LTBC Schedule for the Year 2003

Last Thursday Book Club
2003 Schedule

[Click on the displayed book jackets to order the book or obtain book and author information via Amazon.com]

Meeting Date	Host	Selection	Notes
Thursday 30 January 2003	Rob Easterling (286-8796) East Mountains: 51 Avenida del Sol, Cedar Crest, NM 87008 Take N14 4.5 mi. N of I-40 (exit 175, Cedar Crest). Turn left into Ventana del Sol subdivision. Follow keypad instructions. 1/2 mi. from gate. See house photo at far right...	A Little Yellow Dog by Walter Mosley A Little Yellow Dog (an Easy Rawlins Mystery) has many copies in the Rio Grande Valley Library system.	Walter Mosley, forty-nine, the award-winning author of six Easy Rawlins mysteries and a half dozen other books. Mosley has since created a new series: Fearless Jones (2001); and has returned to Science Fiction with Futureland (2000). Request Photo: Rob's House at first snow
Thursday 27 February 2003	Don Benoist (296-2533) 7709 Harwood Ave NE West of Wyoming, between Comanche and Montgomery; one block N of Comanche; turn west onto Harwood, two long blocks down on right.	Blue Latitudes Boldly Going Where Capt. Cook Has Gone Before by Tony Horwitz Review by Deane Rink	Captain James Cook's three epic 18th-century explorations of the Pacific Ocean were the last of their kind, literally completing the map of the world. Yet despite his monumental discoveries,. principally in the South Pacific, Cook the man has remained an enigma. In retracing key legs of the circum navigator's journey, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tony Horwitz. Horwitz skillfully weaves a biography and travel narrative with warm humor that is natural and human-scale, and his restless inquisitiveness quickly infects the reader. 496 pgs. Hardback only: available through the Club Secretary (via BooksAMillion.com) for $14 (total) per copy. RGVLS Library copies all checked out, and currently have 4 Holds on first copy(s) returned.
Thursday 27 March 2003	Gary Ganong (298-4731) 801 Rio Arriba SE (aerial photo)	Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian Nautical Terms	This, the first in the splendid series of Jack Aubrey novels, establishes the friendship between Captain Aubrey, R.N., and Stephen Maturin, ship's surgeon and intelligence agent, against a thrilling backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. Details of a life aboard a man-of-war are faultless rendered: the conversational idiom of the officers in the ward room and the men on the lower deck, the food, the floggings, the mysteries of the wind and the rigging, and the roar of broadsides as the great ships close in battle. There are 10 printed copies in the Rio Grande Library system and several audio copies for those who like to listen to books while they watch muted sports on TV. more nautical terms - larger dictionary The Port-Wine Sea - a parody on the Aubrey/Maturin novels Salty Dogs - Smithsonian Magazine's PDF files on Thomas Cochrane and Patrick O'Brian - the rest of the story.
Thursday 24 April 2003 10th Anniversary Special	Mike Blackledge (294-6030) 14321 Stalgren Ct. NE (aerial photo) From Tramway & Copper, go east 5 streets, turn right on Parkside, then ineluctable left modality.	Ulysses by James Joyce Ben's Web-based Guide (21 pages) Another Guide with the Joyce schema Ulysses for Dummies "Love's Old Sweet Song" - the most difficult of entertaining books and the most entertaining of difficult books.	Ulysses is the major imaginative work in English prose of the 20th century. Many non-LTBC readers are put off Joyce by the difficulty, or supposed difficulty, of his work. But the courageous men of the LTBC have read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Ulysses is a continuation of the story of Stephen Dedalus - for just one more day: 16 June 1904. "Joyce's theme in Ulysses was simple. He invoked the most elaborate means to present it. Like other great writers, he sensed that the methods available to him in previous literature were insuffficient, and he determined to outreach them." The LTBC apostles review Ulysses James Joyce resources on the Internet
Thursday 29 May 2003	Ben Smith 3918 Solano Pl, NE 87110 268-8801 From Constitution and Carlisle, go EAST one long block to Morningside. Turn left and go one block north and turn left on Solano Place.	In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead by James Lee Burke	Ten copies available in the Rio Grande Library System (note: some in paperback); plus several in Large Print. The restless specters wait in the shadows for cajun cop Dave Robicheaux - as he hunts a serial butcher who is preying on the less-then-innocent young. For these spirits are the guardians of Robicheaux's darkest torments - and they hold the key to his ultimate salvation...or a final, fatal downfall.
Wednesday 25 June 2003	John Taylor (298-0849) 12704 Hugh Graham Road NE	"Fiesta Veinticinco de Poe" --- any poem, short story, work by Edgar Allan Poe	The book selection is anything by Edgar Allan Poe - a book of poems, short stories, anything available easily from the Rio Grande Valley Library System. Please note this special meeting will occur on the last WEDNESDAY of June.
Thursday, 31 July 2003	Tom Genoni (292-4985) 1616 Catron SE	To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf	#15 on the Top 100 Modern Library list of Novels of the 20th Century and the first by a female author. Library has about 12 copies, with 4 in large print. ~280 pages. LTBC reviews. LTBC Poet Laureate's freeform "Hark from Hebrides"
Thursday, 28 August 2003	Vern Gibbs (281-3639) Sandia Park Head toward the Ski Area; take the first right onto Old Crest - good luck!	seldom disappointed: a memoir by Tony Hillerman	Ben will bring Charlie Palmer as a guest to this August meeting; will meet with Mike in Smith's parking lot, awaiting the 4-Hills Bus. Rob will again be in absentia, to return in Sept. Don leaves on Wed. for Texas, returns Sept 4. Over 60 copies in the RGLS - each branch has at least 4, under Biography - Hillerman. An additional dozen copies in large print. 352 pages.
Monday 22 September 2003	Keith Gilbert (265-8122) 913 Parkland Circle NE From Wyoming, go West on Zuni to Carlisle; Go South on Carlisle until the median disappears; (or changes drastically); Go East; Keith is on this street, on the North side.	The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King	When a young girl finds herself lost in the woods, she tunes her Walkman to a Boston Red Sox game and imagines her hero, relief pitcher Tom Gordon, walking beside her. But a hulking beast silently, ruthlessly stalks her, waiting until she runs out of strength, determination, and hope. 50 copies in the RGLS - each branch has at least 2, most have 4. An additional six copies in large print. Review Summary by LTBC Review by Poet Laureate
Next to Last Thursday 23 October 2003	Ron B. ... Loma Linda SE Lead/Coal; between Carlisle and Washington, take Montclaire south.	Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez LTBC Review	368 pages 27 copies in library 2 copies available in large print. Note: Rob not available for this meeting. Note: Gary will host guest: Jack Ferrell Review in New York Times, April 1988, by Thomas Pynchon: "Love, as Mickey and Sylvia reminded us in their 1956 hit single, love is strange." From the Nobel Prize-winning author of One Hundred Years of Solitude comes a masterly evocation of an unrequited passion so strong that it binds three people's lives together for more than fifty years.
[3rd] Thursday: 20 November 2003 [Thursday before Thanksgiving]	Rob Easterling (286-8796) East Mountains: 51 Avenida del Sol, Cedar Crest, NM 87008 Take N14 4.5 mi. N of I-40 (exit 175, Cedar Crest). Turn left into Ventana del Sol subdivision. Follow keypad instructions. 1/2 mi. from gate.	Atonement by Ian McEwan	2001: 350 pages; by the winner of the prestigious English Booker prize, for another novel, Amsterdam. 40 copies available in RGLS 6 copies in large print. From the book jacket, the British really loved this book: "It is rare for a critic to feel justified in using the word 'masterpiece,' but Ian McEwan's new book really deserves to be called one ... Atonement is a work of astonishing depth and humanity." - The Economist
[3rd] Thursday 18 December 2003 [Thursday before Christmas]	Don Benoist (296-2533) 7709 Harwood Ave NE .	All the Little Live Things by Wallace Stegner	Only six copies in RGLS. "All the Little Live Things" is the third Stegner that our LTBC members have read, and many consider one of his three best. A great introduction to the works by Wallace Stegner.