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Throop Book Group Books for September through January

The Throop Book Group meets every Thursday from 4:00 - 6:30 P.M. in the Courtyard of Mijares Restaurant, 145 Palmetto Dr., Pasadena.  Presently it has completed its review of  Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke and is well into Native Son by Richard Wright.

Starting on September 25 and finishing on October 9, the Throop Book Group will discuss Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, by Barbara Kingsolver whose family made a commitment to become locavores - those who eat only locally grown food.  Those looking for healthful alternatives to processed foods will find inspiration to seek out Farmers' Markets and to learn to cook and enjoy seasonal foods.  Discussion leader will be Mary Jane Holden.

Next on the list, on October 16, 23, and 30, will be The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story, by Diane Ackerman. It is the remarkable World War II story of the director of the Warsaw Zoo and his wife who, with courage and coolheaded ingenuity, sheltered 300 Jews as well as Polish resisters in their villa and in animal cages and sheds. Discussion leader will be Carol Emerson.

In the first three Thursdays of November, (November 6, 13, 20) the book will be Lord Byron's exuberant masterpiece, Don Juan, which tells the adventures of this famous seducer.  Written in ottava rima stanza, Byron blends high drama with earthy humor, outrageous satire of his contemporaries, and sharp mockery of Western societies.  Jackie McDaniel will be the discussion leader.  The Throop Book Group will not meet on Thanksgiving, November 27.

In December, the book group will meet on Dec. 4, 11, and 18 to discuss The Cleft: A Novel, by Doris Lessing, who offers an alternative origin story for the human race, positing that the principal stock was female rather than male.  When men are introduced, both women and men discover that they can't live with or without each other, and the battle of the sexes commences.  Discussion leader is Jim Bys.

The Throop Book Group will start the new year, January 8, 15, and 22, 2009, discussing J. D. Salinger's modern classic The Catcher in the Rye.  The focus of the novel, Holden Caulfield, has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent," who narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps the novel on banned book lists.  Discussion leader is Julio-Cesar Marin.

Throop Book Group Books for August and September

The Throop Book Group meets every Thursday, from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. in the courtyard of Mijares Restaurant, 145 Palmetto Dr., Pasadena.  Scheduled for August 14, 21, and 28 is Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke.  This visionary science fiction writer who wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey and won worldwide acclaim with more than 100 books on science and the future recently died at the age of 90.  Childhood's End was one of his earliest and best known works. It starts with supervisors from outer space parking their mammoth silver ships silently above every major city on earth. After six knuckle-biting days, one of them speaks. The discussion will be led by Ann Hunnewell, who recommended the book.

On September 4, 11, and 18, the Group will discuss Native Son by Richard Wright, an urgent call in 1940 to America to awaken from its self-induced slumber about the reality of race relations in the nation.  Set in Chicago in the 1930's, Native Son tells the story of a young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in the inner cities across the country and what it meant to be black in America. Native Son was the first novel by an African American to be featured as a Main Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club. The discussion will be led by John Hunnewell.