Hello all!!

We've posted our books to round out the year. Instead of trying to meet at the end of the month through the holidays, our meetings have been spread out a bit, and we'll meet in the beginning or middle of the next few months. I've also got news that although Don Quixote won the vote for foreign literature on Tuesday, a 1000+ page book seemed like a unrealistic task for a one month read. Instead, we've gone with the runner up from that vote, Perfume. If there is interest in reading Don Quixote, maybe we can set up an additional meeting for any interested parties??

Our books and meetings are:

The Solitude of Prime Numbers - November 1, 2011 at Fullsteam Brewery in Durham. Out of a mathematical conceit the Italian writer Paolo Giordano has drawn a mesmerizing portrait of a young man and woman whose injured natures draw them together over the years and inevitably pull them apart. That is the bare-bones summary, and just as misleading as attempting to use Mona Lisa’s bare skull to configure her smile. “The Solitude of Prime Numbers” is neither psychological drama nor plight-driven melodrama. If anything, it is a venture into an undiscovered realm of astonishing shapes and colors

Guns, Germs and Steel - December 13, 2011 somewhere in Chapel Hill.  In Guns, Germs, and Steel Jared Diamond presents the biologist's answer: geography, demography, and ecological happenstance. Diamond evenhandedly reviews human history on every continent since the Ice Age at a rate that emphasizes only the broadest movements of peoples and ideas. Yet his survey is binocular: one eye has the rather distant vision of the evolutionary biologist, while the other eye--and his heart--belongs to the people of New Guinea, where he has done field work for more than 30 years.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer - January 17, 2012 somewhere in Durham. Suskind's demented protagonist, Jean-Baptist Grenouille, is a "gifted abomination" whose highly developed sense of smell could easily make him the greatest perfumer of all time. Given the general stench of 18th-century cities, good perfumers were held in high regard. However, Grenouille the misfit, scorned by society throughout his life, hasn't the heart to create pretty perfumes for society's elite. When he finally does earn the adoration of the masses through his twisted genius, he decides that he would much prefer to "exterminate all these stupid, stinking people from the earth."

Thanks!

Jess