February's book and film clubs...

Both our book (Red River by Lalita Tademy) and film club (In the Heat of the Night, starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger) selections this month were thematically linked with Black History Month, and our conversations were quite interesting. Red River addressed prejudice/inequalities experienced by blacks during post-Civil War Reconstruction through the 1930s in the deep South, and In the Heat of the Night exposed the continuing racial prejudices in the deep South during the 1960s. And, at both the book and film club meetings, we marveled at the fact that racial prejudice persists in subtle and not-so subtle forms today, but having a viable biracial Democratic Presidential candidate (Barack Obama) seems to illustrate "the times they are a-changin'," to quote Bob Dylan.

MARCH BOOK & FILM CLUB SELECTIONS:

Book club - Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle America's Soul by Karen Abbott - celebrating Women's History Month by reading about the "world's oldest profession." Join us on Sunday, March 16 at 1:00 or Thursday, March 20 at noon for discussion. Copies of the book are available at the library.

Film club - Streetcar Named Desire, starring Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando. Join us on Wednesday, March 19 at 7:00 to discuss this flick. Copies of the film will be available about a couple weeks before the discussion meeting. AND, there will be some copies of the play itself available, if you're curious to see the similarities/differences between Tennessee William's original play and the Hollywood film version....

chicklet to chick lit

As promised in my last entry, I did read Pride and Prescience, or A Truth Universally Acknowledged: a Mr & Mrs. Darcy Mystery by Carrie Bebris. Jane Austen, it is not. Yet, if you can't get enough of Elizabeth and Darcy from the original Pride & Prejudice, it does provide an evening's worth of entertainment. I must admit that it was fun to read during one of our frigid, snowy afternoons. There are two more available through the CAFE system: Suspense and Sensibility, or First Impressions Revisited and North by Northanger, or Shades of Pemberley.
Currently, I am reading Julia Spencer-Fleming's All Mortal Flesh. The twist in this mystery series is that the main character is a female Episcopal priest. She has several books out; All Mortal Flesh is her fifth. Her first book, In the Bleak Midwinter, won the St. Martin's Malice Domestic Award for 2001; she is also the winner of the Dilys, Barry, Agatha, Anthony and Macavity Awards.

Exploring racial identity

I just finished reading One Drop: My Father's Hidden Life - A Story of Race and Family Secrets, by Bliss Broyard, which I found very interesting. Upon his death, Bliss learns that her father (Anatole Broyard, New York Times book critic and writer) had been "passing" as white. This book details her searching for her black ancestors and living relatives that she never knew, nicely contextualized in American racial politics from slavery to contemporary times. She really does a fine job of exploring personal ambiguity/conflicts of racial identity and the accompanying social attitudes attached to racial identity. Highly recommended...

Also, it seems to me that the book The Human Stain by Philip Roth had to be inspired by the public revelation of her father's secret. The similarities are just too convenient.