December 2023 Bookclub News

 

 

https://www.suebutler.com.au/blog/2018/10/11/idiomatic-expressions

 

Dear Bookclub,

Our beautiful trip to Laguna Beach, morphed into a fine kettle of fish, as Val so perfectly described, our ladies succumbing to the scourge of COVID.  Before the kettle of fish arrived, we were gifted with a pristine day at the beach; may our walking and talking along the Laguna shoreline be what is long- remembered:

Thank goodness we had that book to discuss since our conversations were few and far between..... ha! Kate Atkinson's "Festive Spirits" was enjoyed and appreciated for the well-written twists she created on the visions of Christmas. Reminisces of books past, included Atkinsons', brought out the google machines to sharpen our memories and spark the continuum.  So many books, so many years! Yet our history is short in comparison to that of The Ranch at Laguna Beach.  Aside from the photos on the wall in the hallway adjacent to the restaurant, depicting the tent city on the beach, The Ranch really was a ranch. As described in the very interesting Forbes article - little guy vs. corporate - (link below), the homestead, which was built in 1871, was originally a watermelon farm and became known locally as "the ranch." The inn opened in 1962:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/annabel/2016/11/30/a-fresh-slice-of-orange-county-the-newly-reinvented-ranch-at-laguna-beach/?sh=6700df664771

Trudy's suggestions for an upcoming read:

"The Wren, the Wren" Anne Enright *chosen

"The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History" Ned Blackhawk

"The Bee Sting" Paul Murray

 

Up next:

 

Artful reading,

LK

PEACE

November 2023 Bookclub News

https://imgur.com/FRdaI03

 

Dear Bookclub,

Sherry Sontag, Christopher Drew and Annette Lawrence Drew's "Blind Man's Bluff" provided a thrill ride for our survival adoring group. Fascinated by the concepts and risks, we were overwhelmed by the detailed descriptions of each featured submarine's history. Please check out the USS Parche cutaway in the link above, zooming in, Where's-Waldo-style, to find the divers.

Da Vinci's submarine design

Sontag & the Drews's book, published in 1998, six years in the making, had a journey of its own just to be published. The dedication of the authors, to deliver the stories despite the predicted lack of sales, was remarkable and the path taken to present and speak to the veterans proved successful in enlightening audiences beyond expectations. Please enjoy this 'blast-from-the-past' authors' night at the tiny venue of the bookstore at the Mystic Seaport Musuem... it's really great:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4656332/user-clip-blind-mans-bluff

 

The stories are capsulized in a manner that begs for a TV series. OK, I am asking nicely.

Last week, I flew to New Orleans with Nate. My Southwest nonstop flight would normally feel like a dreadful challenge, cramped quarters and discomforts galore.  New understanding of discomfort had me breathing deeply with gratitude, appreciating the sweetly filtered air and looking forward to gastronomical ridiculousness upon landing in a short time. Little did I know that visiting the World War II Museum in New Orleans would move me into deep, deep conceptualizations of war and mankind beyond all I thought I'd learned in my lifetime. "Blind Man's Bluff", definitely amazing, is but a small link in the chain of this history. Five hours was not enough to see it all; highly recommended and I'd go back in a heartbeat:

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/ 

Wanda's suggestions for an upcoming read:

 "The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store" James McBride

"Absolution" Alice McDermott *chosen

"The Future" by Naomi Alderman

 

Up next:

 

Festive reading,

LK

 

October 2023 Bookclub News

 

 

steak wedge salad magic eye

Dear Bookclub,

Stars lined up in the sunny sky above as five of us gathered on the Veranda and ordered five steak wedge salads and five iced teas. Somewhere, code was generated from the AI gathered in the kitchen. 

 

Zevin - New York Times

Code creators and video games propelled the world of Gabrielle Zevin's imaginative "Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow". We all enjoyed it, excepting Val, who we missed and would love to hear her thoughts when we reconvene. Also, wonder if she would have ordered the steak wedge and iced tea, stepping to that other drummer. Lamenting the tedium that accompanies literature checking 'all the boxes' that Zevin fell prey to, I was struck by another perspective on this practice. Jennifer Egan's library was featured in the San Diego Union Tribune's "Books" section in Sunday's paper.

http://enewspaper.sandiegouniontribune.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=7b6f621c-9022-49ef-ba13-fce201d3d936

Egan states: "Fiction contains more compressed information abut an era then anything else. If you're looking for the maximum quantity of information , you can't beat it, because it contains all the things that went without saying. History is all about saying what needs to be said; fiction tells a story, and and then it tells the story the writer didn't know they were telling - didn't know they had to tell."

Please enjoy the full article, which I adored for her need to be surrounded by all those books.

As readers of Zevin's novel, we gained a perspective of those thirty years covered that we never experienced. The book, one of nine she has published, had a surprising success perhaps attributable to the over 40 crowd getting that 'maximum quantity of information' about the gaming world we never played. In decades to come, those checked boxes may serve the purpose of staging the era(s) represented. 

Please enjoy this piece, illuminating Zevin's path as a writer and unexpected success with this latest novel:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/26/books/gabrielle-zevin-tomorrow-and-tomorrow-and-tomorrow.html 

 

Terrie's suggestions for an upcoming read:

 "The River We Remember" William Kent Krueger  *chosen

"The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: And the Path to a Shared American Future" Robert P. Jones

"Lady Tan's Circle of Women" Lisa See

"The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store" James McBride

Up next: 

Happy reading,

LK

September 2023 Bookclub News

 

  

 

 

Dear Bookclub.

 

A wall of beautiful wine bottles beckoned at the Barrel Room while we sipped our water and reminisced about lunches past, when we consumed vast quantities of vino. Reminiscence dominated Ann Patchett's "Tom Lake" in our beloved author's latest. While there was some disappointment about the book not matching our anticipation, it was still well-received and discussion moved from that very topic to the pandemic setting, the "Little Women" comparisons, Peter Duke's personality, Lara's road not taken and ultimately the cherry farm and her family. Val's trepidation about a reading of "Our Town" at the lunch table never crossed my mind (drat!) yet I do admit to having obtained a copy of the Wilder work to delve a little deeper into that character in the book. Patchett's portrayal of the play's auditions was golden at the onset of the novel. Meryl Streep's reading of the audible version also deserves a nod.

 

 

 

Guess who

 

 

More than you ever thought possible has been written, pondered and recorded about "Our Town". Included in the "Official Website of the Thornton Wilder Family" is a section of Patchett's book with a link to The Guardian's review of her book:

 

https://www.thorntonwilder.com/our-town

Val's suggestions for an upcoming read were plentiful and as always hard to whittle down to one. The artful bookshelf she shared must be re-appreciated:

"A Fever in the Heartland" Timothy Egan

"The Art Thief" Michael Finkel *chosen

"Everything She Touched" Marilyn Chase

"Yellowface" R. F. Kuang

"Noble Ambitions" Adrian Tinniswood

Up next: 

 

Happy reading,

LK

August 2023 Bookclub News

 

Hurricane survivors getting loaded onto crates in NYC.

 

 Dear Bookclub,

"Our" San Diego Zoo, being a minor character in Lynda Rutledge's "West With Giraffes", added an extra level of interest to our reading and discussion. Belle Benchley, the world's first female zoo director, welcomed Lofty and Patches to the San Diego Zoo in 1938. But that's another story. Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Nickel, oscillating back and forth between reminiscing centenarian in a nursing home and spirited seventeen-year-old driving the giraffes cross country with the old man, is the tale crafted by Rutledge that entertained me, both times I read the book. Our group's mention that this technique of yo-yoing can be tiresome, it is not without some grand planning by the author:

Lynda Rutledge's white board

For a deeper appreciation of San Diego Zoo's adoption of Patches and Lofty, please enjoy the following:

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/local-history/story/2022-10-25/first-san-diego-zoo-giraffes-arrived-by-truck-in-1938

Belle Benchley in her San Diego Zoo office.

 For more about Belle Benchley, please enjoy this piece from "Zoo Walks Through History":

 https://zoohistories.com/2019/06/23/belle-benchley-worlds-first-female-zoo-director/:

 

 Suggestions for an upcoming read:

 "Blind Man's Bluff" Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew *chosen

"Brideshead Revisited" Evelyn Waugh

"Camera Girl" Carl Sferrazza Anthony

 

Up next:

 

Lazy reading,

LK

 

 

July 2023 Bookclub News

 

Hello Terry

Dear Bookclub,

Discussion of Ann Napolitano's "Hello Beautiful" was surpassed by beloved 'catching-up' conversation. Seated outside at Madeiras, sinking into our personal tales of summer, we eschewed Napolitano's tale after declaring too much as unrealistic and characters unlikable. The first part of the book engaged, the next part went on and on and on and on and on, being sure to check all boxes for writing style and inclusion of current controversial topics. Ensnaring the reader in a net far too vast, deprived any true captivation.

 Did Oprah read this? Did it filter through some Oprah AI to become a 'pick'?

Greta Gerwig's 2019 film, "Little Women"

Did she read "Little Women"? Oprah's recommendations feel a bit like the Good Housekeeping Seal. Not bad, but not silk or satin.

Ann Napolitano claims that the nod to "Little Women" developed while she was writing and the framing was not part of her plan:

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/18/1164523144/ann-napolitano-on-her-new-novel-hello-beautiful

Terry's suggestions for an upcoming read:

"An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take it Back" Elisabeth Rosenthal

"Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow" Gabrielle Zevin *chosen

"Count the Ways" Joyce Maynard

Up next:

Happy reading!

LK

June 2023 Bookclub Newsletter

 

Dear Bookclub,

Unable to attend our June meeting to discuss Ian McEwan's "Lessons", Trudy provided a brief synopsis of the gathering:

"Finding the book depressing and hard to read, most stopped reading it, except for Terrie, who liked it, especially the historical content. 

Our book choice was Ann Patchett’s newest novel because many had already read Covenant of Water and Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon."

How I wish I could have been there! Consider: McEwan's ability to put the notion of a woman abandoning the role of mother to feed her own need, battling the very nature of human existence and the mess that accompanies those philosophies. Add the layer of Miss Miriam Cornell and yuck:

 "McEwan can make a reader feel as though she has bent forward to sniff a rose and received instead the odor of old sewage."

 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/13/books/review/ian-mcewan-lessons.html

Packing in historic consequences and, once again, the seemingly endless effects of WWII, McEwan stimulates contemplation of the tinting world events cast upon individual lives. Mirroring sixty years of the author's life, influences abound.

love his decorating style

Great interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGPWYWOAYlg

Hard to pick up a book after putting it aside, but if you do, I will happily discuss it with you anytime! Stuck in my head, this, like other McEwan reads, I won't quickly forget (despite being on some trajectory to forget everything - enter reference to Nora Ephron's 2010 "I Remember Nothing".. audible excellent).

Nora Ephron

 

 Trudy's suggestions for an upcoming read:

"The Covenant of Water"  Abraham Verghese

"Hang the Moon" Jeannette Walls

"Tom Lake" Ann Patchett *chosen

 

Up next:

Happy reading,

LK

May 2023 Newsletter

 

Cafe Luna

 

Dear Bookclub,

Discussing Frank Bruni's "The Beauty of Dusk", brought out the joyful life in us. We were loud, we laughed and we appreciated Bruni's reminders about our precious time. 

A book about a New York Times journalist, now a professor at Duke University, going blind hardly seems like the backdrop for our mirth yet his poignant story described human resiliency and the positive attitude of moving forward. Respecting his journey and those of others he encountered, we were awed and inspired. 

Wanda shared some of her favorite Bruni quotes:

"People who flourish make a decision to flourish. They point themselves toward joy."

"It requires attention, openness, and humility … the recognition that something ordinary could be extraordinary. Without therapy or thought, Regan reveled in being alive. That helped me do the same.” (Regan, the dog) ...

"No journey pays greater dividends than the one from assumptive to appreciative."

I loved the sandwich board concept. As Bruni described in an NPR interview*:

"What I mean by the sandwich board theory is if every one of us, everyone you came in contact with, was wearing something on the exterior that told you what he or she had struggled with in the past, was struggling with right then, the anxieties, the heartaches, you would understand much better how many people, which is basically everyone's struggle in some way, you would be much, much less inclined to self-pity, and I think you would be called to a degree of empathy that ideally we would always all show one another."

*https://www.npr.org/2022/03/01/1083775479/new-york-times-writer-frank-bruni-on-what-losing-eyesight-taught-him-about-life

Wanda's suggestions for an upcoming read:

"Lessons in Chemistry" Bonnie Garmus

"West with Giraffes" Lynda Rutledge *chosen

"The Personal Librarian" Marie Benedict & Victoria Christopher Murray

Up next:

Happy reading

LK

April 2023 Bookclub News

 

Dear Bookclub,

Kate Atkinson's "Shrines of Gaiety" dazzled us with a cast of characters, distinct in our memories for their well-developed personas yet blurred in our recollections for their actual names. Atkinson/Dickinson entertained, her intricate styling of a story rivaled only by her fabulous sense of humor. We adored it.

 

Nightclub owner Kate Meyrick (seated, center) at a party at the Silver Slipper Club, London, celebrating her release from prison, 1928. Photo: Popperfoto via Getty Images

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Kate(!) Meyrick, "Night Club Queen", could not fully be encapsulated in Atkinson's novel. Please enjoy this litany of adventure from none other than Wikipedia to further bolster the curious newspaper blurb at the end of the book:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Meyrick

 

 

 

As we basked in the bright April sunshine on the Veranda, our conversation turned to the many other books this prolific writer has produced. We appreciated the variety and noted that our bookclub had read one of hers in the past. Must have been past-past because we weren't really sure which one(s)? "Case Histories" sounded familiar to me (pre-blog?) and "Life After Life" (blog - 2013) we read, but I don't remember at all! Sigh.

 

The covers are distinct. I remember the roses. And her name, as my Olivia noted, is not to be missed:

Finally, we can only wonder what was served in the clubs... Atkinson's credit to a Dutch cocktail book is here to inspire:

 

https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/slag015hoem02_01/slag015hoem02_01_0014.php

With a little imagination and experimentation, you, too, can indulge like the bright young things.

Terrie's suggestions for an upcoming read:

"The Covenant of Water"  Abrahan Verghese

"Hang the Moon" Jeannette Walls

"Hello Beautiful" Ann Napolitano *chosen

Up next:

Happy reading,

LK

March 2023 Bookclub News

 

 Dear Bookclub,

Celeste Ng's "Our Missing Hearts" chilled  ours with a dystopia highly imaginable. TikTok national security concerns, anti-Asian discrimination, separation of children from their families at the border, stolen election debate, AI misinformation dangers, etc., etc....  How odd and plausible PACT (The Preserving American Culture and Traditions Act) would be.  

Our discussion was anemic. We were thrilled to be together but our lunchtime conversation at Hoorah's  proved challenging with a robust noise level.  The general consensus being unenthusiastic about the book, the depressing tone dragged down our readers. I personally liked the writing and the Ng's ability to weave a thoughtful tale; this sentiment, also shared by Terry, who was unable to attend. Having the library, books and story-telling as agents in the novel endeared me.

Washington Post Live's series, "Race in America" features an interview with Celeste Ng. Always fascinating to hear an author's voice and sentiment, Ng's emphasis on her motivations and fears are especially worth the listen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ckcox7hHkcY

Val's suggestions for an upcoming read:

"If Walls Could Speak" Moshe Safdie

"Lessons" Ian McEwan *chosen 

"The Good Sister" Sally Hepworth

 

Up next:

 

Happy reading,

LK

February 2023 Bookclub News

 

Lexington

Dear Bookclub,

Geraldine Brooks' "Horse"is the book I yearn for when I long to read. Every book I start, I hope will be this book. "Poisonwood Bible", Kingsolver, "The Optimist's Daughter", Welty, anything, Patchett, anything, Susan Orlean, "Cloud Cuckoo Land", Doerr, anything Oliver Sacks, "River of Doubt", "Homegoing", "Boys in the Boat" .... all this book. The list is long, thank goodness,  but the challenge is to find them and read them among the mass of 'other' pages out there. 

Our gathering to discuss "Horse" and  Anthony Marra's "Mercury Pictures Presents"was attended by only three: Terrie, Terry and Val. Terrie reports:

"We all loved "Horse" and learned new facts about horse racing and its history - Race horses used to be trained for 5 years before allowed to race which gave their bones time to cement properly. Today, horses on the track at two years - probably contributing to all of the race track casualties... Also, we liked the way Brooks interwove the past history with the present day scientist study. The poor treatments of Blacks is always disheartening - even though we think things might be better, the scientist's boyfirend (Theo) meets with an unfair death because of his color....

Terry hadn't finished Mercury Presents; Val was not crazy about it. I liked it but agrred with Val that there were too many characters keep track of everyone.

We had a nice lunch on the Veranda and the weather was perfect."

My shock at Theo's death shifted to recognition as I thought of Brooks' husband, Tony Horwitz, who tragically died at age 60 of a sudden cardiac arrest while on his book tour in Washington D.C.. She'd dedicated the book to Tony.

Tony Horwitz

 

Please read more about Horwitz:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/tony-horwitz-pultizer-prize-winning-journalist-and-author-dies-at-60/2019/05/28/adc64b72-8157-11e9-bce7-40b4105f7ca0_story.html

And please take a moment to enjoy this great interview with Terry Gross:

https://www.npr.org/2019/05/29/727874768/fresh-air-remembers-pulitzer-prize-winning-writer-tony-horwitz

I also did not finish Marra's book. Time just got away from me but I have a feeling it was not going to be one 'those' books.

My suggestions for an upcoming read:

"The Beauty of Dusk Frank Bruni *chosen

"Index, A History of the/ A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age" Dennis Duncan

"Noble Ambitions: The Fall and Rise of the English Country House after World War II" Adrian Tinniswood

"The Last White Man"  Moshin Hamid

Up next:

Happy reading,

LK