeta

November 2016 Book of the Month

Hey Bookenders!

Thanks to everyone who voted for the book of the month. The two top choices were very close (just 1 vote separated them!) but ultimately there was a winner...

The Book Thief, by Marcus Zusak.

Click here to vote for the time/date for our November meeting. Hope you enjoy the book!

Best,

Taneeta

Movie Night Details

Hey Bookenders!

Just a quick update on the movie night -- we're still screening V for Vendetta on Tuesday November 22 in Hart House (North Dining Room -- the same place as the October meeting), but the time is now 6:30 pm because they're really busy! I hope people can still come, and of course you can always leave early. The film is 2h12min, so it should be done by 9pm.

If you're not familiar with Hart House, the North Dining Room is on the second floor (turn left when you've climbed the main stairs). If you take the elevator, turn right and go past the library.

As mentioned before, this is a Bookends-only event due to licensing restrictions.

Details:
V for Vendetta
Tue Nov 22, 6:30pm
Hart House - North Dining Room

Hope to see you there!

Best,
Taneeta

November Book Nominations

This month's theme is historical fiction. Historical fiction, for our purposes, is books that take place more than 50 years in the past. I tried to include a diverse set of noms - hopefully you all find something that you like!

Content warnings for racism (specifically anti-Black racism and antisemitism), sexual assault, domestic violence, and war.

The Color Purple

The Color Purple is a 1982 epistolary novel by American author Alice Walker which won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction. It was later adapted into a film and musical of the same name.


Taking place mostly in rural Georgia, the story focuses on the life of women of color in the southern United States in the 1930s, addressing numerous issues including their exceedingly low position in American social culture. The novel has been the frequent target of censors and appears on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2000-2009 at number seventeen because of the sometimes explicit content, particularly in terms of violence.
[source]

The Book Thief

It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .

Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.
[source]

Memoirs of a Geisha

A literary sensation and runaway bestseller, this brilliant debut novel presents with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism the true confessions of one of Japan's most celebrated geisha.

In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. It is a unique and triumphant work of fiction—at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful—and completely unforgettable.
[source]

Timeline

In an Arizona desert, a man wanders in a daze, speaking words that make no sense. Within twenty-four hours he is dead, his body swiftly cremated by his only known associates. Halfway around the world, archaeologists make a shocking discovery at a medieval site. 

Suddenly they are swept off to the headquarters of a secretive multinational corporation that has developed an astounding technology. Now this group is about to get a chance not to study the past but to enter it. And with history opened up to the present, the dead awakened to the living, these men and women will soon find themselves fighting for their very survival -- six hundred years ago.
[source]

One Hundred Years of Solitude

The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the family. It is a rich and brilliant chronicle of life and death, and the tragicomedy of humankind.

Love and lust, war and revolution, riches and poverty, youth and senility - the variety of life, the endlessness of death, the search for peace and truth - these universal themes dominate the novel. Whether he is describing an affair of passion or the voracity of capitalism and the corruption of government, Marquez always writes with the simplicity, ease, and purity that are the mark of a master.
[source]

Death Comes for the Archbishop

There is something epic about this sparsely beautiful novel by Willa Cather, although the story it tells is that of a single human life, lived simply in the silence of the desert. In 1851 Father Jean Marie Latour comes as the Apostolic Vicar to New Mexico. 

What he finds is a vast territory of red hills and tortuous arroyos, American by law but Mexican and Indian in custom and belief. In the almost forty years that follow, Latour spreads his faith in the only way he knows—gently, although he must contend with an unforgiving landscape, derelict and sometimes openly rebellious priests, and his own loneliness. One of these events Cather gives us an indelible vision of life unfolding in a place where time itself seems suspended.
[source]

Under a Painted Sky

Missouri, 1849: Samantha dreams of moving back to New York to be a musician—not an easy thing if you’re a girl, and harder still if you’re Chinese. But a tragic accident dashes any hopes of fulfilling her dream, and leaves her fearing for her life. She flees town with a runaway slave named Annamae. 

But life on the Oregon Trail is unsafe for two girls, so they disguise themselves as  two boys headed for California. But when they cross paths with a band of cowboys, the light-hearted troupe turn out to be unexpected allies. With the law closing in on them, they quickly learn that there aren't many places to hide on the open trail.
[source]



Vote for your favourite here:

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Membership Confirmation

Hi everyone,

I am in the process of getting funding for our club! Yay! One of the conditions of the funding is that I provide a membership list of active members. If you consider yourself to be an active member of Bookends (you read the emails, or look at the website, or participate in the polls/come to meetings), then please send me an email with the following:

• your name
• your student number
• your program of study (PoSt)

This information is submitted for the express purpose of making sure you are UofT students. If you're not, don't worry, but you don't need to send that info! 

I will be accepting this info until Saturday, November 5, at 11:59 pm (for time-sensitive reasons). If you don't email me by this time, I'll assume you don't consider yourself an active member of Bookends. Thanks for your cooperation!

I've also attached a poll for our first social event -- Movie Night! You can vote on the movie below, and choose the date/time here. Both will close Saturday, November 5, at 11:59 pm as well (just to keep it simple).

Looking forward to your responses!

Best,

Taneeta

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Update - October Meeting

Helloooo Bookenders!

I was supposed to post this last week, so I'm very sorry for the delay! Hope your midterms have been swell and are winding down now that we're getting to November.

1. Meeting Date & Time
2. Add us on Facebook (and join the Social Committee!)
3. Discord app/website
4. Social Events - November and December

1. Meeting Date & Time
The room has finally been booked! Our meeting will be:

Monday, October 31, 5:00-6:00 pm
Hart House
North Dining Room (2nd floor)

There will be food, so if you can make it and would like to partake, please let me know of your dietary restrictions (vegetarian, vegan, lactose-intolerant, etc.).

2. Add us on FB & Join the Social Committee
Our Social Committee member, Khushnuma Nafis, has set up a Facebook page and group. She will be posting info about our meetings and social events! If you want to be an admin, message her directly (and let me know too, if you want to be on the Social Committee but don't have Facebook!)

3. Reminder about Discord
We also have a discussion group on Discord. You don't need an account to join the conversation!

4. Social Events - Nov & Dec
Our two social events this semester will be (you guessed it) November and December! For November, we will have a Movie Night (TBD), and December, bring your favourite board game (and friends) to our Games Night! If you want to help plan either of these events, please message Khushnuma or reply to this email! (Dates, times, and places are forthcoming.)

Hope to see you on Monday!

Best,

Taneeta

October 2016 Book of the Month

Hope you had a great week. It's time to start reading, because the votes are in! The book for October is...

"Gerald's Game," by Stephen King.

Thanks for voting, and if you didn't get a chance, you can still vote for the time and date of our meeting until next Saturday, Oct 15, at 12:00 pm at this link. Join our discussion (if you haven't already) on Discord as we read! I'm looking forward to chatting with all of you.

Enjoy your long weekend!

Best,

Taneeta