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Discussion Questions for The Birth of Venus

8/29/2011

Here's the link for the discussion questions for our September book. I would also like everyone to come to the meeting with a 1-3 sentence "opinion" of the book. --- Not a summary, but your opinion of what the author tried to do with this book. If you didn't get a chance to read it, don't worry about. Come listen to the discussion and decide for yourself if you want to read it.

http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides3/birth_of_venus1.asp#discuss

We will also try to stick to the time schedule that we had in August. It seemed to work well.

6:30 - 7:00 personal catch-up time
7:00-7:30 blanket talk and show and tell
7:30 - 9:00 book discussion - please try to limit your responses so that everyone that wants to respond gets a chance to respond.

See you Thursday the 15th!!!

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September Book

8/19/2011

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The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant

This has been highly recommended by two of our members and is available in paperback.

Book Description
Publication Date: February 17, 2004

Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family’s Florentine palazzo. A child of the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing, Alessandra is intoxicated by the painter’s abilities.

But their burgeoning relationship is interrupted when Alessandra’s parents arrange her marriage to a wealthy, much older man. Meanwhile, Florence is changing, increasingly subject to the growing suppression imposed by the fundamentalist monk Savonarola, who is seizing religious and political control. Alessandra and her native city are caught between the Medici state, with its love of luxury, learning, and dazzling art, and the hellfire preaching and increasing violence of Savonarola’s reactionary followers. Played out against this turbulent backdrop, Alessandra’s married life is a misery, except for the surprising freedom it allows her to pursue her powerful attraction to the young painter and his art.
The Birth of Venus is a tour de force, the first historical novel from one of Britain’s most innovative writers of literary suspense. It brings alive the history of Florence at its most dramatic period, telling a compulsively absorbing story of love, art, religion, and power through the passionate voice of Alessandra, a heroine with the same vibrancy of spirit as her beloved city.

From Booklist

Dunant's lush and intellectually gripping novel is set in fourteenth-century Florence at the height of the Renaissance. Fifteen-year-old Alessandra Cecchi does not fit the mold of the compliant Florentine woman. She avidly consumes books written in Greek and Latin as she keeps abreast of the art movement, hoping to some day create her own masterwork. The city is teeming with artisans working for the Catholic Church and the ruling Medici family, and sightings of Botticelli in the piazza or the infamous Michelangelo are commonplace incidents in a city that thrives on beauty. The years of Florentine decadence come to a close when the French Army invades Italy and Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola begins a puritanical crusade. To protect her from the city's tumultuous atmosphere, the Cecchis arrange a marriage for Alessandra, but the man they have chosen has closely guarded secrets and Alessandra's heart also belongs to someone else. This is a beautifully written and captivating work. Elsa Gaztambide
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From Publishers Weekly

In this arresting tale of art, love and betrayal in 15th-century Florence, the daughter of a wealthy cloth merchant seeks the freedom of marriage in order to paint, but finds that she may have bought her liberty at the cost of love and true fulfillment. Alessandra, 16, is tall, sharp-tongued and dauntingly clever. At first reluctant to agree to an arranged marriage, she changes her mind when she meets elegant 48-year-old Cristoforo, who is well-versed in art and literature. He promises to give her all the freedom she wants-and she finds out why on her wedding night. Her disappointment and frustration are soon overshadowed by the growing cloud of madness and violence hanging over Florence, nourished by the sermons of the fanatically pious Savonarola. As the wealthy purge their palazzos of "low" art and luxuries, Alessandra gives in to the dangerous attraction that draws her to a tormented young artist commissioned to paint her family's chapel. With details as rich as the brocade textiles that built Alessandra's family fortune, Dunant (Mapping the Edge; Transgressions; etc.) masterfully recreates Florence in the age of the original bonfire of the vanities. The novel moves to its climax as Savonarola's reign draws to a bloody close, with the final few chapters describing Alessandra's fate and hinting at the identity of her artist lover. While the story is rushed at the end, the author has a genius for peppering her narrative with little-known facts, and the deadpan dialogue lends a staccato verve to the swift-moving plot. Forget Baedecker and Vasari's Lives of the Artists. Dunant's vivid, gripping novel gives fresh life to a captivating age of glorious art and political turmoil.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Messenger

8/19/2011

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We had several people read the book but were unable to attend the meeting, so I'm not sure what they thought. The people that were here were very inspired by the story and were unfamiliar with Mattie Stepanek (except for me and my mom).

I followed his story from about when he was age 8 until the time he died. At times the story was hard to read because he suffered so much. He was truly an incredible "messenger" and it is hard to believe that the thoughts, ideas, words, and visions could come from a child so young. I wish he hadn't had such a struggle or been so sick. It would be nice to see and hear what he had to say today. He would be 20 years old. His mother is trying to keep his memory alive, but she is ill also.

We all felt that we had to read something light after that book, so Amy recommended Hissy Fit by Mary Kay Andrews. Read the reviews and it sounds fun. September book is The Birth of Venus. Hope to see everyone at the meeting.

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Discussion Questions for August Meeting - Thursday, August 18 at 6:30 p.m.

8/9/2011

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I was unable to find discussion questions for our August book. Below is a link for general book club discussions. We can use this or, if you like, you can think up a few questions that came to mind while you were reading the book.

http://classiclit.about.com/od/bookclubs/a/aa_bcquestions.htm?p=1

I thought we would try to keep to a time schedule for our August meeting. I know that there will be lots of things that we want to discuss since most of us haven't seen each other since June. What do you think about this?

6:30-7:00 - catch up time
7:00 - 7:30 blanket time (showing off :), last minute instructions, set up time for future lessons, etc.)
7:30 - 9:00 book discussion time (whoever leads discussion will keep us on track and allow the opportunity for everyone to share thoughts)

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Discussion Questions for The Birth of Venus

September Book

Messenger

Discussion Questions for August Meeting - Thursday, August 18 at 6:30 p.m.

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