January OCFPL Book Club

Welcome back everyone!

This year we kicked off book club with Born a Crime by Trevor Noah. Trevor Noah is a South African comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television hos, who is widely known for being on the Daily Show on Comedy Central. This is his story of his time growing up in South Africa during and after the apartheid era.

We enjoyed the stories of him being mischievous, clever but overall naughtiness as a child. His challenging nature and the way he narrates the story to intertwine the deeper issues with funny outtakes, shows how much he has overcome. You can definitely see the comic being form and molded as he was growing up. One thing that the members found fascinating was his ability and talent for learning languages. Using it as a tool for survival, to trick people, getting out of trouble, and overall to make connections with those who under normal circumstances would not have connected with due to him being a Colored person (one who is half black and half white) in South Africa.

Overall, we enjoyed this book and definitely recommend others to read it. There is talks that this book would be adapted for film, something we all agree we will be on the look out to watch.

Join us next month on Tuesday, February 18th at 6pm as we meet next to discuss The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams. We welcome all to read the book and drop in for the discussion. Hope to see you there.

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"A Banquet of Consequences" by Elizabeth George

Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley mystery series is probably one of my favourites in the style of English detective stories. It's the series that I keep returning to, when I slip into a reading rut and can't focus on reading something new, particularly to the first book in the series A Great Deliverance. While there are lots of decent mystery series circulating now, the first book in George's Lynley stories has a certain grim insistence about it that keeps drawing me back to it. And in her latest contribution to the series, George has written a story that in many aspects parallels her first--however, these parallels did not become immediately apparent until the climax of the story. One of the things that I like best about Elizabeth George's writing is that she realises that a lot of times, the supporting characters can have better story potential than the main title character. She uses this to her advantage in almost all of the Lynley seri...

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

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International Women's Day & Women's History Month

The beginning of March marks the beginning of Women's History Month, and specifically March 8th as International Women's Day. According to the official International Women's Day website , March 8th is " a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future." This day is set to remember the suffragettes worldwide who protested, campaigned, and made their voices heard in order that women everywhere in the world would gain the equality and rights they deserved in order to make their voices heard. In some countries, such as China, Vietnam, Russia, and Bulgaria, International Women's Day is an official national holiday. It's not just a day to remember the past, though. It is also a time to call attention to the fact that despite the efforts and many accomplishments of our suffragette ancestors, that there are still issues that need addressing--wage gaps,...

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