Join us at Manhattan Club Grand Cafe to discuss Picaflor by Jessica Talbot.   Even if you haven’t managed to read the book, we welcome you to join us for coffee and more. Date: August 4, 2015 Time: 3:30 pm Location: Manhattan Club Grand Café, Ave Cabildo 1792 (corner with La Pampa) RSVP:  jendan@gmail.com The author, Jessica Talbot, may be able to join us for the meeting. Picaflor can be purchased directly and locally from Jessica for $AR 80 or $AR 120.  Contact her at jessicatalbot@yahoo.com and is also available in electronic form from Amazon. Picaflor: Finding Home in South America by Jessica Talbot In Picaflor, a true story, Jessica Talbot invites the reader to travel beside her as she searches for love and meaning, while traversing the fascinating countries of South America. Along the way she lets go of grief, grasps hold of the present and finds herself occupying her own weather beaten shoes. When unexpected signs appear on her path she asks, ‘Is this serendipity or fate?’ As the journey unfolds she realizes that you don’t need to know, it can be magical either way. The story starts with Jessica getting a tattoo of a hummingbird, a reminder of new beginnings. Then a kiss at sunrise in the snow-dusted Andes of Peru sends her on a restless, risky journey that ends in Argentina. As she travels through unknown terrain, new friends give her important insights into the meaning of friendship, and old ties strengthen as she frees herself from the past. It’s in the exhilarating but complicated city of Buenos Aires that she finally understands what it means to feel ‘home’. September Book:  A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness….. After eighteen years as a political prisoner in the Bastille, the ageing Doctor Manette is finally released (suffering from psychosis?) and reunited with his daughter in England. There the lives of two very different men, Charles Darnay, an exiled French aristocrat, and Sydney Carton, a disreputable but brilliant English lawyer, become enmeshed through their love for Lucie Manette.  Through these characters, among others, the story shows the plight of the peasantry leading up to the French Revolution and then the subsequent brutality of the revolutionaries in the early years of the revolution.  The story also tries to highlight the parallels between French and British society. Please forward any suggestions you have for future reads to jendan@gmail.com.