The Big Short

From the Washington Post: 

If you read only one book about the causes of the recent financial crisis, let it be Michael Lewis's, "The Big Short."  That's not because Lewis has put together the most comprehensive or authoritative analysis of all the misdeeds and misjudgments and missed signals that led to the biggest credit bubble the world has known. What makes his account so accessible is that he tells it through the eyes of the managers of three small hedge funds and a Deutsche Bank bond salesman, none of whom you've ever heard of. All, however, were among the first to see the folly and fraud behind the subprime fiasco, and to find ways to bet against it when everyone else thought them crazy...  read more here.

We Announce Our 2014-15 Reading List

September 8: Megan: The Dirty Life: Farming, Food, and Love by Kristen Kimball

October 13: Mary Emily: The Big Short by Michael Lewis

November 10: Katie: Washington's Spies- America's First Spy Ring by Alexander Rose

December 15:  Barb: In the Midst of Life by Jennifer Worth

Begin A Sword of Honor Trilogy by Evelyn Waugh

January 12:  Jennifer: Book 1 Men at Arms

February 9:  Lisa: Book 2 Officers and Gentlemen

March 9:  Meg: Book 3 Unconditional Surrender

April 13:  Nancy: Dad is Fat by Jim Gaffigan

May 11:  Carole: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller

For May: Cold Sassy Tree

Cold Sassy Tree

by Olive Ann Burns

From Barnes & Noble:

"On July 5, 1906, scandal breaks in the small town of Cold Sassy, Georgia, when the proprietor of the general store, E. Rucker Blakeslee, elopes with Miss Love Simpson. He is barely three weeks a widower, and she is only half his age and a Yankee to boot. As their marriage inspires a whirlwind of local gossip, fourteen-year-old Will Tweedy suddenly finds himself eyewitness to a family scandal, and that’s where his adventures begin.

Cold Sassy Tree is the undeniably entertaining and extraordinarily moving account of small-town Southern life in a bygone era. Brimming with characters who are wise and loony, unimpeachably pious and deliciously irreverent, Olive Ann Burns’s classic bestseller is a timeless, funny, and resplendent treasure.

A timeless, funny, resplendent novel about romance and adolescence, and how people lived and died in a small Southern town at the turn of the century."

Analysis of Middlemarch

Why read Middlemarch? A patheos blog...

Middlemarch...for the middle of March

 "Middlemarch is a highly unusual novel. Although it is primarily a Victorian novel, it has many characteristics typical to modern novels. Critical reaction to Eliot's masterpiece work was mixed. A common accusation leveled against it was its morbid, depressing tone. Many critics did not like Eliot's habit of scattering obscure literary and scientific allusions throughout the book. In their opinion a woman writer should not be so intellectual." From SparkNotes.

For those SmartGirls rendered helpless by Eliot's prose, fear not! The miniseries streams on Netflix. Here's a sample: