Marionberry Salon Book Group
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Marionberry Salon Book Group
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Marionberry History
In Oregon many years ago, gay people and their friends joined together to defeat ballot Measure 9 which would have put glbt discrimination in Oregon's constitution. One of the groups in the campaign reformulated itself afterward into the Coalition to End Bigotry (CEB), a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation devoted to securing social justice and civil equality for glbt people.
The Coalition's activities committee was formed to provide fun activities which would be enjoyed by glbt people. One of the activities was a monthly book group.
The CEB Book Group began meeting in 1993 in the Salem Public Library as a public book discussion group co-sponsored by the library. In 1995 the library withdrew its sponsorship due to low attendance, and the book group was without a home.
The group decided to continue to meet in people's homes, and discuss books following a potluck dinner. Invitations were sent to interested parties, and the group became stronger.
In 1998, the Coalition to End Bigotry decided to focus its energies on the annual Salem Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered Pride Celebration. The book group decided to separate from CEB and continue meeting under the name Marionberry Salon. (The name derives from the local fruit. Get it?)
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Join us!
Marionberry Salon meets monthly, usually on a Saturday at 6:30 P.M. We meet in a member's home, which is chosen monthly. We have decided to choose books two months in advance, after an unfortunate experience in which our chosen book could not be obtained until the week of the meeting, due to being out of stock.
Our mission: to read books which touch on the gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered experience.
Our meetings are open to all regardless of sexual orientation, and newcomers are always welcome.
People tend to come to the potluck discussions based on whether the book appeals to them and whether the date is free for them.
Telephone contact in Salem is Cary at (503) 363-6036.
Preferred email contact is Marionberrysalon@comcast.net.
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Our next selection:
Our next meeting will take place Saturday, August 23 at 6:30 P.M. at a member's house. We will meet for a fabulous potluck and discuss "My Father's Keeper: The Story of a Gay Son and His Aging Parents," by Jonathan G. Silin. Review below.
We also want to see a movie and want your suggestions! Please email suggestions for a GLBT film for us to watch to MarionberrySalon@comcast.net. Deadline for movie suggestions is August 9.
As always, all are welcome, even newcomers. For more information, call Cary at 503-363-6036, or visit our website:
http://hometown.aol.com/marionberrysalon/myhomepage/index.html
Here's a review of My Father's Keeper:
When his elderly parents begin failing in health, the author, a Bank Street College educator, must come to terms with a drastic shift in caretaking roles. His account recognizes a lifetime of transformative relations with his parents, Depression-era New York Jews, especially his father, for whom the author's declaration of gayness decades earlier struck like a "personal injury." The father's sense of betrayal by the son, begun when the author started writing on gay issues and signing them with his name (which is also the father's name), is compounded as the father undergoes successive, debilitating operations for cancer of the larynx. Losing control of his body, the father reasserts his authority by taking care of finances while lashing out at his son, leaving him feeling "ambushed," intimidated and reluctant to visit the nursing home where his father lives. Despite past efforts to distance himself from his disapproving parents, Silin, well into his 50s, must take responsibility for their care, preferring a caring approach, rather than treating them like dependent children. Forgiveness occasionally graces these encounters, as when the author's partner of 30 years dies, and Silin's father offers a tender acknowledgment. Silin's work is at once thoughtful and erudite.
The last two books on our reading list are:
"A Brother's Price," by Wen Spencer
"A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose," by Eckhart Tolle.
Any of our books that are in stock at Reader's Guide Books on Edgewater St. in west Salem may be obtained at up to 50% off by using the Marionberry Salon book credits - just mention that at checkout.
One of our members passed along this comment about our book group: "I was thinking about the people I've met/known through the book group and they are some of the best lgbt people I can meet, and people I can depend on, and they support each other too..."
Here is a list of books we have read. Do not be put off - nobody in the group has read them all!
1993:
Rubyfruit Jungle, by Rita Mae Brown
The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde
The Well of Loneliness, by Radclyffe Hall
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, by Gertrude Stein
Suddenly, Last Summer, by Tennessee Williams
Memoirs, by Tennessee Williams
China Mountain Zhang, by Maureen F. McHugh
1994:
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe, by Fannie Flagg
Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
Venus Envy, by Rita Mae Brown
Becoming a Man, by Paul Monette
"Houston, Houston, do you Read?" by James Tiptree, Jr.
The Lost Language of Cranes, by David Leavitt
Heartlands, by Darrell Yeats Rist
Orlando, by Virginia Woolf
Stranger at the Gate, by Mel White
My American History, by Sarah Schulman
A Meeting by the River, by Christopher Isherwood
Was, by Geoff Ryman
1995:
Gay Soul, by Mark Thompson
Hometowns, edited by John Preston
Bastard out of Carolina, by Dorothy Allison
The Liar, by Stephen Fry
How Long has this Been Going On? by Ethan Mordden
Queer in America, by Michaelangelo Signorile
Making History, by Eric Marcus; also, One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dad, Blue Dads, by Johnny Valentine
Maurice, by E.M. Forster (also film)
1996:
Entries from a Hot Pink Notebook, by Todd D. Brown
Ethan of Athos, by Lois McMaster Bujold
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt
The Family Heart: A Memoir of When Our Son Came Out, by Robb Forman Dew
Skin, by Dorothy Allison; and "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones," by Samuel R. Delaney
The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin
Breakfast at Tiffany's, by Truman Capote
Coming Out Under Fire, by Alan Berube, with film of Breakfast at Tiffany's
Dona Florinda and Her Son (film)
1997:
Dream Boy, by Jim Grimsley
Bastard Out of Carolina (film)
The Gay and Lesbian Literary Companion, edited by Sharon Malinowski and Christa Brelin
Naked, by David Sedaris
Sister and Brother: Lesbians and Gay Men Write About Their Lives Together, edited by Joan Nestle and John Preston
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt
Ring of Swords, by Eleanor Arnason
1998:
Deadline for Murder, by Val McDermid
Zami: A New Spelling of my Name, by Audre Lorde
Plays Well with Others, by Alan Gurganus
Serving in Silence, by Margarethe Cammermeyer with Chris Fletcher
Beyond the Pale, by Elana Dykewomon
Island in the Sea of Time, by S.M. Stirling
Too Queer: Essays from a Radical Life, by Victoria A. Brownworth
Telling Tales out of School: Gays, Lesbians, and Bisexuals Revisit their School Days, edited by Kevin Jennings
Cavedweller, by Dorothy Allison
Wizard of Oz (film)
1999:
Terminal Velocity, by Blanche McCrary Boyd
The Intersection of Law and Desire, by J. M. Redmann
The Beautiful Room is Empty, by Edmund White
Oranges are not the Only Fruit, by Jeanette Winterson
Statestruck: Theatre, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America, by Sarah Schulman, with The Celluloid Closet (film)
Ammonite, by Nicola Griffith
Tales of the City, by Armistead Maupin
The Best Little Boy in the World, by John Reid (Andrew Tobias), with Rubyfruit Jungle, by Rita Mae Brown
Death in Venice, by Thomas Mann (also film)
Slow River, by Nicola Griffith
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, by Gertrude Stein
The Immoralist, by Andre Gide
2000:
The Persian Boy, by Mary Renault
Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, by Lillian Faderman
The Color Purple, by Alice Walker (also film)
The Kid, by Dan Savage
Stone Butch Blues, by Leslie Feinberg
The Best Little Boy in the World Grows Up, by Andrew Tobias
Growing Up Gay/Growing Up Lesbian, edited by Bennett L. Singer
The Gilda Stories, by Jewelle Gomez
The Book of Lies, by Felice Picano
November - no meeting
December - Holiday Party
2001:
Restricted Access: Lesbians on Disability, edited by Victoria A. Brownworth and Susan Raffo
The Density of Souls, by Christopher Rice
Queerly Classed, edited by Susan Raffo
The Dreyfuss Affair, by Peter Lefcourt
The Stranger Next Door, by Arlene Stein
Biological Exuberance, by Bruce Bagemihl (selections)
The Night Listener, by Armistead Maupin
Annie on my Mind, by Nancy Garden
The Book of Lies, by Felice Picano
Pagan's Father, by Michael Arditti
October 27, 1 PM at Jackson's Books, Jody Seay reading from her book "The Second Coming of Curly Red."
Dec. 1, Arkansas: Three Novellas, by David Leavitt
2002:
January 19: The Second Coming of Curley Red, by Jody Seay
March 2: Cinnamon Gardens, by Shyam Selvaduri
March 30: Gods and Monsters (film).
April 27: The Naked Civil Servant, by Quentin Crisp
June 22: Tipping the Velvet, by Sarah Waters
July 29: The Sum of Us (film).
September 21: At Swim, Two Boys, by Jamie O'Neill
November 2: The Martian Child, by David Gerrold
December 7: Any Kind of Luck, by William Jack Sibley
2003:
January 18: "Midlife Queer: Autobiography of a Decade: 1971 - 81," by Martin Duberman
March 15: "Cathedral City," by Gregory Hinton
April 26: "The Hours," by Michael Cunningham
May 31: "My Blue Heaven," by Joe Keenan
July 12: "The Ritz" (film version of Terrence McNally play)
August 16: "Dry," by Augusten Burroughs
September 27: "Letters in the Attic," by Bonnie Shimko
October 25: "Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin," by John D'Emilio
December 6: "Lifesaving: A Memoir," by Judith Barrington
2004:
January 24: "Skipping Toward Gomorrah: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Pursuit of Happiness in America," by Dan Savage.
March 6: "Storyteller," by Amy Thomson.
April 24: "Confederacy of Silence: A True Tale of the New Old South," by Richard Rubin.
May 22: "Crossing the BLVD: Strangers, Neighbors, Aliens in a New America,"
by Warren Lehrer and Judith Sloan
June 29: "Funny Boy," by Shyam Selvadurai.
August 7: "Briar Rose," by Jane Yolen
September 18: "Latter Days" (film)
October 30: "This Wild Silence," by Lucy Jane Bledsoe
December 5: "Middlesex," by Jeffrey Eugenides.
2005:
January 22: "Half-Life," by Aaron Krach
February 10: Marc Acito on How I Published My Novel (author event at Jackson's Books)
February 26: "The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams," by Donald Spoto
March 12: "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (Film and play by Tennessee Williams)
April 26: "How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship and Musical Theater" by Marc Acito
May 14: "Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging: Confessions of Georgia Nicholson," by Louise Rennison
June 11: "The Assault of Laughter," by Melissa Hart
August 6: "Marcel Proust," by Edmund White
October 1: "The Forest Lover," by Susan Vreeland
December 3: "Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the US Military," by Randy Shilts
2006:
January 28: "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West," by Gregory Maguire
March 18: "Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey into Manhood and Back," by Norah Vincent.
April 30: "Geography Club", by Brent Hartinger
June 10: "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed", by Jared Diamond
August 5:"The Course of Empire" by Eric Flint and K. D. Wentworth
Sept. 30: "Kushiel's Dart" by Jacqueline Carey
Dec. 2: "The Blue Place" by Nicola Griffith
2007:
January 27: "The Ordinary" by Jim Grimsley
February 25: "Life of Pi" by Yann Martell
April 7: "Curse of Chalion" by Lois McMaster Bujold
June 2: "Air: Or, Have Not Have" by Geoff Ryman
July 28: "Camouflage," by Joe Haldeman (2004 Tiptree Award winner)
Sept. 8: "Dear John," by Nicholas Sparks
October 27: "Set this House in Order: A Romance of Souls," by Matt Ruff (2003 Tiptree Award winner)
Dec. 1: "Through a Brazen Mirror: The Famous Flower of Servingmen," by Delia Sherman
2008:
Jan. 26: "Trader," by Charles de Lint
March 29: "Unshapely Things," by Mark Del Franco
April 27: "I'm Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted: A Memoir" by Jennifer Finney Boylan
June 7: "James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon," by Julie Phillips
July 19: "Blind Fall: A Novel" by Christopher Rice
August 23:"My Father's Keeper: The Story of a Gay Son and His Aging Parents" by Jonathan G. Silin
Date TBA: "A Brother's Price," by Wen Spencer
Date TBA: "A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose," by Eckhart Tolle
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