Heart and Soul by Maeve Binchy

Location: Serra'nin Evi
When: Wednesday, April 29, 7:30PM

Heart and Soul by Maeve Binchy

Another delightful Binchyesque amalgamation of intersecting lives...The collective, charming effect of these story lines suggests that individuals are more connected than they might think." –Publishers Weekly"Only a curmudgeon could resist this master of cheerful, read-by-the-fire comfort." –Kirkus Reviews"Interweaving the domestic narratives of a dissimilar collection of individuals is beloved Binchy's stock-in-trade, and once again, she does so with sublime ease, inventively engaging readers through a reassuring and persuasive combination of gracious warmth, gentle humor, and genuine affection." –Carol Haggas, Booklist“Ambitious and intelligently conceived...A heart clinic is really the perfect metaphor for how this book feels. It's a warm and comfy world [and reading Heart and Soul is] not unlike getting a hug from your mother...Binchy's millions-strong readership...will not be disappointed.” –William Kowalski, The Globe and Mail (Toronto)"Oh, the bliss...Maeve's back, on top form...The heart is the theme, literally and metaphorically, and this is heartwarming stuff–sweet but never cloying." –The Times"[Maeve Binchy] knows how to fashion a minor drama into a crisis, and the book rattles along from one gripping story to another, leaving the reader with a satisfying glow...It does exactly what it says on the tin: gives heart and soul." –Daily Mail"[Heart and Soul] brings together the secret hopes and dreams of a disparate group of characters...with [Binchy's] trademark warmth and empathy." –Irish Sunday Independent"Maeve Binchy's latest novel is packed as usual with wonderful characters...Full of warmth, caring and commonsense." –CHOICE
http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/cgi-bin/item/parent-9780307265791/Heart-and-Soul-eBook.html

The Next Thing on My List by Jill Smolinski

Event:Kitap Klubu Mart Ayi Toplantisi
Location:Alkim'in Evi
When:Thu, 03/12/09, 7:30PM

The Next Thing on My List by Jill Smolinski

The new novel from Jill Smolinski ("Flip-Flopped") takes a trendy concept and spins it into a charming tale, albeit with a few holes. She creates yet another cookie-cutter chick-lit world, where the heroine, June, is a little witty and a little self-conscious and works at a job in which she is underappreciated. Then comes the whirlwind transformation that turns her world upside down and elicits positive change.
After a Weight Watchers meeting, June is in a car accident. Her passenger, a 24-year-old woman, dies. After soul-searching and a push from outside forces, June decides to finish the dead girl's list of "20 Things to Do by My 25th Birthday."
From "eat ice cream in public" to "change a life," the items begin to make June into a better person. She sees the world around her differently and opens herself to new possibilities. The story is complicated by June's attraction to the dead girl's brother, a traffic reporter who can help her career, one in which women climb the corporate ladder if they look good in a tight skirt.
June's lack of self-esteem muddles the plot as everyone around her has to build her up to see what they see: an attractive and able career woman who can stand on her own feet. Also troubling is June's lack of emotion; Smolinski would have made the novel more interesting if she included the emotional turmoil of a woman trying to make amends after a fatal accident.
This is summer reading candy. The pages seem to turn themselves, but the story never quite reaches the emotional or adventurous pinnacle it strives to attain.

http://www.tbo.com/entertainment/books/MGBN8ZHR42F.html

Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution

Event:Kitap Klubu Ocak Ayi Toplantisi
Location:Sibel Babacan
When:Wed, 02/4/09, 7:30PM

Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution

Thomas L. Friedman's no. 1 bestseller The World Is Flat has helped millions of readers to see globalization in a new way. Now Friedman brings a fresh outlook to the crises of destabilizing climate change and rising competition for energy—both of which could poison our world if we do not act quickly and collectively. His argument speaks to all of us who are concerned about the state of America in the global future.
Friedman proposes that an ambitious national strategy—which he calls "Geo-Greenism"—is not only what we need to save the planet from overheating; it is what we need to make America healthier, richer, more innovative, more productive, and more secure.
As in The World Is Flat, he explains a new era—the Energy-Climate era—through an illuminating account of recent events. He shows how 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the flattening of the world by the Internet (which brought 3 billion new consumers onto the world stage) have combined to bring climate and energy issues to Main Street. But they have not gone very far down Main Street; the much-touted "green revolution" has hardly begun. With all that in mind, Friedman sets out the clean-technology breakthroughs we, and the world, will need; he shows that the ET (Energy Technology) revolution will be both transformative and disruptive; and he explains why America must lead this revolution—with the first Green President and a Green New Deal, spurred by the Greenest Generation.
Hot, Flat, and Crowded is classic Thomas L. Friedman—fearless, incisive, forward-looking, and rich in surprising common sense about the world we live in today.
http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/bookshelf/hot-flat-and-crowded

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver

Event:Kitap Klubu Aralik Ayi Toplantisi
Location:Barnes and Noble
98 Middlesex Parkway, Burlington, MA
When:Wed, 12/17/08, 7:30PM

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin is the true story of Mortenson's work building schools in remote villages in Pakistan. Mortenson moves from a lost climber who promises a school to one small village to a major player in promoting peace through education in Pakistan and Afghanistan. His story is too crazy to be made up. Three Cups of Tea is good reading for anyone who wants to understand more about Central Asia and be inspired by what one humble person can do.
http://bestsellers.about.com/od/memoirs/gr/three_cups_tea.htm

Eat, Pray, Love Yazar by Elizabeth Gilbert

Event:Kitap Klubu Ekim Ayi Toplantisi
Location: Barnes and Noble
98 Middlesex Parkway, Burlington, MA
When:Tue, 10/28/08, 7:30PM

Eat, Pray, Love Yazar by Elizabeth Gilbert

Review by JENNIFER EGAN
Published: February 26, 2006
Early on in "Eat, Pray, Love," her travelogue of spiritual seeking, the novelist and journalist Elizabeth Gilbert gives a characteristically frank rundown of her traveling skills: tall and blond, she doesn't blend well physically in most places; she's lazy about research and prone to digestive woes. "But my one mighty travel talent is that I can make friends with anybody," she writes. "I can make friends with the dead. . . . If there isn't anyone else around to talk to, I could probably make friends with a four-foot-tall pile of Sheetrock." This is easy to believe. If a more likable writer than Gilbert is currently in print, I haven't found him or her. And I don't mean this as consolation prize, along the lines of: but she's really, really nice. I mean that Gilbert's prose is fueled by a mix of intelligence, wit and colloquial exuberance that is close to irresistible, and makes the reader only too glad to join the posse of friends and devotees who have the pleasure of listening in. Her previous work of nonfiction, "The Last American Man" (she's also the author of a fine story collection and a novel), was a portrait of a modern-day wilderness expert that became an evocative meditation on the American frontier, and was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2002.
Here, Gilbert's subject is herself. Reeling from a contentious divorce, a volatile rebound romance and a bout of depression, she decided at 34 to spend a year traveling in Italy, India and Indonesia. "I wanted to explore one aspect of myself set against the backdrop of each country, in a place that has traditionally done that one thing very well," she writes. "I wanted to explore the art of pleasure in Italy, the art of devotion in India and, in Indonesia, the art of balancing the two." Her trip was financed by an advance on the book she already planned to write, and "Eat, Pray, Love" is the mixed result.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/books/review/26egan.html

The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak

Event:Kitap Klubu Eylul Ayi Toplantisi
Location:Barnes and Noble 98 Middlesex Parkway, Burlington, MA
When: Tue, 09/23/08, 7:30PM

The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak

The human memory can either be a blessing or a curse; a blessing because it allows you to hold onto moments in time that you cherish and a curse because it won't let you forget things you'd rather not remember. No matter how hard you try, once something has been observed and recorded by your brain it's stored there permanently unless you have that piece of your brain killed - and even that isn't foolproof because nobody's quite sure which parts of the brain do what. Memories thought isolated to one part of the mind can migrate of their own volition and show up again somewhere else completely unexpected and unwanted.
History is a recording of past events that sometimes has nothing to do with what actually happened, but unlike memories, history has a way of surviving unchallenged. Somehow because it is written down, or recorded officially, it is considered much more accurate than anything the human brain is capable of remembering. The fact that histories are sometimes written by people with vested interests in how they read and years after the events recounted took place doesn't seem to change anyone's opinion of their veracity. Only in the face of irrefutable evidence can history be re-written, and even then there will always be resistance.
All of us have a history; we were all born, we all were children, adolescents (a time a lot of would choose to forget if we could, I'm sure), young adults, and so on down the line until we die. As we age we formulate our own histories based on the memories we have of the days we've lived. Yet like any history there are points in time that are beyond the reach of our own memories, and we have to rely on what other people claim has happened.

http://blogcritics.org/books/article/book-review-the-bastard-of-istanbul/