The following Longbeach Village Association Special Interest Groups are now forming and planning activities. To find out more information about these Groups please contact the Group Leader(s). If you are interested in starting a Special Interest Group please contact Longbeach Village Association President Ben Feole.
Bike Outings
Third Tuesday of the Month; meet at the gas station corner of GMD & Broadway. February 15 trip will be to the Star Fish Restaurant in Cortex. Meet at 11am. Call Pete Rowan for details 556-9093
Thursdays 1:00-2:30PM
YOGA ON THE BAYOU All levels and "beginners welcome" to the practice of yoga; Phoebe Shaws` house 6551 Bayou Hammock Road
questions call 383-7967
LBVA Discussion Group
GROWING OLD IS EASY IF YOU KNOW
HOW!
(however, the theme may take its own
course!) at 6700 Gulf of Mexico Dr. Unit
114
Books for the 2011-12 Season First meeting, December 19th 7:00PM 610 Fox
Wild Swans by Jung Chang recounts the evocative,
unsettling, and insistently gripping story of how three generations of women in
her family fared in the political maelstrom of China during the 20th century.
Chang's grandmother was a warlord's concubine. Her gently raised mother struggled
with hardships in the early days of Mao's revolution and rose, like her
husband, to a prominent position in the Communist Party before being denounced
during the Cultural Revolution. Chang herself marched, worked, and breathed for
Mao until doubt crept in over the excesses of his policies and purges. Born
just a few decades apart, their lives overlap with the end of the warlords'
regime and overthrow of the Japanese occupation, violent struggles between the
Kuomintang and the Communists to carve up China, and, most poignant for the
author, the vicious cycle of purges orchestrated by Chairman Mao that
discredited and crushed millions of people, including her parents.
Stealing
Athenaby Karen Essex
What do an early 19th century British ambassador’s wife and a
5th century B.C. Athenian courtesan have in common? That is, essentially, the
connection explored by Karen Essex in her latest book, “Stealing Athena.”
Wealthy Lady Mary Elgin is following her new husband to
Constantinople to the court of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He hopes that
this post will win him glory, but more than that he wants to gain permission to
journey to Greece and ‘rescue’ the statues of the Parthenon, now called
the Elgin Marbles.Lord Elgin‘s lust for these ancient pieces
drives a wedge between him and his wife, partially because of the financial
ruin it brings him.
Told in parallel to Mary’s story is that of Aspasia, courtesan
to the Athenian statesman Pericles. Aspasia is sharing her life at the time that Phidias is
overseeing work on the marbles of the Parthenon. She is trying to navigate her
precarious life in Athens as both a foreigner and a woman and becomes embroiled
in the scandal surrounding Phidias and Pericles’ work on the Parthenon
Skeletons At The Feast-Chris Bohjalian
In January 1945, in the waning months of World War II, a small
group of people begin the longest journey of their lives: an attempt to cross
the remnants of the Third Reich, from Warsaw to the Rhine if necessary, to
reach the British and American lines.
Among the group is eighteen-year-old Anna Emmerich, the daughter of Prussian
aristocrats. There is her lover, Callum Finella, a twenty-year-old Scottish
prisoner of war who was brought from the stalag to her family’s farm as forced
labor. And there is a twenty-six-year-old Wehrmacht corporal, who the pair know
as Manfred–who is, in reality, Uri Singer, a Jew from Germany who managed to
escape a train bound for Auschwitz.
As they work their way west, they encounter a countryside ravaged by war. Their
flight will test both Anna’s and Callum’s love, as well as their friendship
with Manfred–assuming any of them even survive.
Perhaps not since The English Patient has a novel so deftly captured
both the power and poignancy of romance and the terror and tragedy of war.
Skillfully portraying the flesh and blood of history, Chris Bohjalian has
crafted a rich tapestry that puts a face on one of the twentieth century’s
greatest tragedies --- while creating, perhaps, a masterpiece that will haunt
readers for generations.
Scroll of
Seduction by Giocanda
Belli- Juana of Castile has long intrigued
historians. Her life was like a dark fairy tale without a happy ending. Born to
Isabelle and Ferdinand, the King and Queen of Spain, she was herself the mother
of six monarchs of Europe. Her progeny included Charles V of Germany, who later
became Holy Roman Emperor. But during her lifetime, she was known as Juana the
Mad. And her death in 1555 came after 40 years of imprisonment in a Spanish
castle.
Nicaraguan novelist and poet Giocanda Belli crafted Juana's
gripping story into a novel called The Scroll of Seduction, which was
recently translated into English.
I, Claudius by Robert Graves-While the book takes poetic
and historical license in several key areas, it has been widely hailed as a
masterful portrayal of the Roman Empire and the families that ruled it. In
Graves’s version of events, Claudius was seen by most around him as a bumbling,
deformed, and mentally handicapped, but generally harmless, individual who,
because of those traits, was able to survive the capriciousness of Tiberius and
the madness of Caligula. While those around him plotted endlessly for political
power and revenge, Claudius kept to himself, quietly recording his history of
Rome and of the Etruscans, but all the while keeping a keen eye on the Empire’s
goingson— observations of which formed the basis of Graves’s novel.
Fridays at 2 p.m. Call Chantal for more information, 383-9083. Email
Come join the village painters! Any member of the Village Association is welcome to come paint. This informal group meets in various locations in the Village on Monday mornings at 10am-12pm. There is no instruction, just a lot of fun. All levels of artists feel comfortable. Please call Penny Pollock at 387-0004 for next weeks location.
