The Millennialish Book Club

The silver medal winner in our most recent future-selections poll is by Amor Towles, an author we've spent time with before when we read his Rules of Civility shortly before lockdowns--to generally favorable opinion among our book club. It's a ubiquitous book at the moment, found in most bookstores, libraries, and must-read lists since its April publication.

This is a rare selection for us in that we don't do many short story collections--albeit, this book has a novella in the mix. One of these stories is a continuation of Rules of Civility, but it's said that you don't have to read RoC in order to enjoy the tale. At any rate, with a variety of plots, character casts, and settings, we should have plenty to talk about at our table this month!

From Goodreads:

From the bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway, A Gentleman in Moscow, and Rules of Civility, a richly detailed and sharply drawn collection of stories set in New York and Los Angeles.

The millions of readers of Amor Towles are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter six stories set in New York City and a novella in Los Angeles. The New York stories, most of which are set around the turn of the millennium, take up everything from the death-defying acrobatics of the male ego, to the fateful consequences of brief encounters, and the delicate mechanics of compromise which operate at the heart of modern marriages.

In Towles’s novel, Rules of Civility, the indomitable Evelyn Ross leaves New York City in September, 1938, with the intention of returning home to Indiana. But as her train pulls into Chicago, where her parents are waiting, she instead extends her ticket to Los Angeles. Told from seven points of view, “Eve in Hollywood” describes how Eve crafts a new future for herself—and others—in the midst of Hollywood’s golden age.

Throughout the stories, two characters often find themselves sitting across a table for two where the direction of their futures may hinge upon what they say to each other next.

Written with his signature wit, humor, and sophistication, Table for Two is another glittering addition to Towles’s canon of stylish and transporting historical fiction.

Our 10th annual holiday book grab-bag is upon us! A whole decade of these? Wow! This is our most popular meeting of the year, and everyone always has fun with this.

Here's how it works:

1. Bring a gift-wrapped copy of a fiction or narrative non-fiction book that is under 500 pages that the book club hasn't read in a couple years, and that you enjoyed reading and want to share with someone else. New or gently-used. Your own copy or you can buy another one.
2. We'll put all the books in a big bag.
3. We'll all pick numbers, and then starting with 1 we'll each pull out a wrapped book.
4. We'll unwrap them all at the same time. If you want to trade (like you've already read the book you picked), find someone to swap with. Then we each show the group what we received.
5. You'll read it and bring your new book--it's yours--with you to our January meeting and let us know what you think of it!

See you then for the bookish holiday fun!

This is a follow-up to December's Holiday Book Grab Bag (the 10th annual)! It's a very popular meeting because it's so different since everyone's read a different book. You'll be briefly reviewing whichever book you won and then read in December--let us know what you thought of it! There are no right or wrong opinions, and it's a great opportunity to increase our TBR (To Be Read) stacks for the new year.

And if you couldn't attend the Book Grab Bag, that's fine too; feel free to bring a book you've read over the past few months that you want to share with the group that we haven't read together. The more the merrier!

You'll get the Zoom invitation link closer to the meeting date.

A literary juggernaut since its publication nearly one year ago, this re-telling of the iconic Mark Twain tale The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has garnered resounding acclaim. 70,000 people giving it a 4.5/5 overall rating is a darn strong indicator of a good read. A Pulitzer and Booker Prize finalist, this popular literary fiction work is bound to create prolonged conversation among us!

The Zoom invitation will be shared closer to the meeting date.

From Goodreads:

A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view.

When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

While many narrative set pieces of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river’s banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin…), Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.

This second book from the Sri Lankan author won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2022, a win also noteworthy for being the first by independent press publisher Sort of Books. Categorized as magical realism, queer, fantasy mystery, historical fiction, it's a cross-genre story that reviewers have characterized as fun, unique, zesty, informative, original, challenging, and page-turning. Now you have a sense of its flavor. What will we think amongst ourselves? This should be a good discussion!

The Zoom invitation will be shared closer to the meeting date.

From Goodreads:

Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida—war photographer, gambler, and closet queen—has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira Lake and he has no idea who killed him. In a country where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers, and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with grudges who cluster round can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to the photos that will rock Sri Lanka.

Ten years after his prize-winning novel Chinaman established him as one of Sri Lanka’s foremost authors, Shehan Karunatilaka is back with a “thrilling satire” (Economist) and rip-roaring state-of-the-nation epic that offers equal parts mordant wit and disturbing, profound truths.

Published almost 40 years ago, this selection has earned the label of "modern classic" among book critics and bibliophiles. We'll be reading not just one book, but technically three of them in one cover. But don't let that knowledge daunt you--readers say the stories move quickly with plenty of energy. So be it. Let's delve into some mysteries set right here in the Big Apple itself and see if we can recognize the city we enjoy and call home!

From Goodreads:

The remarkable, acclaimed series of interconnected detective novels – from the author of 4 3 2 1: A Novel.

The New York Review of Books has called Paul Auster’s work “one of the most distinctive niches in contemporary literature.” Moving at the breathless pace of a thriller, this uniquely stylized triology of detective novels begins with City of Glass, in which Quinn, a mystery writer, receives an ominous phone call in the middle of the night. He’s drawn into the streets of New York, onto an elusive case that’s more puzzling and more deeply-layered than anything he might have written himself. In Ghosts, Blue, a mentee of Brown, is hired by White to spy on Black from a window on Orange Street. Once Blue starts stalking Black, he finds his subject on a similar mission, as well. In The Locked Room, Fanshawe has disappeared, leaving behind his wife and baby and nothing but a cache of novels, plays, and poems.