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The Other Boleyn Girl, starring Eric Bana, Natalie Portman and Scarlett
Johansson, opens this coming Friday, February 29. It is based on the
novel by Philippa Gregory, in which two sisters--Anne and Mary
Boleyn--compete for the affection of King Henry VIII.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 05/27/2002
Sisterly rivalry is the basis of this fresh, wonderfully vivid retelling of the story of Anne Boleyn. Anne, her sister Mary and their brother George are all brought to the king's court at a young age, as players in their uncle's plans to advance the family's fortunes. Mary, the sweet, blond sister, wins King Henry VIII's favor when she is barely 14 and already married to one of his courtiers. Their affair lasts several years, and she gives Henry a daughter and a son. But her dark, clever, scheming sister, Anne, insinuates herself into Henry's graces, styling herself as his adviser and confidant. Soon she displaces Mary as his lover and begins her machinations to rid him of his wife, Katherine of Aragon. This is only the beginning of the intrigue that Gregory so handily chronicles, capturing beautifully the mingled hate and nearly incestuous love Anne, Mary and George ("kin and enemies all at once") feel for each other and the toll their family's ambition takes on them. Mary, the story's narrator, is the most sympathetic of the siblings, but even she is twisted by the demands of power and status; charming George, an able plotter, finally brings disaster on his own head by falling in love with a male courtier. Anne, most tormented of all, is ruthless in her drive to become queen, and then to give Henry a male heir. Rather than settling for a picturesque rendering of court life, Gregory conveys its claustrophobic, all-consuming nature with consummate skill. In the end, Anne's famous, tragic end is offset by Mary's happier fate, but the self-defeating folly of the quest for power lingers longest in the reader's mind.

A Rose for the Crownby Anne Easter Smith Find this book in our catalog.
REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 11/14/2005
Inspired by the historical record of Richard III's bastard children, Smith invents a spirited, "tawny-eyed" mistress for the 15th-century king in her sweeping debut. Kate Bywood is plucked from her peasant life at the age of 11 to join the household of her mother's noble cousins, the Hautes, as companion to her timid cousin, Anne. A brief, unwilling marriage to an older, wealthy merchant leaves Kate a young widow with a considerable fortune. A second marriage to George, an opportunistic Haute cousin who prefers the stable boy to Kate, leaves her yearning for love. In a chance encounter, she meets Richard of Gloucester, and the ensuing secret romance is filled with the passion and intimacy her marriage lacks. George is killed during an attack in the forest, and Kate bears Richard three children. The narrative flies when the lovers are together, but once Richard marries Anne Neville, and he and Kate are separated for long stretches, the story loses its spark. Readers hungry primarily for romance may also tire of Smith's details about the complicated internecine rebellions and rivalries among pretenders to the throne. Nevertheless, this story fills in some historical gaps and conjures a winning heroine.

The Secret Diary of Anne Boleynby Robin Maxwell Find this book in our catalog.
Jacket Notes:
Anne Boleyn was the second of Henry's six wives, doomed to be beloved, betrayed, and beheaded. When Henry fell madly in love with her upon her return from the French court, where she was educated, he was already married to Catherine of Aragon. But his passion for Anne was great enough to rock the foundations of England and of all Christendom. When the pope refused to dissolve his marriage to Catherine, Henry broke with Rome, founded the Church of England with himself at its head, and married Anne. But all too soon his passion faded; when Anne bore him not the promised son but a daughter, Elizabeth, Henry forsook her for another love, schemed against her, and ultimately had her sentenced to death. In Robin Maxwell's captivating new novel, Anne has kept, unbeknownst to the king, a secret diary that she presses into the hands of a confidante before she is put to death. She says it is a gift for the daughter she will never know. Years later, soon after Elizabeth ascends to the throne, Anne's confidante brings the precious diary to the young queen. In it, Elizabeth learns the truth about her much-maligned mother: her fierce determination, her hard-won knowledge about being a woman in a world ruled by despotic men, and her deep-seated love for the infant daughter taken from her shortly after her birth. These revelations shake Elizabeth to the core. As her mother's conquests and defeats unfold before her eyes, Elizabeth finds in them an echo of her own drama as a passionate young woman at the center of power. She too is besieged by the counsels and betrayals of the men around her - including those of her own lover, the ambitious Robin Dudley. Determined to heed the lessons her mother learned at so high a price, Elizabeth, the "Virgin Queen", the most revered of all English monarchs and perhaps the most powerful woman of all time, makes a resolution that will change the course of history.

For this meeting, this moderator was very glad to welcome a male to the group. We hope he will be back because he was such a great participant! We would like to extend an invitation to all male readers: our group is not exclusively female, and we try to select books to discuss with a range of appeal.

Everyone agreed that Harper Lee's book is a great American classic, and discussed the different characters and events which occurred in the book. One member grew up in Virginia when many of the things portrayed in To Kill a Mockingbird were still going on. The group also spoke of the 60's when so much happened to change the lives of African Americans. Another attendee worked in Baltimore after Martin Luther King was assassinated and experienced going to work when the National Guard were patrolling downtown. Another person who attended seldom or never viewed the terrible treatment of African Americans because she grew up in The North in New Jersey. The moderator was in elementary school in the 60's living in Pennsylvania. She recalled the views of the adults around her, and of her community, which hired African Americans to work in the local orchards and did not properly respect those temporary workers. So much has changed since this book was published for the better. This was one of our best discussions ever! Joppa Book Group Moderator.

In Defense of Food: an Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan

"Michael Pollan continues his crusade against what he calls industrial food: Food that is grown, processed, and/or actually manufactured from chemicals under factory-like conditions, food that looks alluring in the supermarket (often found in the middle aisles plastered with health claims) but is in reality poor in nutrients and flavor or chock-full of harmful things. In other words, pretty much the entire modern American diet. Seemingly the more our scientists know about nutrition, the fatter and sicker the populace becomes. Pollan makes a convincing argument that perhaps all those nutritional experts know a lot less than they’re willing to let on about how food sustains us. To begin with, a lot of the received wisdom about nutrition is either largely unproven or simply wrong. For example, there has been no evidence of any link between our total cholesterol score and heart disease. LDL, referred to as “bad cholesterol� (even though it’s not actually cholesterol but rather a fatty carrier of cholesterol) has only a slight correlation to heart disease. Furthermore, Pollan tells us, it has been shown that isolated (aboriginal) populations have largely avoided the prevalent chronic diseases of modern life (heart disease, cancer, diabetes, tooth decay) despite the amazing variation in their diets: high fat and protein with no vegetables to speak of (Eskimo), low fat with lots of fruits and vegetables (Mediterranean), diets with and without whole grains (as long as no processed grains are included), and on and on. So which diet is really healthy for us? According to Pollan’s research, almost any diet that is not “Western� (i.e., not full of refined sugars, highly processed grains, and an overabundance of calories) would improve our health outlook. Even more important, populations that treat food as a part of a broader tradition and culture, something to be celebrated and savored, tend to live longer with far fewer chronic illnesses. After all, Pollan insists, our mothers and their mothers’ mothers’ mothers’ must have learned something about nutrition through many generations of trial and error.

This book is somewhat shorter on pure entertainment than Pollan’s previous work, The Omnivore’s Dilemma; and it does recap some of the facts, findings and opinions in that marvelous earlier work. Yet if you really want to understand how large corporations, elephantine marketing budgets, and the so-called science of nutrition have steered us way wrong and confused us; if you’ve sometimes wondered why America today is the only place and time in history when the population needed experts and journalists (!) to tell us what we can and can’t eat; if you occasionally ask yourself whether all those heart-healthy, reduced fat, low cholesterol, salt-free, American Heart Association certified processed foods on your grocer’s shelves really deliver on their promise; if you scratch your head over living in a country where the poorest citizens are the fattest; if, ultimately, you’re looking to cut through the blather of diet books and scientists to figure out how to approach food shopping and eating with even the slightest degree of sanity—then please read this book with an open mind."

A Killing in This Town by Olympia Vernon
Find this book in our catalog.
Jacket Notes:
From an award-winning and critically acclaimed writer comes a searing novel about a small Mississippi town trapped in a cycle of racism and violence, and the two boys who heroically defy tradition and seek an end to the injustice. More . . .