Do you recognize this person?

Yes, it's none other than Martha! This billboard was posted around Seattle and this one was in Woodinville near Patti & Jen last year. Let's hope she chose the Antibiotics :)

The Birth of Venus - Read by 5/1/07

Our current book is “The Birth of Venus” by Sarah Dunant. The next get-together will be hosted by Martha, 1st or 2nd week of May. This has been out for a few years now so you should have no problem finding a copy in the library or 2nd hand book store. Thanks to Kristin for suggesting and hosting the last gathering!

Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family's Florentine palazzo. A child of the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing, Alessandra is intoxicated by the painter's abilities.But their burgeoning relationship is interrupted when Alessandra's parents arrange her marriage to a wealthy, much older man. Meanwhile, Florence is changing, increasingly subject to the growing suppression imposed by the fundamentalist monk Savonarola, who is seizing religious and political control. Alessandra and her native city are caught between the Medici state, with its love of luxury, learning, and dazzling art, and the hellfire preaching and increasing violence of Savonarola's reactionary followers. Played out against this turbulent backdrop, Alessandra's married life is a misery, except for the surprising freedom it allows her to pursue her powerful attraction to the young painter and his art.

-from ReadingGroupGuides.com

For discussion questions and more info on the book go to:
http://readinggroupguides.com/guides3/birth_of_venus1.asp

A Secret History by Donna Tartt

Our current read is "A Secret History" by Donna Tartt

Kristen will be hosting the next bookclub in early March 07- Look for an Evite to come!

The Secret History takes place at the fictional Hampden College, which like Bennington is a small liberal arts college in Vermont. Its story centers on a small group of overly refined and elite students of ancient Greek taught by an eccentric professor who accepts few students. When the narrator, Richard Papen, a penniless transfer student from suburban California, successfully hatches a scheme to join the group, he gradually becomes privy to the group's secret history: they had accidentally murdered a farmer in their successful attempt to recreate an ancient Greek bacchanal. However, Bunny Corcorran, the one member of the group who had not participated in the bacchanal, learns of the murder and begins to blackmail the others. As Bunny's sanity becomes questionable and he threatens to reveal their secret, Richard must choose whether to side with the group in their decision to murder Bunny in order to silence him.
Critical opinion of the novel has been mostly favorable. Some critics have faulted The Secret History for vapid characterization and artificial stylization, but most have praised the work as an outstanding achievement for a first novel. Variously interpreted as suspenseful mystery, an exploration of the nature of evil, and a comparison of classical and modern values and philosophy, The Secret History is a noteworthy debut from a talented contemporary author.
With the publication of The Little Friend in 2002, Tartt proves she is no one-hit wonder. Already critics have praised the novel for its prose style, sharp characterizations, and tense narrative.
(Article updated November 2002)
—John B. Padgett