Howdy book lovers! The USF Book Club’s next meeting will be on Friday, October 7, 2011 from 12 noon – 1 pm in the USF Community Garden (located next to the School of Education Parking lot, entrance at Turk Blvd. and Tamalpais Terrace).

We will discuss Packing for Mars by Mary Roach.

Packing for Mars is the San Francisco One City One Book selection. Join us and all of San Francisco in reading this one, which I have heard a lot of good things about. You can read an interview with Ms. Roach that appeared in the SF Chronicle last year to get an overview of Packing for Mars. To get a copy, you can request it through SF Public, Link+, put a hold on Gleeson’s copy, or read it on one of our iPads or our Kindle.

from Amazon.com:

With her wry humor and inextinguishable curiosity, Mary Roach has crafted her own quirky niche in the somewhat staid world of science writing, showing no fear (or shame) in the face of cadavers, ectoplasm, or sex. In Packing for Mars, Roach tackles the strange science of space travel, and the psychology, technology, and politics that go into sending a crew into orbit. Roach is unfailingly inquisitive (Why is it impolite for astronauts to float upside down during conversations? Just how smelly does a spacecraft get after a two week mission?), and she eagerly seeks out the stories that don’t make it onto NASA’s website–from SPCA-certified space suits for chimps, to the trial-and-error approach to crafting menus during the space program’s early years (when the chefs are former livestock veterinarians, taste isn’t high on the priority list). Packing for Mars is a book for grownups who still secretly dream of being astronauts, and Roach lives it up on their behalf–weightless in a C-9 aircraft, she just can’t resist the opportunity to go “Supermanning” around the cabin. Her zeal for discovery, combined with her love of the absurd, amazing, and stranger-than-fiction, make Packing for Mars an uproarious trip into the world of space travel.

–Lynette Mong

Email kbaughmanmcdowell@usfca.edu to get on the mailing list. Hope to see you there!

Hello friends! The USF Book Club has made its selections for the next two months:

September: Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas by Rebecca Solnit –  12 noon, Friday September 9, 2011, in the community garden.

Infinite City is the 2011 USF Reading Project selection, so we are reading this beautiful, full color, large-format book in support. You can get the book through SF Public Library, Link+, or put a hold on one of Gleeson’s copies.

October: Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach October 7, 2011 (Friday) 12 noon – 1 pm in the USF Community Garden.

Packing for Mars is the San Francisco One City One Book selection. Join us and all of San Francisco in reading this one, which I have heard a lot of good things about. You can read an interview with Ms. Roach that appeared in the SF Chronicle last year to get an overview of Packing for Mars. To get a copy, you can request it through SF Public, Link+, put a hold on Gleeson’s copy, or read it on one of our iPads or our Kindle.

We hope to see you! If you would like to be added to the Book Club mailing list, email Kelci at kbaughmanmcdowell@usfca.edu.

Hello!

On July 20, 2011 the USF Book Club will meet to discuss The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall. Gleeson’s copy is checked out right now, but we’ve got it loaded on our iPads and our Kindle. There’s always Link+ or SF Public until our copy comes in!

Come meet us in the seminar room, #209, of Gleeson Library from 12-1 pm. Bring your lunch and bring your friends! We don’t require you to have read the book to join the discussion. All members of the USF Community are welcome and no rsvp is necessary.

A family drama with stinging turns of dark comedy, the latest from Udall (The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint) is a superb performance and as comic as it is sublimely catastrophic. Golden Richards is a polygamist Mormon with four wives, 28 children, a struggling construction business, and a few secrets. He tells his wives that the brothel he’s building in Nevada is actually a senior center, and, more importantly, keeps hidden his burning infatuation with a woman he sees near the job site. Golden, perpetually on edge, has become increasingly isolated from his massive family-given the size of his brood, his solitude is heartbreaking-since the death of one of his children. Meanwhile, his newest and youngest wife, Trish, is wondering if there is more to life than the polygamist lifestyle, and one of his sons, Rusty, after getting the shaft on his birthday, hatches a revenge plot that will have dire consequences. With their world falling apart, will the family find a way to stay together? Udall’s polished storytelling and sterling cast of perfectly realized and flawed characters make this a serious contender for Great American Novel status. –Publisher’s Weekly

Hello friends! Today Book Club picked its next two titles:

On June 15, 2011 we will discuss Delicate Edible Birds by Lauren Groff. Gleeson does not yet own a physical copy of this, but you can view it on one of our iPads or our Kindle, request it through Link+, or get it from SF Public!

On July 20, 2011 we will discuss The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall. Indeed, the same with this title — we don’t yet own a physical copy, but we’ve got it loaded on our e-readers. There’s always Link+ or SF Public until our copy comes in!

Come meet us in the seminar room, #209, of Gleeson Library from 12-1 pm. Bring your lunch and bring your friends! We don’t require you to have read the book to join the discussion. All members of the USF Community are welcome and no rsvp is necessary.

Following the publication of Groff’s first novel, The Monsters of Templeton (2008), comes this collection of nine short stories, six of which have never been published. The richly conceived, finely detailed stories offer portraits of smart, daring women who are in search of, in thrall to, or disillusioned by love. In “Lucky Chow Fun,” winner of a Pushcart Prize, Groff returns to the town of Templeton to tell the story of a high-school swimmer who uncovers the sordid sexual secrets of her seemingly idyllic small town. “L. DeBard and Aliette,” included in the latest edition of Best American Short Stories, is a reimagining of the love story of Abelard and Héloïse that sees the couple recast as an Olympic swimmer and his pupil, both of whom suffer through the flu epidemic of 1918. And in the title story, an unconventional female reporter, fleeing the Nazis in rural France along with a band of male correspondents, must strike a sordid bargain with a brutal farmer to secure their safe passage. Vivid tales from a gifted young writer who continues to surprise. –Joanne Wilkinson, Booklist