The first plot is that of H.H. Holmes, serial killer and all around CREEPER. The second plot follows the creation of the Chicago Worlds Fair and all involved. Towards the end of the book the two plots tie together.
Welcome to Part II of our meeting for THE HUSBANDS SECRET where you will find everything you need to host the perfect book club for this book!
After we finished eating our delicious Australian BBQ dinner (which can be seen in Part I of this post) we settled in our seats to see what our Moderator Kellie had in store for our discussion.
Kellie handed each of us a personalized letter addressed on the envelope with:
"For my book club friend _________
to be opened only in the event of this discussion."
Inside each letter was a different discussion question for us to read and gossip about as a group. GENIUS!
If you would like to print off the letters/discussion questions for your book club then you can do so HERE!
Before we started our discussion, Kellie had a unique game planned inspired by the book character Tess, who seemed to have anything and everything you could ever want in her purse! Kellie had everyone grab their purses and she asked people to pull out random items and who ever did it first got a point. Some of the items requested were: nail polish, a pen, hair brush, socks, Costco Card etc. It was hilarious to see who had what in their purses!
-One of our book club books that we are reading this fall
-Some "delicious" Vegemite
-And a playlist Kellie put together
After the game we all opened our letters and began our discussion.
Kellie put together a Powerpoint for the Husbands Secret that can be used for your book club meeting or you can just read up on the author and many other interesting tid bits from the book.
You can find the Powerpoint for The Husbands Secret HERE.
Kellie also created a wonderful SPOILER FREE character list to help keep who's who straight in the book which can be found HERE.
We were STILL talking about this book even after we had concluded and people were heading home!
Kellie sent each of us home with an 80's Playlist she put together inspired by the music that Janie listened to that was briefly mentioned in the book. Kellie had this playing in the background while we ate and I can tell you that most of us were tapping our toes and singing along!
The Husbands Secret made for such a great night of eating, chatting, discussing this great book and having loads of fun! I would recommend this book to any book club or friend and I'd love to hear what you thought of this book in the comments!
TITLE OF THE BOOK: The Monuments Men: Allied
Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History
AUTHOR: Robert M. Edsel (Bret
Witter, Contributor)
NUMBER OF PAGES: 496
YEAR PUBLISHED: 2009
PUBLISHER: Little Brown and Company GENRE: Historical Non-fiction
SUMMARY: At the same time Adolf
Hitler was attempting to take over the western world, his armies were
methodically seeking and hoarding the finest art treasures in Europe. The
Fuehrer had begun cataloging the art he planned to collect as well as the art
he would destroy: "degenerate" works he despised.
Focusing on the eleven-month period between
D-Day and V-E Day, this fascinating account follows six Monuments Men and their
impossible mission to save the world's great art from the Nazis. In a race
against time, behind enemy lines, often unarmed, a special force of American
and British museum directors, curators, art historians, and others, called the
Monuments Men, risked their lives scouring Europe to prevent the destruction of
thousands of years of culture.
OUR
STAR RATING:
3.5 out of 5
OUR GROUP REVIEW: Overall, we felt like the book had amazing details and we were in awe at the extensive research that Robert Edsel did in preparation for the book. Just as mentioned at the beginning of the book, Edsel admitted to acquiring so much information on the Monuments Men and their efforts that he had to separate the discoveries and activities that took place in Italy for another book--Saving Italy, published in 2013.
Many of us had a hard time following the story because it did seem to jump around and there were so many characters to keep track of. I put together this PDF guide here for the main characters of the book (I wished I would have had something like this while I was reading).
Brittanie created an awesome PowerPoint here. Her presentation gave us a snapshot of the main characters in the book and some key places that were a part of their story, including Altuassee and Monte Cassino.
We watched the trailer for "The Monuments Men" movie, which several Delicious Reads members went together to see that weekend. Though the movie isn't as historically accurate as the book (they even gave the main characters different names) and many of the events were over-dramatized, the overall feel for the book gives a little taste of what went on with the Monuments Men.
We also watched a
clip here from an old black and white movie, called "The Train." The movie
is based on a book the Rose Valland wrote calledLe front de l'art. The scene we watched is
supposed to be representative of Rose Valland and her role as a spy that helped
the MFAA.
Some of the other key points we discussed were:
(seeherefor a full list of discussion
questions we used)
1.)It was ironic that Hitler despised the Jewish, but
coveted their art and belongings. He wanted all of the art that was German or
what he considered German. He took everything. Harry Ettlinger said years after the war, "My knowledge of the Holocaust started really with the realization that it was not only the taking of lives...but the taking of all of their belongings." We liked that Harry got some of his grandfather's stuff back (though he still keeps it hidden away in a closet).
2.) The Monuments Men had the credentials and the passion for art to risk
their lives for this cause. The story of the rescue of a sixteenth-century
Flemish painting details how, in the midst of the fighting, two Monuments Men,
Walter Hancock and George Stout, carefully wrote detailed notes on the
painting. It definitely took a special kind of person with an interest in
and/or passion for the arts to be a Monuments Man. The outcomes wouldn't have
been the same if a soldier had been assigned to that division who did not have
an interest in art.
3.) In a letter to a colleague on October 4, 1944, George Stout recounts
his conversation with an old colonel about his activities in the MFAA division,
and how the colonel became more and more interested and excited. Stout closes
the letter by writing, "Perhaps [. . .] this simple, curious outlook of
healthy men is more important than some of the monuments
themselves."
-We agreed that this was true to an extent, though some of the men would have sacrificed themselves for the art (and some did--Walter Huchthausen and Ronald Balfour).
-We have an emotional connection to art, we seek for it.
-The beauty/ray of light in the war that these men saw was: "I can save this!" They were doing something that wasn't destructive--saving not destroying like the rest of the war caused.
4.) We loved Rose Valland! Of course she was the only woman mentioned so it was easy to stand out, but we loved her attitude too. She was strategic and had allies on both sides. Rose Valland believed “My duty is to the art.” We thought that the author's constant talk about her being matronly and unattractive may have been excessive. We believed her plainness was a choice too, that is made her not stand out so she could do what she did.
5.) On May 13, 1945, Monuments Man Lincoln
Kirstein wrote about Altaussee, wondering, “How could one of the most
important and unbelievable moments in art history—not to mention the
history of a world war—simply become a forgotten footnote?” Despite his
disbelief that this could ever happen, for the most part the role of the
Monuments Men did remain largely forgotten or unknown until recently. We believed this was due to the fact that so much horror happened at the same time.
Brittanie showed us the size of the Ghent Altarpiece that the Monuments Men had to move. She mapped it out using large paper to give us an idea of the size (it covered the whole side of Kelly's living room and half the book club members!):
6.) We felt like this quote summed up some of our feelings over WWII and the cultural impact of Hitler: "But the lasting impact of his bitter reign is best measured in more ephemeral ways, fifty million loved ones who never returned home from the war to rejoin their families or start one of their own; brilliant, creative contributions never made to our world because scientists, artists, and inventors lots their lives too early or were never born; cultures built over generations reduced to ashes and rubble because one human being judged groups of other human beings less worthy than his own." (The Monuments Men, page 402)
Don't forget to check out our full photo recap of the night HERE!
We've had several English inspired menu's over the years BUT we still seem to find new foods we haven't tried and I love that we continue to surprise ourselves!
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TITLE OF THE BOOK: The Monuments Men: Allied
Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History
6.) We felt like this quote summed up some of our feelings over WWII and the cultural impact of Hitler: 