The Silver Strand “Books in the Afternoon Book Club” met on April 30th at Nora Nicosia’s house to discuss the best seller The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See. We welcomed a new member, Harriett. One of the members noted that the author offers to join a book club meeting to discuss her book via Skype. Not sure the author could have gotten a word in with this group.
The book covers the sometimes tragic history of the Korean Island of Jeju from the 1930’s to 2008 through the eyes of two best friends in a female diving collective. The divers, haenyeos, are famous for their ability to dive for sea life without oxygen or wetsuits in frigid waters. They form a matrifocal society where the men watch the children and prepare the meals and the women are the breadwinners.
The book is extremely well researched and at times seemed like a book of non-fiction. The relationship between the two divers was the focal point of the story and included secrets, misunderstandings, guilt, and forgiveness.
Although the author hadn’t been invited to attend, one of the members, Karin, had been to Jeju island in 2001 and brought photos of her trip. The island is considered the “Hawaii of Korea.” Other members had already shared links to stories about current day haenyeos. It was an excellent book for a book club because there was so much to discuss. Not everyone liked the book or the characters but agreed they learned a lot about a time and place and culture unknown to them. We rated the book 4.0.
We had no non-fiction book to recommend for this month.
The minute-taker promised not to report on the non-book discussions—very loud and lively.
After way too much time, we selected The High Tide Club by Mary Kay Andrews. One of the lead characters is 99 years old. We’ll read it in honor of Nora who turns 99 in time for our next meeting on Tuesday, May 21st at 3 pm at her house.
If you want to join this crazy, fun group, please contact:
Nora Nicosia at noranic@ca.rr.com
Clarissa Cervantes at cissapaz@hotmail.com or
Kay Barancik at b2kbarancik@hotmail.com.
Note: reading the book is not a requirement for attending.
| Book | Author | Date | Rating |
| Little Fires Everywhere | Celeste Ng | 11/14/17 | 3.5 |
| Beartown | Fredrik Backman | 3/6/18 | 3.6 |
| The Woman in the Window | AJ Finn | 4/10/18 | 3.5 |
| Before We Were Yours | Lisa Wingate | 5/15/18 | 3.4 |
| The Mars Room | Rachel Kushner | 6/19/18 | 3.0 |
| The Marriage of Opposites | Alice Hoffman | 8/14/18 | 5.0 |
| The Great Alone | Kristin Hannah | 10/2/18 | 4.8 |
| The Leopard at the Door | Jennifer McVeigh | 10/30/18 | 3.2 |
| Less | Andrew Sean Greer | 11/27/18 | 3.8 |
| A Prayer for Owen Meany | John Irving | 1/29/19 | 3.4 |
| Where the Crawdads Sing | Delia Owens | 2/26/19 | 3.4 |
| There There | Tommy Orange | 3/26/19 | 3.6 |
| The Island of Sea Women | Lisa See | 4/30/19 | 4.0 |
| The High Tide Club | Mary Kay Andrews | 5/21/19 |
The Silver Strand News 