December 9th 2007

Come one, come all to Lynnea's house on Dec. 9th around 6:30 for conversation, comraderie and a *new* menu of chocolate treats and wine. Just kidding about the *new* part of the menu, cause if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Bring a book to share, and as a present to someone, present them with the gift of yourself. What better way to show your heart than by giving what your heart reads? Wrap up one of those treasures from your shelf, or if you can't bear to part with it, pick up another copy.

If you get a chance, our read selection is Water For Elephants. I personally use reading this time of year to escape the hustle and bustle and stress of all thoses things to do. I'm sure I will finish!

Here is the Review:

From Publishers Weekly:

With its spotlight on elephants, Gruen's romantic page-turner hinges on the human-animal bonds that drove her debut and its sequel (Riding Lessons and Flying Changes)—but without the mass appeal that horses hold. The novel, told in flashback by nonagenarian Jacob Jankowski, recounts the wild and wonderful period he spent with the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, a traveling circus he joined during the Great Depression. When 23-year-old Jankowski learns that his parents have been killed in a car crash, leaving him penniless, he drops out of Cornell veterinary school and parlays his expertise with animals into a job with the circus, where he cares for a menagerie of exotic creatures[...] He also falls in love with Marlena, one of the show's star performers—a romance complicated by Marlena's husband, the unbalanced, sadistic circus boss who beats both his wife and the animals Jankowski cares for. Despite her often clichéd prose and the predictability of the story's ending, Gruen skillfully humanizes the midgets, drunks, rubes and freaks who populate her book.

www.saragruen.com