Book Club : February Notes

An Extraordinary Beginning

Our newly reorganized book club held its first meeting on February 7th.  And our first book of the year was very strange indeed: The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman.

Image from Google

The novel is set in Brooklyn around 1911.  In addition to other sites, much of the action takes place at the Museum of Extraordinary Things located on Coney Island where freaks of Nature, human and otherwise, were put on display by Coralie's father for the entertainment of the public (and of course for the purpose of filling his bank account). 

We all agreed we enjoyed the book.  Each of us was able to find among the oddities populating the pages, something we really loved.  Here is a quick bulleted list of some of the things we liked about the book:

• the beautiful use of language by the author, Alice Hoffman - her descriptions were detailed and sensative
• the book's historical references were fascinating and led some to do further research on the Shirtwaist Factory fire and the great 1911 fire at Dreamland located across the way from the Museum of the novel
• learning that not so very long ago, NYC was not such a concrete jungle - one could actually find wooded unsettled areas and even fish and swim in the Hudson River
• the stories of immigrants when they arrived penniless to NYC- their struggles but especially the strength of spirit, the pride, the tenacity of these people
• the clever twists in the plot, especially the surprises and connections between characters that were revealed along the way
• the view into a world not many of us know -  that of people living with abnormalities and how they struggle to live a normal life
• the strangeness of it all 

The book provoked a good discussion... then it was on to"What should we read next?"

We came up with the following  potential reads for the March meeting:

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Allie and Bea by Cathering Ryan Hyde
Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate

As is our routine, we went home, looked at reviews and voted on our FB groupsite.

Our March read will be A Gentleman in Moscow...though I'm sure some of us will read several of the other choices on our own as well!

image from Google

Hope you are enjoying some great winter reads.  I'd love to hear what you are reading...use comment section to share.