My virtual thank-you note!

Hello everyone!

A belated "thank you" to NOBC for the baby gift to our account at Baby Diaper Service. The book club's gift will take care of about five weeks of diaper service for us - no small thing considering that we still use about 140 diapers each week! The diaper service has been great because we don't have to worry about running out of diapers, late night trips to buy more diapers or how to dispose of or wash diapers. Thanks so much for contributing to our account!

Though I haven't really been reading books or making it to bookclub recently, I'm still dreaming about doing those things and reading about reading books. A good-looking list of recommended books for women appeared in today' Seattle Times. The list is in the Gender F supplement and includes a review for one book which ends with the sentence, "This is a women's book-club offering if there ever was one: Read her, get mad, be thoughtful." Hmmm.... It looks like all the books are non-fiction so maybe not what NOBC is looking for but some of you may be interested in checking it out. The article should be available online or on my refrigerator door for the next several weeks.

Thanks again for the baby gift! I hope to read a book and see you all soon.

Becky

Wicked - The Book & Musical (Aug-Sept 2006)

Well, unfortunately tickets sold out quickly for the show. So I'm taking suggestions for an alternative book unless you'd still like to read this.




From Publishers Weekly: With a husky voice and a gentle, dramatic manner that will call to mind the image of a patient grandfather reading to an excited gaggle of children, McDonough leisurely narrates this fantastical tale of good and evil, of choice and responsibility. In Maguire's Oz, Elphaba, better known as the Wicked Witch of the West, is not wicked; nor is she a formally schooled witch. Instead, she's an insecure, unfortunately green Munchkinlander who's willing to take radical steps to unseat the tyrannical Wizard of Oz. Using an appropriately brusque voice for the always blunt Elphaba, McDonough relates her tumultuous childhood (spent with an alcoholic mother and a minister father) and eye-opening school years (when she befriends her roommate, Glinda). McDonough's pacing remains frustratingly slow even after the plot picks up, and Elphaba's protracted ruminations on the nature of evil will have some listeners longing for an abridgement. Still, McDonough's excellent portrayals of Elphaba's outspoken, gravel-voiced nanny, Glinda's snobbish friends and the wide-eyed, soft-spoken Dorothy make this excursion to Oz worthwhile.