February 20 Featured Speaker Lucy Jane Bledsoe

Lucy Jane Bledsoe is a novelist and science writer. When she's not writing, she's sea kayaking in Alaska, backpacking in the Rockies, or backcountry skiing in the Sierras. When she's not kayaking, hiking, or skiing, she's reading.

Bledsoe's newest novel, BITING THE APPLE, came out in Fall 2007. She is the author of three other novels: SWEAT: STORIES AND A NOVELLA, WORKING PARTS, and THIS WILD SILENCE. She is also the author of five novels for children: THE BIG BIKE RACE, TRACKS IN THE SNOW (winner of the Parents Choice Gold Award), COUGAR CANYON, HOOP GIRLZ (one of BOOKLIST'S "Top Ten Youth Sports Books" for 2002), and THE ANTARCTIC SCOOP. Her novels have been translated into Japanese, Spanish, and German, and her stories into Dutch and Chinese.

Her fiction has won a California Arts Council Individual Fellowship in Literature, an American Library Association Award for Literature, and has been a three-time finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. She's also won a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award, a National Endowment for the Humanities Youthgrant, a Barbara Deming Memorial Money for Women grant, a Puffin Foundation grant, and two National Science Foundation Artists & Writers in Antarctica Fellowships.

Looking forward to seeing you all at the Duboce Park Cafe at 6:30 sharp on February 20!
Cynthia K

January 16 Ellis Avery Featured Speaker!

Betty's List Book Club welcomes Ellis Avery as the tenth in our series of outstanding readers and and speakers. The event starts promptly at 6:30, and we encourage you to come early and get a bite to eat and a glass of wine at Rachel Herbert's wonderful Duboce Park Cafe.

"Saturated with color and detail; [Avery] manages to make nineteenth-century Japan both accessible and exotic, infusing her story with a sense of dignified calm...[A] deeply engrossing, multifaceted work." The Boston Globe

"Ellis Avery studied tea ceremony for several years, so it makes sense that the ritual dominates her first novel." Entertainment Weekly.

"Ellis Avery's book The Teahouse Fire is the most perfect evocation of Japanese Tea Culture to ever arrive on Western Shores. A well-written, gripping story of extreme subtlety." Cynthia Lee Katona, Author of Book Savvy.

Save the date...see you there.
Cynthia K

Huge Thanks to Elana Dykewoman...Great Reading!

A huge thanks to Elana Dykewoman for her terrific reading from her work-in-progress, Risk, and her many other fine books. And thanks to the members of the Betty's List Book Club for the huge turnout. Rachel Herbert and her wonderful staff take such superb care of us!


Dr. Betty Sullivan presides over her famous Door Prizes.


Helping Betty pick the winners.


Elana Dykewoman reads for the Betty's List Book Club.


A toast to Betty's List readers.


Winnie listens intently among the tulips.


Elana's rapt community of listeners.


Lee, Kathy and Ginny watching Elana read.


Elana and Betty's Group readers.


Elana Dykewoman, author of Pale Fire, and Cynthia Lee Katona, Betty's List Book Club Co-chair, and author of Book Savvy.

Stay tuned for information about our January Speaker!

February Calendar

Here's what I know so far about the February Calendar. As soon as the facilitators send me the details of their meetings, I will post them here.

Yikes...looks like we need to start an additional East Bay Group in March, which will meet in wheel chair accessible locations. Let me have your name if you are interested! Write to BookSavvy@aol.com.

Enjoy your reading. Cynthia K


Rebel Readers
Next book is Three Cups of Tea by Mortenson and Relin
February 13 at 6:30 at a Member's House
March Book is The Famished Road by Ben Okri
This group is complete

Tuesday Evening Book Nuts
Next book is The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
February 19 at 6:30 at Duboce Park Cafe
This group welcomes new members...just turn up!

Can't Fail Group
Next book is The Collected Stories of Grace Paley
February 10 at a member's house
March book is Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
April book is Lolita in Tehran
This group is complete

Discovery Group
Next book is Patron Saint of Liars
February 21 meeting at 6:30 at a Members House
This group is complete

Discovery Group 2
Next book is Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen
February 13 meeting at 6:30 at a Member's House
This group is looking for 1 or 2 more members (contact me at BookSavvy@aol.com if you would like to join)

Book Goddesses
Next Book is Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
February 24 meeting at 4 pm at a member's house

New East Bay Group
This group will meet in wheelchair accessible locations.
First meeting will be in March.
Contact me at BookSavvy@aol.com if you would like to be in this new group.

New SF Group
Contact me at BookSavvy@aol.com if you would like to be part of this group.

December 19 Welcome Speaker Elana Dykewoman!

Betty's List Book Club welcomes Elana Dykewoman as the ninth in our series of outstanding readers and and speakers. The event starts promptly at 6:30, and we encourage you to come early and get a bite to eat and a glass of wine at Rachel Herbert's wonderful Duboce Park Cafe.





Check out Elana’s new and forthcoming work:

“Foreword” and three poems in What I Want From You – Voices of East Bay Lesbian Poets, edited by Linda Zeiser and Trena Machado, Raw Art Press, 2006

“Seeking Welcome,” in Love, Castro Street, edited by Katherine Forrest and Jim Van Buskirk, Alyson, Spring 2007

“Are We Ready to Throw Our Weight Around? – Fat Women and Political Activism,” co-authored with Esther Rothblum, forthcoming in The Fat Studies Reader, edited by Esther Rothblum and Sondra Solovay, University of California Press, fall, 2007

Revisiting our First Blog Notice for New Members

The Betty's List Book Club has grown so large and so quickly, that we have many new members who already don't know how it all started. My original idea was to get together a nice book group of 6 to 10 women to attend myself. But then I hooked up with Betty and Betty's list and my modest idea grew into a book league with seven book groups meeting all over the Bay Area, and a Speaker's Night (every third Wednesday at Rachel Herbert's delightful Duboce Park Cafe). Thank you all for being avid readers, and making this book club your own! Cynthia K.

Here is an excerpt from our original post:



So let’s begin. What do you think of these reasons to read from Book Savvy? What books do you think are essential reading? What do you want in a book club? What else do you want to talk about? Help shape the Betty’s Book Club experience with your ideas and expertise.


Eleven Reasons to Make Reading an Important Part of Your Life:
Reading for Information
Reading to Understand Others
Reading to Know Oneself
Reading for Fun
Reading for Ideas
Reading as Virtual Travel
Reading to Become a Part of Our Culture
Reading for Suspense
Reading for the Love of Beauty
Reading for Glimpses of Perfection
Reading to Develop Thinking, Writing and Conversational Skills

We're still looking for your answers to all those questions, and we want to continue to grow the book club in ways that meet your needs (See the November calendar for a new wheelchair accessible group). And don't forget Book Savvy makes a great Christmas present....Cheers. Have a safe and wonderful holiday season.

November Calendar

Here's what I know so far about the November Calendar. As soon as the facilitators send me the details of their meetings, I will post them here.

The East Bay Group is officially formed.

Yikes...looks like we need to start an additional East Bay Group in March, which will meet in wheel chair accessible locations. Let me have your name if you are interested! Write to BookSavvy@aol.com.

Enjoy your reading. Cynthia K


Rebel Readers
Next book is Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
November 14 at 6:30 at a Member's House
This group is complete

Tuesday Evening Book Nuts
Next book is The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
November 27 at 6:30 at Duboce Park Cafe
This group welcomes new members

Can't Fail Group
Next book is Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck
October 20 at a member's house
Next books are Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison,
and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
This group is complete

Discovery Group
Next books are Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy,
and Truth and Beauty by Ann Pachett
October 25 at 6:30 at a Members House
This group is complete

East Bay Group
First Book is Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
November 25 at 4pm at a member's house
This group is already complete

New East Bay Group
This group will meet in wheelchair accessible locations.
First meeting will be in March.
Contact me at BookSavvy@aol.com if you would like to be in this new group.

New SF Group
Contact me at BookSavvy@aol.com if you would like to be part of this group.