Women's Book Group

Westminster Women's Book Group

This group meets every first Saturday at 9am in the Fireside Room. We share a continental breakfast and discuss the month's book. The group is open to all women. 

2012 WESTMINSTER WOMEN'S BOOK GROUP

JAN. 7 -- "CUTTING FOR STONE," by Abraham Verghese. Twins, born in Ethiopia but raised by medical people from India, are orphaned at birth. After they are driven apart by love for the same woman, twin Marion goes to the U.S. as a young doctor. Eventually, the twins come together through the ministrations of their surgeon father, a man Marion believed had abandoned them. He saw his brother, Shiva, as one who betrayed him. The book includes themes of love, betrayal, home, exile.

VERGHESE SPEAKS AT PORTLAND ARTS & LECTURES APRIL 12.

FEB. 4 -- **BRIAN DOYLE, ** author of "Mink River," will speak to the book group at 9 a.m. Bring friends who are interested in the book or Doyle's writing. His first novel, "Mink River" is set on the Oregon coast. It has a wide array of characters, Irish speech, Native American passages, and sometimes-whimsical sentences. Brian will sign books.

MARCH 3 -- THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS" by Rebecca Skloot. Henrietta Lacks died of cancer more than 60 years ago, yet some of her cells live and have been vital for developing polio vaccine and uncovering secrets of cancer and viruses. They have helped lead to such advances as in vitro fertilization, cloning and gene mapping. Yet, Henrietta's family knew nothing about the scientific work. The story of the Lacks family is linked to the history of this scientific research, the birth of bioethics and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff of which we are made.

APRIL 7 -- "HALF OF A YELLOW SUN" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie of Nigeria. The Nigerian-Biafran War of 1967-70 affects the relationships of four people: a high-ranking political figure, a professor, a British citizen and a houseboy. The British leave Nigeria and the lives of the four change drastically during the ensuing civil war. SHE SPEAKS MAY 3 AT PORTLAND ARTS 7 LECTURES.

MAY 5 -- ""THE QUICKENING" by Michelle Hoover. Loosely based on her great-grandmother's journal and family oral histories, the story follows two very different Iowa farm women during the Great Depression. One hates the dirt and the farm work while the other pitches in to raise the animals and feed the children. The details of farm life are delivered in the candid points of view of the two women.

JUNE 2 -- "THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS" by Isabel Wilkerson. From World War I to the 1960s, about 6 million African Americans formed the Great Migration out of the South and toward the urban North and West. Wilkerson writes of three who made the journey and the forces that compelled them to leave the South in search of the American Dream.

JULY 7 -- "THE LAKE OF DREAMS" by Kim Edwards. Lucy Jarrett returns after many years to her hometown and discovers a stack of old papers in a room that's been closed off since her father's mysterious death in a boating accident. Lucy pieces together a scandal involving a great aunt and the suffrage movement. The story takes up the complex bonds of family and a tangled web of history.

AUG 4 -- WE SHARE OUR SUMMER READING.

SEPT. 1 -- labor day weekend -- "CITY OF ASH" by Megan Chance. As downtown Seattle burns in 1889, Geneva Stratford is a mining heiress caught in a scandal involving her husband, Nathan Langley. He is passionately involved with Beatrice Wilkes, a local actress. In the fire's aftermath, Geneva and Beatrice form an unlikely alliance to protect themselves from Nathan's greed and duplicity.

OCT. 6 --"A TIGER IN THE KITCHEN: A MEMOIR OF FOOD AND FAMILY" by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan. Tan returns to her native Singapore to learn to make traditional dishes she remembers from childhood. In the ensuing 12 months, Tan's aunties teach not only food but patience and informed observation, and the author learns to tamp down her perfectionism as she earns her stripes as a real cook. Ten family recipes are included.

NOV. 3 -- SOUTHERN WRITERS -- Books by Eudora Welty or some may want to read or reread Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird."

DEC. 1 -- ANNUAL HOLIDAY GATHERING.