Drawing in the Dust by Zoe Klein

From the back cover:  "Brilliant archaeologist Page Brookstone has toiled at Israel's storied battlegrounds of Megiddo for twelve years, yet noneof the ancient remnants she has unearthed deliver the life-altering message she craves.  Which is why she risks her professional reputation when a young Arab couple begs her to excavate beneath their home.  Ibrahim and Naima Barakat claim the spirits of two lovers overwhelm everyone who enters with love and desire.  As Page digs, she makes a miraculous discovery - the bones of deeply troubled prophet Jeremiah locked in eternal embrace with a mysterious woman.  Buried with the entwined skeletons is a collection of scrolls that challenge centuries-old interpretations of the prophet's story and create a worldwide fervor.  Caught in a forbidden romance of her own, and under siege from religious zealots and relentless critics, Page endangers her life to share the lover's story with the world.  But in doing so, she discovers she must let go of her own painful past."

I enjoyed this book.  I thought it was interesting and imaginative, similar to The Red Tent in that it is biblical fiction.  I use the term biblical very loosely.  While the bones discovered in the book are of the prophet Jeremiah and the author, who is a progressive female rabbi, obviously knows her Old Testament I found I was having to set aside my own knowledge and beliefs in order to enjoy this work of fiction.  The author has a flowery, lyrical writing style that was beautiful to read but a little unbelievable coming out of every character's mouth.  All in all it was a good book.  I would recommend it, it is definitely different but worthwhile.

Catching Up

So many months have gone by that I feel the need to catch up a little bit before we continue. A little re-formatting, some new pictures, etc.

I left off at Lunch in Paris in February. In March we met for The Adventures of Miles and Isabel at Barbara's house. The meal was Australian theme with Shrimp on the Barbie and other classic Australian dishes. The group felt that something must have been lost in the translation from Australian culture to American because it just seemed as if we were missing important australian cultural experiences to fully appreciate the novel.

In April we met at Jen's house for My Name is Asher Lev. Of course the food theme was Jewish. Everyone seemed to like the book and a few expressed interest in reading the sequel which published 20 years later. Hopefully we will hear more about Asher in the future.

May's Book, The Hunger Games was celebrated at Karie's house with lots of salad and other natural food choices. The book was well liked and currently most of us have read the sequel Catching Fire and a few of us are anxiously awaiting the last intallment of the trilogy Mockingjay which will be released August 24 of this year.

In June we took a break from group choices and each read and shared our Beach Reads for the month of June. It was a small meeting at Tracy's house with classic summer fare including sliders, baked beans, caprese salad, potato salad, and summery wine and cocktail choices. It was nice to see everyone relax and share their mostly erotic summer reading choices.

This month we are reading When Elephants Weep, our Animal genre selection. The genres for the rest of the year include Award Winner, Banned Book, Horror/Sci-fi and Comedy/Humor. Currently we have read 50 books together since the inception of Book Club in January 2006. If you ever want to know all of the titles we have read so far, simply check out the column of books to the right.

Sorry to be so remiss in chronicling our book journeys together. I'll try to stay on top of things better. Happy Summer to all of you! Keep Reading!