Tuesday, April 29, 2008
The cello is both the most beautiful and sorrowful of stringed instruments. And so, it is only fitting that The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway (Knopf, Canada April 2008) is a story of extraordinary beauty and imagination that will sweep you off your feet with its compelling prose. "One day a shell lands in a bread line and kills twenty-two people as the cellist watches from a window in his flat. He vows to sit in the hollow where the mortar fell and play Albinoni’s Adagio once a day for each of the twenty-two victims... " Entice your book group to read this month's Wine & Book selection, The Cellist of Sarajevo, based on the true story of Vedran Smailovic. Listen to the music while you taste the old-world wines from the region for a truly moving discussion and a memorable experience.
Friday, February 01, 2008
Cellophane (Dial Press) by Marie Arana is a novel set in the Peruvian rain forest during the 1930s where Don Victor Sobrevilla and his wife, Doña Mariana, venture to find a location for their papermaking factory. Along with the discovery of the secret to making cellophane (a fascinating story in itself) the family is drawn into an erotically charged landscape of surreal history and obsession. Nominated as a National Book Award finalist, Arana's writing has been compared to other literary giants, Allende, Marquez and Conrad. We think this novel is the perfect choice for February, when romance and exotic locations can sweep you away in the best literary tradition. Marie Arana, editor of Washington Post Book World Wines recommended for this book naturally derive from Peruvian sources. Enjoy!
Saturday, December 29, 2007
For January we thought you'd enjoy reading Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia (Viking 2007), the runaway bestselling memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert. Facing a difficult divorce and a punishing affair, the New York journalist decides to escape her personal hardship by traveling to Italy then India, finally ending up in Bali. At once funny and profound, Gilbert's self-indulgent journey can be your guilty pleasure this month, along with fine wines picked by our partners at Women & Wine. Paramount Pictures has acquired the rights and will star Julia Roberts, according to Variety.com
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Madonna is the most famous female pop artist of our time; singer-songwriter, dancer, record and film producer, actress, and a fashion icon. She has won multiple Grammy and Golden Globe awards and is known for her controversial music videos, stage performances, and use of political, sexual, and religious themes in her work. Discover the woman behind the mystery. Journalist Lucy O'Brien's groundbreaking biography, Madonna: Like an Icon (HarperCollins, Nov 2007) gets at the heart of Madonna's chameleonlike existence. Extensively researched and perceptively written, it explores the complex personality and legendary drive that made her "the world's most successful female musican" (Guinness Book of World Records). A great book to discuss with your group over equally provocative wines picked for you by our partners at www.womenwine.com
Monday, October 01, 2007
With the harvest and Thanksgiving on everyone's mind, BookBuffet invites you to take a look at Barbara Kingsolver's nonfiction treatise Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
for this month's Wine & Book pick. It's about eating local, eating seasonal, supporting small farms, and saving the planet from extinction through your everyday purchasing choices of food that is not trucked, flown or shipped using fossil fuels to your market. Don't miss the opportunity to drink a lovely local wine along with this book when you meet to discuss it with your group. Women & Wine have lots of ideas on wine makers whose products are organic, too. Learn about wine as you read the wonderful titles selected especially for this group.
Monday, July 30, 2007
The Saxon word for pebble is chesil. Ian McEwan's brilliant new novelette, On Chesil Beach: A Novel
is this month's Wine & Book Group pick. Set in 1962, it begins on the wedding night of a young virgin couple, Edward and Florence. After meeting and falling in love at a London college, they anticipate their vows as the entry into 'real adult' life; however, naiveté brings disappointment. The story is a touching examination of relationships, love, sex, the era, and how, despite best intentions, people somehow manage to get it wrong. McEwan asks, "Can the entire course of a life can be changed –- by a gesture not made or a word not spoken?" Despite differences in sexual politics today, readers will resonate with these two characters. Chesil Beach is an excellent choice for the last month of the summer. So pack your beach bag and slip in a delicious wine selected by our partners at Women and Wine. McEwan calls this a movie-length book that will take about three hours to complete -- just right for a lazy afternoon picnic!
Sunday, July 01, 2007
July is the month that promises long summer days and time to escape into a delicious novel set in far-away lands. This month’s Wine & Book Pick take us to Beijing, China, where Nicole Mones (bestselling author of Lost in Translation) brings us an enticing story of friendship, love and, cuisine The Last Chinese Chef
(HoughtonMifflin, 2007)
Monday, May 14, 2007
Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen is an imaginative story set during the American depression involving an orphan boy named Jacob and the tribe of circus performers and animals that become his world. Alternating between Jacob's early life and his final years in a nursing home, the story is sure to intrigue and stimulate interesting discussions. For wines we've picked labels with elephants! Join the Wine & Book Group and meet more hearty food, story and wine lovers!
Monday, April 09, 2007
For our March Wine & Book Group book selection we have a wonderful story by Chinese-American author Lisa See. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A Novel
(Random House Trade 2006), Lisa's third novel, is both a suspenseful and poignant story and an absorbing historical chronicle. Her books deal with the cultural divide between her two nascent cultures. To purchase wines suggested by our partners at Women & Wine, click link for more details. Author details and more inside...
Friday, February 02, 2007
For February's Wine & Book Group we return to Australia with the fifth novel of two-time Booker Prize-nominated Tim Winton, and his post-WWII Australian saga Cloudstreet (Schribner, reprint 2002). Purchase the book online and read the tasting notes of the fabulous regional wines our partners at Women & Wine have picked to match this title. Sip, discuss, enjoy! This is our 14th session. Register for the group, and join in the online discussions.
Monday, January 01, 2007
January is a great month to review your resolutions. If one of them is "read more books" or "taste more wine" then this is the group for you! Join our Wine & Book Group, meet other people, and use the author, book and wine information to meet those ny's resolutions. This month we feature Joseph Kanon's compelling thriller that has been adapted to film starring Cate Blanchett and George Clooney and directed by Steven Soderbergh.
Friday, December 01, 2006
The folks at Women & Wine have made the book selection this month -- they had a burning urge to match wines to Elizabeth Kostova's popular historical novel about vampires -- but better than Rice, with plenty of suspense, romance and intrigue, The Historian (Little, Brown & Co) 2005. Read about the author, the plot, and the wines you can purchase and enjoy at your next meeting. And don't forget to join our Wine & Book Group!
Monday, November 06, 2006
When Stephen King rated Kate Atkinson's new novel, One Good Turn (Little, Brown and Company, Oct 2006) "the best mystery of the decade," I just had to bite. What a perfect book for stormy, rainy November and for our Wine & Book Group. Kate is best known for her Whitbread award-winning novel Behind the Museum. One Good Turn is a sequel which takes now ex-private eye Jackson Brodie, also wealthy, retired and bored, mooching around Edinburgh festivals. Buy the book, join the group, and see what our partners at Women & Wine have in store for you to taste along with this delicious mystery.
Friday, September 01, 2006
Sue Miller, Lost in the Forest examines love, sensuality, and betrayal in idyllic Napa Valley wine country. A perfect setting for our September Wine and Book Group where we select a popular book each month and our partners at Women&Wine.com match delicious wines.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
For August we mind-travel to Mexico where Luis Alberto Urrea captures the landscape and soul of his native country through the voice of his young protagonist, Teresita, who has been gifted with the power to heal. The Hummingbird's Daughter, (Little, Brown 2006) won Urrea the Kiriyama Prize for fiction in 2006. The prize is awarded to voices from the Pacific Rim.
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Just in time for summer, Lauren Weisberger's bitchy New York fashion novel has been released as a feature film produced by Wendy Finerman
(Forrest Gump) and the new movie tie-in copy of her first novel is now available. It's the perfect beach read AND the perfect choice for our
Wine & Book Club! Click on the book to link to purchase and join us. Find out more...
Saturday, June 03, 2006
The Wine and Book Group pick for June combines literary biography with a travel, cultural, and historic perspective. Why not let Christopher Ondaatje (yes, Michael's brother) take you to Sri Lanka where his own roots derive, to read about another relative of a famous writer, Leonard Woolf, husband of Virgina. Woolf in Ceyon (HarperCollins 2006) It is emerging that Leonard is one of the literary giants of the twentieth century.
Friday, May 19, 2006
May's book selection introduces us to Australia's author-equivalent of Barbara Kingsolver—Carrie Tiffany is a former park ranger and agricultural journalist who combines her two passions in this stunning debut novel set in the '30s in the Australian countryside. Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living (Scribner May 2006) has just been shortlisted for the Orange Prize, and we can't wait to introduce you to this author and her country's fabulous wines when you join Bookbuffet's Wine & Book Club Come and learn about wines as you read, courtesy of our partners at www.womenwine.com!
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Sue Monk Kidd is the chosen author for April's Wine and Book Group where we select a popular book group read and match delicious wines. The Mermaid Chair (Penguin Non-Classics March 2006) is Sue's follow-up novel to her bestselling first fiction, The Secret Life of Bees. The Mermaid Chair won the Quills Award 2005. Sue celebrates the feminine erotic in this transcendent story about a daughter who, upon returning home to help her mother, becomes sexually involved with a Benedictine monk. Filled with Sue's delicious use of metaphor, and mixing desire with the forbidden—you won't want to miss out.
Monday, March 06, 2006
Book groups who have been meeting for a few years will all have read Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (Vintage) when it first became available in January 1999. But for those of you who are just starting out, this book remains forefront in our minds with the stunning adaptation to film that garnered Oscar awards for Best Art Direction, and Best Costume. Our partners at Women and Wine have matched delicious wines to sip and taste at your next book group meeting.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
For all of my adult reading life, I have been learning about South African politics and race relations through Nadine Gordimer's novels. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991, she has been called the moral voice of her nation. Her latest novel, Get A Life (Farrar, Straus and Girioux) is our pick for this month's Book & Wine Club, where our partners at www.WomenWine.com match equally complex and evocative wines. Don't miss this opportunity to experience South Africa as it breathes and tastes today.
Monday, January 09, 2006
Experience España this month as BookBuffet and our partners at Women & Wine http://www.WomenWine.com have selected the runaway European bestselling novel by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind Penguin (Non-Classics) for the January 'book and wine club' with three delicious wines at various price points, carefully researched and selected for you and your group. Read, taste, discuss and enjoy! January is a good month to join our group, order the book, and pick up some fabulous deals on wine (by the bottle or case) guaranteed to transport you on mental and sensual journey.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
This month Women&Wine and BookBuffet bring you a wonderful literary and enophilic match -- Jane Austen and passionate reds -- just in time for the busy holiday season. Something to think about and drink about; are we really that much different from Jane's crowd?
