Books we read.
Our book group choice for April 2024 is Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. June Hayward is a struggling writer yearning for recognition. Her world collides with Athena Liu, a rising literary star lauded for her insightful novels exploring the Asian American experience. June sees in Athena everything she desires: success, fame, and validation.
Our book group choice for February 2024 is Mrs. Bridge by Evan S Connell. The book offers a poignant glimpse into the seemingly idyllic life of India Bridge, a wife and mother in 1930s Kansas City. Through 117 brief episodes, Connell paints a nuanced portrait of a woman grappling with societal shifts, personal doubts, and the quiet ache of unfulfilled
Our book group choice for December 2023 is Lady Susan by Jane Austen. Forget matchmaking heroines and dashing suitors. Step into the daring world of Lady Susan, Jane Austen’s unpublished masterpiece where morality dances a waltz with desire.
Our book group choice for November 2023 is For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain, by Victoria MacKenzie. MacKenzie’s debut novel is a fictionalized account of the meeting between two extraordinary medieval women: Margery Kempe, a visionary mystic and pilgrim, and Julian of Norwich, an anchoress who lived in a tiny cell for over sixty years.
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Our book group choice for October 2023 is Slow Horses by Mick Herron. Slow Horses is a darkly humorous spy thriller by Mick Herron, following a dysfunctional team of British intelligence agents who have been relegated to Slough House, a dumping ground department of MI5.
Our book group choice for September 2023 is Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. A coming-of-age novel set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, it tells the story of Damon Fields, a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer.
Our book group choice for July 2023 is The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton. First published in 1947, the book is set in the fictional town of Thames Lockdon (based on Henley-on-Thames) during the Second World War.
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Our book group choice for June 2023 is Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner. Edith Hope is a romance novelist who has been banished from London in disgrace after her engagement is broken off. She arrives at the Hotel du Lac, a small hotel on the shores of Lake Geneva, in a state of bewilderment. She is determined to rebuild
Our book group choice for May 2023 is The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelson. It is a novel about the Hanrahan family, whose lives are turned upside down when Ray, the patriarch, announces that he is having a major retrospective exhibition of his work.
Our book group choice for April 2023 is The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant.
