Love Medicine was May’s book club group (The Pageturners), and the first time I know of, over half the people didn’t finish the book.  Clearly not a page-turner! The book is especially hard to get started, its about an extended group of Chippewa families in North Dakota.   It jumps around in time, and the family relations are impossible to keep straight (the later editions of the book have a family tree in the front, but others said that didn’t really help).  What did help was to read it as a series of short stories, and not worry so much about who was related to who (whom?).  The writing is quite beautiful, very descriptive.  The humor is very, very dark.  Not unsurprising, the fates of the families on the reservations are quite depressing. In the end, although I appreciated the writing and the story, I didn’t enjoy it.

So – hopefully June’s book will be a bit more up.  In any case, we are trying something new. For June (normally part of the summer hiatus) we are going virtual, and using the blog.  So… any of my loyal readers are welcome to join, the book is Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson (based in Norway… perfect for June weather).  Just read the book sometime before June 17, and be prepared with ONE word to describe the book, and a number from 1 to 10 on how you liked it (10 being best).  I’ll start the subject threat around the 10th for the comments to start!

PS.. this is the 101st blog entry for me...  Had I realized the last one was #100, I would have celebrated!