May Book Club Pick: Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures

Our May book club selection is Vincent Lam's Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures. Dr. Lam's collection of connected short stories won the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2006. The book club event will take place on Thursday, May 27th at 7pm. Dr. Lam was kind enough to visit the store a couple of weeks ago a sign some copies, so if you haven't picked up your copy yet, you can come by Chapters Rideau and pick up a signed one. This month's book is a good one, and the event promises to be interesting - please join us!

Beatrice & Virgil just one day away!

Great news Book Club fans! The Beatrice & Virgil book club event is just one day away! It promises to be an interesting discussion, with many opinions on the subject of Mr. Martel's book. We look forward to seeing you there! Chapters Rideau, 2nd floor Conference Room, 7pm.

In the meantime, please enjoy a couple of links on the subject:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/chat-with-yann-martel/article1527933/

http://biblioklept.org/2010/04/11/beatrice-and-virgil-yann-martel/

Looking forward to a great book club meeting!

YouTube Message from Kate Pullinger

This month's book club event was a successful one, with a record number of attendees and coffee and snacks supplied by Starbucks! We engaged in a lively debate about The Mistress of Nothing, Kate Pullinger's Governor-General Prize-winning novel. It was a good night, and we are looking forward to the next book club night.

The book club event was highlighted by an appearance from the author herself, who responded to our request to be part of our book club event by creating a YouTube video in which she answers a couple of questions posed by our book club members:



Ms. Pullinger has now officially become the book club's favourite author! Thank you!

Stay tuned to exciting news about our next book club pick!

Here Comes February!

February is fast approaching, and with it a new book club selection. And so, without further ado, February's selection is Mistress of Nothing by Kate Pullinger. Ms Pullinger won the Governor General's Award for Fiction in 2009, a surprise victor to many, as she was up against the likes of Alice Munro, Michael Crummey and Annabel Lyon. She was born in Vancouver and lives in London, and her novel delves into the dynamic between classes in the 19th century: "Lady Duff Gordon is the toast of Victorian London society. But when her debilitating tuberculosis means exile, she and her devoted lady's maid, Sally, set sail for Egypt. It is Sally who describes, with a mixture of wonder and trepidation, the odd menage (marshalled by the resourceful Omar) that travels down the Nile to a new life in Luxor. When Lady Duff Gordon undoes her stays and takes to native dress, throwing herself into weekly salons, language lessons and excursions to the tombs, Sally too adapts to a new world, which affords her heady and heartfelt freedoms never known before. But freedom is a luxury that a maid can ill-afford, and when Sally grasps more than her status entitles her to, she is brutally reminded that she is mistress of nothing." (from Chapters.ca)

The book club meeting takes place on Wednesday, February 24th at 7pm. All are welcome to attend.

Next Book Club Meeting

Our next book club meeting will take place on January 20th, 2010, at Chapters Rideau. We will be discussing Joseph Boyden's prize-winning 2nd novel Through Black Spruce. It won the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2008 and is currently longlisted for the 2010 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Also check out Boyden's first novel, the similarly brilliant Three Day Road. Please join us for a lively and entertaining discussion of a great book!

Welcome to Book Club!

Welcome to the Chapters Rideau Book Club blog. We are a small but determined gang of passionate readers (and Chapters employees) looking to build a small army of passionate people who love talking books. If you would like to be part of the mailing list, email chaptersrideau@gmail.com with "book club" in the subject line and we will add you to the list. Or, you can check this site periodically for updates on latest reads, next book club meeting, and generally fun stuff.

We have already held a couple of meetings, discussing the following titles:


The Hour I First Believed - Wally Lamb
Extraordinary Canadians (series) - John Ralston Saul, editor
The Lost Symbol - Dan Brown
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson

If you would like to comment on these books, or if you would like to post a review of your own, please let us know!

Again, welcome, and stay tuned for our next book club selection.