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May 2011's pick...

The new selection for The Ascot Book Club in the month of May 2011 is...

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

By: Rebecca Skloot

A non-fiction retelling of the life of a woman whose cancerous cells were taken with out her knowledge or permission just before her death and went on to become the largest aid in scientific discovery over the past century.

For more information on Henrietta Lacks click here.

To purchase a copy of the book, click here.

Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife by Sam Savage

April 2011. Rain. Despair. Sorrow. Spring.

All of this and more ran abundantly in the April 2011 selection of Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife. Selected by Nathan Van Dyke, the book received a rating of 7.43.

"Lives in stories have direction and meaning. Even stupid, meaningless lives, like Lenny's in "Of Mice and Men," Acquire through their places in a story at least the dignity and meaning of being Stupid, Meaningless Lives, the consolation of being exemplars of something. In real life you do not get even that." 
— Sam Savage (Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife)


To find out more about Sam Savage and his works, including Firmin, click here.
To purchase a copy of Firmin, you know what to do.

The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski

In keeping with the celebration of Purim, we celebrate the coming of spring and the deliverance of the Jewish people from the Persian Empire by reading The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski. Our March 2011 selection was picked by Jeff Kaplan, and it received a rating of 7.8.

"World War II has begun. A boy is sent to live in a village while his parents go into hiding from the Nazis. A woman who takes care of him, dies, leaving the boy to fend for himself. He is soon taken in by various individuals including a miller who gouges out his plowboy's eyes, and a man who sells birds. He walks to a village occupied by German soldiers. The local partisans turn him over to the Nazis. A soldier allows him to escape. The boy moves to another village, where he sees trains with Jews and Gypsies heading to concentration camps. He decides that fair-haired, blue-eyed people are God's favorites."


For more information on The Painted Bird and its author Jerzy Kosinski click here.
To Purchase your copy of The Painted Bird click here.

Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Roe vs. Wade caused the sudden decrease in murder and violent crimes in the 1990s?
This question and many others were examined in Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, our February 2011 selection. Selected by David Anderson, the book received a rating of 6.6.

"The numbers we're talking about, in terms of crime, are absolutely trivial when you compare it to the broader debate on abortion. From a pro-life view of the world: If abortion is murder then we have a million murders a year through abortion. And the few thousand homicides that will be prevented according to our analysis are just nothing—they are a pebble in the ocean relative to the tragedy that is abortion. So, my own view, when we [did] the study and it hasn't changed is that: our study shouldn't change anybody's opinion about whether abortion should be legal and easily available or not. It's really a study about crime, not abortion."


For more information on Freakonomics and Steven D. Levitt, check out Wikipedia.
And you can purchase your copy of Freakonomics here.

Autobiography Of Red by Anne Carson

As we herald in a new year, we salute the classics from many years before with Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson.
Our January 2011 selection was selected by Andrew Lau and it received a rating of 8.1 (our highest yet).


"Autobiography of Red is the story of a red winged monster living in the modern day. Sexually abused by his older brother, his affectionate mother too weak-willed to protect him, the monstrous young boy finds solace in photography and in a romance with a young man named Herakles."


For more information on Autobiography of Red and its author Anne Carson, check out Wikipedia.
To purchase the book click here.

Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris

Candy canes, caroling, Christmas...and your drunk uncle. It was time to usher in the holidays with a little dry, sardonic wit.

Holidays On Ice by David Sedaris was the next selection of the Book Club. Selected by Marcus Pimentel, the book received a rating of 7.08 from the club.

"Sedaris's success on The Wild Room led to his National Public Radio debut on December 23, 1992, when he read a radio essay on Morning Edition titled "SantaLand Diaries", which described his experiences working as an elf at Macy's department store during Christmas time in New York.

"SantaLand Diaries" was an immediate success with radio listeners,^[21] and made Sedaris what The New York Times called 'a minor phenomenon'."

To check out a review of Holidays On Ice, here is the review in The New York Times.

To purchase Holidays On Ice check out Amazon.com.