"Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott

Book Club read for November

The four March sisters come of age against the backdrop of a nation forever

changed by the Civil War.

While their father serves in the conflict, the sisters -

Dutiful Meg,

Fiery Jo,

Gentle Beth,

and Fanciful Amy -

are guided on a journey of growth and experience by their spirited mother.

Little Women is the story of a loving and unconventional family

welcoming life's joys and bravely facing life's sorrows.

In part autobiographical, this is an important historical protrait of

young women growing up in a post-war American society of

strong traditions and modern freedoms.

"A Night with Matthew Reilly"

Wow Can you believe that best selling author Matthew Reilly is coming to little old Mt Barker Library in November 28th, 6:30pm....

His newest Novel entitled "Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves," is what he will be talking to us about.

The novel is set at an abandoned Soviet base in the Arctic. Dragon Island, a long-forgotten relic of the Cold War, houses a weapon of terrible destructive force. When Dragon Island is seized by a terrorist force the fate of the world hangs in the balance. There are no crack units close enough to stop the Army setting off the weapon. Except for a small equipment-testing team in the Arctic led by a Marine Captain, call sign, Scarecrow. It's not equipped to attack a fortified island but Scarecrow will lead them in anyway, because someone has to!

Matthew Reilly is the author of action/thriller novels and he has published over 3.5 million copies around the world. His first novel he published at just 19 years of age. My favourite series from this author has been the "Jack West" series, starting with "Seven Ancient Wonders, Six Sacred Stones and Five Greatest Warriors." All teenage boys will love reading anything from this highly talented author, but his appeal will also invite girls too.

So if you live in Adelaide and have the chance, he will be appearing at the Mt Barker library on Monday 28th November. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased from the library or from Dymocks books Adelaide. Should be a wonderful evening...

"The Zookeeper's Wife" by Diane Ackerman

Book Club read by Irish for October

Jan and Antonina Zabinski were polish Christian zookeepers horrified by Nazi racism, who managed to save over three hundred people. Yet their story has fallen between the seams of history.

drawing on Antonina's diary and other historical sources, best-selling naturalist Diane Ackerman vividly re-creates Antonina's life as "the Zookeeper's Wife," responsible for her own family, the animals, and their 'Guests" - Resistance activsts and refugee Jews, many of whom Jan had smuggled from Warsaw Ghetto. Ironically, the empty zoo cages helped to hide scores of doomed people, who were code-named after the animals whose cages they occupied. Others hid in the nooks and crannies of the house itself.

Jan led a cell of sabotueors, and the Zabinskis young son risked his life carrying food to the Guests, while also tending an eccentric array of creatures in the house [pigs, hare, muskrat, foxes, and more.] With hidden people having animal names, and pet animals having human names, it's small wonder the zoo's code name became "The House Under a Crazy Star.

A New Beginning

Over the past year and a half, our little reading group has under gone some changes, sadly we have lost three of our original members due to various reasons, but on the positive side we have gained a wonderful new friend to our book club group. Her name is Melissa and she brings in a wonderful new view on all the books we have read this year.

While I have posted on our old book club site I am very new to the world of blogging and this is my first attempt at starting one myself...so please bare with me with all the teething problems that I am sure will occur. Once I have figure everything out our goal is to have this book club site for the group books we read throughout the year as well as perhaps any others that we read.

So we hope you enjoy our views on the books that we choose to read and hope that it might inspire you to pick some of these up for yourselves.

Happy reading, love 'The Next Chapter Book Club"