House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

My friend L suggested we read House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski for our book club. I knew as soon as I picked all 700+ pages up from the library that this had been a mistake. There were pages that looked this

and pages that looked like this

There were footnotes nested within footnotes. There were pages where you had to spin the book around to see what was going on. Every single reference to a house in this book was a different font colored blue. So there's like three or four stories going on in this book. I'll try to explain it, but if it sounds confusing, imagine reading it. 

A filmmaker makes a story about a haunted house. Let's call that the Navidson Record storyline. A man named Zampanò starts writing about the house, collecting evidence and interviews and creating a document about what went on in that house. Unfortunately, Zampanò dies and a young man named Johnny Truant picks up where he stopped by writing an introduction and notes. Meanwhile, there's an omniscient "editor" who occasionally makes comments on Johnny's notes.

And we slow watch the slow descent into madness of everyone - everyone at the house, Zampanò , and, maybe most noticeably, Johnny. 

There's a fair amount of disagreement about what this novel actually is. Is it just a book about a haunted house? Is it a psychological thriller? Is it about the danger of obsession? With its layer upon layer of unreliable narrator, is it just 700 pages saying that nothing is real? All houses are the same house and no house is safe? I don't know the answer.

Our book club discussion about this book was so good because there is no one interpretation. And we kept picking up different lines that we thought were clues. Not just one person actually carefully examined the copyright page looking for helpful hints. When's the last time you read a copyright page? 

Friends. It's fascinating. But I will say that I'm also super confused by it, which is the purpose, I think. I also think we should maybe look in on Mark Z. Danielewski and make sure he's doing okay. 

4/5 stars

Lines of note:

I'd been in the throes of looking for an apartment after a little difficulty with a landlord who woke up one morning convinced he was Charles de Gaulle. I was so stunned by this announcement that before I could think twice I'd already told him how in my humble estimation he did not at all resemble an airport though the thought of a 757 landing on him was not at all disagreeable. I was promptly evicted. (page xi)

This was the very first page of the book and I have to admit that this smartassness made me snort out loud. 

While in the past, live footage was limited to the aftermath - the oral histories given by survivors or photographs taken by pedestrians - these days the proliferation of affordable video cameras and tapes has created more of an opportunity for someone to record a plane wreck or bank robbery as it is actually taking place...

By now it is common knowledge that Flaherty recreated certain scenes in Nanook for the camera. Similar accusations have been made against shows like America's Funniest Home Videos. For the most part, professionals in the field do their best to police, or at least critique, the latest films, well aware that to lose the public's trust would mean the death rattle for an already besieged art form. (page 140)

Egads. This was published in 2000. Can you even imagine what it would be like now in the age of AI?

In 1990 in The New York Times, Andy Grundberg wrote: "In the future, readers of newspapers and magazines will probably view news pictures more as illustrations than as reportage, since they will be well aware that they can no longer distinguish between a genuine image and one that has been manipulated. Even if news photographers and editors resist the temptations of electronic manipulation, as they are likely to do, the credibility of all reproduced images will be diminished by a climate of reduced expectations. In short, photographs will not seem as real as they once did." (page 141)

Ahem. 

King: Symbols shmimbols. Sure they're important but...Well look at Ahab's whale. Now there's a great symbol. Some say it stands for god, meaning, and purpose. Others say it stands for purposelessness and the void. But what we sometimes forget is that Ahab's whale was also just a whale. (page 361)

Moby-Dick! I'm here for a Moby-Dick sighting in the wild!

Passion has little to do with euphoria and everything to do with patience. It is not about feeling good. It is about endurance. Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer. (page 527)

Sheesh. 

Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of minutes. The violence comes from a combination of giving up, not caring, and a resignation that getting past it is all you can hope to accomplish. So you kill the hour. You do not work, you do not read, you do not daydream. If you sleep it is not because you need to sleep. And when at last it is over, there is no evidence: no weapon, no blood, and no body. (page 543)

I loved this little bit in which someone gets too detailed about language. In our house, we often talk about how words matter, how symbolism is sometimes the only thing that matters, and how nuanced you have to me at times to get your true meaning across. This paragraph tickled me. 

For those of you who are interested in my "process," it's basically just notes written on random pieces of paper, and Hannah's vet invoices. This book made me feel like a crazy person.

Things I looked up:

nom de guerre (page xii) -  is a pseudonym or "war name" used to disguise a person's real identity, commonly adopted by soldiers, fighters, revolutionaries, or dissidents

deracinated (page xvi) - pulled up by the roots or separated from one's native culture, homeland, or social environment

rebellion on the 1973 Skylab mission (page xx, 137) - This is a bit of an urban legend. During this mission, there were a lot of rookies and they had tight schedules. This led to a period of time of roughly a day in which communications were limited (non-existent) with mission control. It wasn't really a mutiny - more of a miscommunication. Regardless, there was then a conversation with mission control that led to a rescheduled workload. 

Maginot Line (page xx) -  a massive system of advanced concrete and steel fortifications built by France along its border with Germany during the 1930s to prevent a direct invasion

Joel-Peter Witkin (page xxi) - an American photographer who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His work often deals with themes such as death, corpses (and sometimes dismembered portions thereof), often featuring ornately decorated photographic models, including people with dwarfism, transgender and intersex persons, as well as people living with a range of physical features

Kirlian photography (page 3) - a high-voltage contact photography technique that captures luminous corona discharges around objects placed in a strong electric field

Ted Serios' thoughography (page 3) - Chicago bellhop known for his production of "thoughtographs" on Polaroid film. He claimed these were produced using psychic powers.

Alexander Gardner's photograph of the Union dead (page 3) - Gardner wrote poignant narratives to accompany his photographs, occasionally inventing stories to make his point. In his Sketch Book, Gardner used two photographs of these dead soldiers, identifying them first as Confederate and then as Union.

amaurotic (page 21) - n adjective that means relating to or affected by amaurosis, which is a partial or total loss of sight without any visible physical damage or injury to the eye

camera lucida (page 27) - an optical device used by artists and scientists to superimpose a ghost image of a real-world subject onto a drawing surface so it can be accurately traced

talaria (page 44) - manufactures high-performance, lightweight electric dirt bikes known for instant torque, quiet gear drives, and low-maintenance off-road maneuverability.

aphonia (page 58) - is the medical term for the total loss of voice, where a person cannot speak above a whisper or produce any voiced sound at all

footnote 75 (pages 64-67) - Looking this up is when I discovered that this book has its own subreddit. This footnote contains a list of over 700 names of visual artists. There is a debate in this subreddit about whether or not there is a code in this list. 

Khumbu Icefall (page 68) - a treacherous, constantly moving section of the Khumbu Glacier on Mount Everest, located between Base Camp (5,364 meters / 17,598 feet) and Camp 1 (5,900 meters / 19,357 feet)

serac (page 68) - a large block or column of glacial ice formed by intersecting crevasses on a moving glacier

Margaretha Geertruida Zelle (page 69) - , better known by her stage name Mata Hari, was a Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan executed by a French firing squad for spying during World War I. It literally never occurred to me that Mata Hari was a stage name, but OF COURSE IT WAS.

piton (page 81) -  a metal spike or peg driven into rock or ice cracks with a hammer to serve as an anchor or handhold during mountain climbing

anfractuosity (page 115) - the state of being full of twists, turns, windings, or intricate channels

atrabilious (page 122) - gloomy, melancholic, or persistently irritable

Nupart Jhunisdakazcriddle (page 125) - fictional author created by MZD for this insane novel 

footnote 182 (page 139-141) - list of documentary filmmakers

aporias (page 143) - an expression of real or feigned doubt, or a logical impasse and philosophical puzzle that defies resolution

Pink Dot (page 149) - a quick delivery prepared-to-order grocery store based on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California

muntin (page 231) - narrow strip of wood, metal, or vinyl that divides a single window sash or door into a grid of smaller glass panes

postils (page 265) - collections of sermons or explanatory commentaries on scriptural readings arranged for the church year

gamboge (page 313) -  a deep, luminous golden-yellow gum-resin extracted from Garcinia trees native to Southeast Asia, particularly Cambodia

Floyd Collins in the Kentucky Sand Cave in 1925 (page 334) - an American cave explorer who became trapped and died in what became Mammoth Cave National Park. On January 30, 1925, while working to enlarge a small passage in Sand Cave, Collins became trapped in a narrow crawlway 55 feet (17 m) below ground. The rescue operation to save him became a national media sensation and one of the first major news stories to be reported using the new technology of broadcast radio. After four days, during which rescuers were able to bring water and food to Collins, a rock collapse in the cave closed the entrance passageway, stranding him inside, except for voice contact, for another 10 days. Collins died of thirst and hunger, compounded by exposure through hypothermia after being isolated for a total of 14 days, three days before a rescue shaft reached his position. Collins's body was recovered two months later.

rebarbative (page 339) -  is an adjective that means repellent, unattractive, or causing irritation and annoyance

Lhotse Face (page 344) - a steep, 1,125-meter (3,690-foot) wall of glacial blue ice on the western flank of Lhotse that climbers must scale to reach the South Col on Mount Everest

semiotician (page 349) - an expert who studies how signs, symbols, and cultural codes create and communicate meaning

Artaud (page 361) - Antoine Maria Joseph Paul Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud, was a French artist who worked across a variety of media. He is best known for his writings, as well as his work in the theatre and cinema

Kevin Carter's 1994 Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a vulture preying on a tiny Sudanese girl (page 368, FN 336) - The Vulture and the Little Girl, also known as The Struggling Girl, is a photograph by Kevin Carter which first appeared in The New York Times on March 26, 1993. It is a photograph of a frail famine-stricken boy, mistakenly believed to be a girl until 2011, who had collapsed in the foreground with a hooded vulture eyeing him from nearby. The child was reported to be attempting to reach a United Nations feeding center about a half mile away in Ayod, Sudan (now South Sudan), in March 1993, and allegedly survived the incident. The picture won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography award in 1994. The photographer died by suicide four months after winning the prize.

(I'd put the photo here, but it's NSFL, if you know what I mean.)

Homer Simpson's brother Herbert (page 371) - It's his half-brother. He's voiced by Danny DeVito. You know, there's just a lot of Simpsons lore I just don't know. 

Gabriel Langfeldt (page 379) - a Norwegian psychiatrist whose research centered on schizophrenia and forensic medicine. He was involved as an expert during the trial against Hamsun (Nazi writer), and wrote a book about Quisling (Nazi collaborator).

The curse tree, the ghost of Miss Evelyn Byrd, Lady Ann Skipwith, ghost alley... (page 409)

    Curse tree: In Jamestown, local legend, carried forth by a caretaker named Sam Robinson, states that the tree grew between two lovers, Sarah Harrison and James Blair; it pushed their graves far apart, all at the behest of Sarah’s mother.  

    Evelyn Byrd: Evelyn Byrd was the elder daughter of of William Byrd II and his first wife Lucy Parke. When she was 18, Evelyn was sent to London and presented at court, and sometime thereafter, she fell in love with a Englishman, some say a Catholic. Her father, William Byrd II, disapproved of the match AND brought his daughter home to Virginia, where she died of a broken heart. Since her death, she has made a number of appearances around her family’s old plantation in Charles City County, often dressed in white. A gentle specter, she is reported to drift about in a quiet way without scaring anybody.

    Lady Ann Skipwith: Maybe she committed suicide after learning about her husband's infidelity? Maybe she died in childbirth? She's said to haunt Whythe House in Williamsburg. 

    ghost alley: "Ghost Alley" in Virginia is the local nickname for Matthews Lane at Fort Monroe National Monument in Hampton, a historic military site known for frequent sightings of a spectral "Lady in White"

bartizan (page 437) -  a small, overhanging turret that projects from the wall or corner of a medieval castle or fortification

goraks (page 466) - level 145 melee monsters in Old School RuneScape and RuneScape

ecdysiast (page 511) - formal or facetious term for a striptease performer or exotic dancer

Ohio bed (page 519) - I cannot figure this out. What is it? Like a crib? A toddler bed? 

Hat mentions (why hats?):

black cowboy hats (page 12)

cowboy hat (page 13, 14)

Make no mistake about it: over here his kind enter a bar with a smile and leave with a barstool for a hat. (FN 90, page 83)

...equipped with Hi 8s, down parkas, hats, Gortex gloves, powerful halogen lamps...

ever present hat (page 144)

fella in the white hat (page 324)

wool hat (page 403)

hat tip to anarchy (page 466)

hard hats (page 505)

woolen hat (page 527)

Petitgas hat store (page 575)

Putting out his hat (page 579)

insiDe the hat (page 622 - capitalization intentional)

kettles hat hops (page 633)

hat (in the index, page 678)

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Who's in to ergodic literature like this? Do you know what an Ohio bed is? Do you think this would be a good book club selection? 

Tress of the Emerald Sea (Hoid's Travails #1) by Brandon Sanderson

This month we read Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson for my IRL book club.

Brandon Sanderson (I listen to a podcast where they call him Brando Sando and I don't know why, but it tickles me in just the right place)  is the author of a lot of books set in his expanded fantasy world of  Cosmere. Tress of the Emerald Sea is a standalone book set in this world. 

Okay, here's the deal. Tress lives on an isolated island. When her beloved, Charlie, the duke's son, is captured by the Sorceress in the Midnight Sea, Tress decides to go after him. The seas in this place are dangerous, though. They are created by spores (not water) that rain down from the twelve different moons of the planet. The spores are unstable, reacting to water in an explosive way.  However, ships sail these seas. 

She befriends a talking rat named Huck and manages to be a perfect sailor who eventually worms her way into the heart of all the crew onboard the pirate ship the Crow's Song, which is naturally captained by Crow, a spore-eater. Can Tress save Charlie? Can Tress save herself?

Look, did some of this backstory bore you? Oh, good, I'm not alone. 

The book is told from the POV of Hoid, the cabin boy who is under a curse placed on him by the Sorceress that makes most of what he says nonsense. And why did Brando Sando need to have a dude intermediary? Because Brando Sando is not a good enough writer to write female characters. It is my big beef with this book. Because Hoid is not reliable (he's under a curse placed on him by the Sorceress), how does he know what Tress is thinking or doing? He doesn't. So Tress becomes one-dimensional and we spend too long trying to figure out if what Hoid is saying is at all important. 

But something happened at the end that I did not expect and I felt REALLY DUMB because it was sort of obvious in retrospect, but it made me reevaluate my stance on Sanderson's writing - that stance being that he's a plodding author whose dialogue is clunky and his sentence structure is a crime against humanity. However, maybe I'm wrong? The ending of this book tells me that I'm wrong. Maybe. Actually, no. He's still not a great writer, but he's great at plot. That's fair, right?

Also, this book has so many preachy moments in it. I don't need that. 

Eh.  This was going to be 2/5 stars, but I bumped it to 3/5 stars because the ENDING. It really got me. 

Lines of note:

Tress didn’t want to act suspicious, so she didn’t execute her plan at first. (location 1532)

Just. How did this make it through editing? SUSPICIOUSLY!!!

Hat mentions (why hats?):

He was wearing a traveling coat and even a hat. The duke considered hats improper wear except during travel. (location 371)

One figure in particular—standing right at the prow of the ship, wearing a hat with a tall black feather—looked ominous. (location 936)

With the black-plumed hat, their face was lost in shadow as the sun shone from near the horizon, silhouetting them. (location 945)

Captain Crow—judging by the plume in her hat—had harsh lines for a face, with tan skin and a scowl deep as the ocean. (location 987)

...wind blowing the black feather in her hat. (location 1269)

Her hat hung on a peg by the door...(location 2608)

She took her hat off the peg, went out the door, then locked it behind her. (location 2621)

the captain in her plumed hat (location 4089)

“Tell me…what is your opinion on tiny pirate hats?” (location 4481)

He’d been sitting there making a list of all the hats she owned. (location 4675)

She pulled on her hat, wavered for a moment, but then decided. (location 4896)

stolen Huck’s tiny pirate hat (location 5303)

Or, if trees won’t fit, maybe some paintings of dogs wearing hats. (location 5317)

The captain soon emerged onto the deck of the Two Cups sporting a long captain’s jacket and a hat with a plume. (location 5484)

Also, the only thing he was wearing was a tiny pirate hat. (location 5502)

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Have you ever read Brando Sando? Do you care about spores reacting to water? Do you even know what that means? 

Kittentits by Holly Wilson

We read Kittentits by Holly Wilson for my IRL book club. Wilson is a local author, as in, she lives in my town and works at the university where I work. I consider her one of "my" faculty, since she's in one of the departments that I collaborate with regularly. So I'm going to be honest in this review, but I want you all to know that I know Holly and like Holly and we had her come to our book club to talk about the book.

It's 1992 and ten-year-old Molly is struggling. Her mom died when she was a baby, there was a fire at the last place she lived that killed people, including her cousin, and now she's attached herself to an ex-con who lives with her family in a halfway house. I don't want to talk about the rest of the plot of this book, but it is absolutely batshit and I honestly did not know what was happening half the time and the other half, I had no idea what was about to happen. There is a World's Fair in Chicago, a hot air balloon accident, a lady in an iron lung, conjoined twins, lots of tween cursing, and a seance co-hosted by a real ghost. I mean...this review says it all:

Here's the thing. This is not necessarily a book meant for me. Molly's really grieving and there is not a single responsible adult who is helping her out. There are some people who might be offended by the language Molly uses (as a 10-year-old!), but that language was pretty common in the 1990s, at least with a particular class of people in some geographic circles. It felt like this book was a bit of a fever dream to me and I honestly felt like after about 60 or 70 pages, this was just a story Molly was telling herself instead of real events. It hasn't been since The Library at Mount Char that I felt so off-balanced by a book where I couldn't possibly predict what insane thing was going to happen next. 

Kevin Wilson (he of Nothing to See Here fame) wrote in a blurb on the back that Kittentits was "wildly funny" and I have to admit that I found it unbearably sad and not funny at all. I just kept thinking about how Molly really needed just one person to pay attention to her. BUT! I also did not find Nothing to See Here particularly funny, so if that is a book you enjoyed, maybe you would enjoy this one. 

There are many things I did like about this book. Molly's voice is crystal clear. The cursing is creative. I really loved how many interpretations of the book there are.

1. Holly herself said that the events in the book happened in her mind. Molly may not reliably retell the exact details, but the events happened.

2. I think Molly's mom died and then she was involved in a fire and the rest of it is just a dream Molly had. 

Is it weird that I disagree with the author's interpretation of her own book? Maaaaybe. 

It's really an interesting book and I thought we had an interesting discussion about it, so it might be a good book club book option if you're looking for one. Just, you know, with the caveats about the things people might get upset about. 

(Also, does anyone want to get sad that this book - set in 1992 - was tagged as "historical fiction" in Goodreads? The 1990s are historical? I'm basically prehistoric at this point, I guess.)

3.5/5 stars, but 5/5 for having Holly come to our book club

Lines of note:

The VCR's built in and there's a chair and study table, a READ poster with Bo Jackson reading The Old Man and the Sea. (page 34)

Why is this a line of note? Because I talked with Nance about The Old Man in the Sea just last week (the comments of this post). Also, do you remember when I down a rabbit hole about READ posters when I reviewed Dear Fahrenheit 451?

I've been staring at the sky waiting for the mail guy for hours. Now I'm on the porch floor gargling my spit and scissoring my legs. (page 56)

Gosh, do kids even know what it means to be this bored in this day and age?

One day I ask Evelyn where does wind come from and she says the ocean and I say Eff no, I say it blows from the vast flatness of the Great American Plains. (page 62)

Who can possibly know where wind comes from? It is one of those things I will never understand. 

But the camp brochure, the Quaker girls: they wore their hair in beautiful smoothed ponytails and carried what I discovered later were lacrosse sticks. Behind them were other nice-haired girls eating apples, like they had gotten back from picking these apples then spread out these blankets to sit. Their teeth were big and white biting into the apples, two or fewer cavities in those mouths for sure.

In real life I'd never seen girls like this before, all cereal with no sugar, no marshmallows. Girls I knew were white girls like me, all ratted hair and pebbles sunk deep into the skin of our knees. Or Black girls, cleaner but lippy. Not afraid of anything. (page 263)

I loved this description so much. Do you ever remember looking at college brochures and thinking "I do not look like these people"? Or how all wedding photos looked glamourous and perfect and thinking that you would never having those types of photos? But then!! I was in a college brochure! I was in glamourous wedding photos! But I still sort of see myself as the white trash girl with the ratted hair, too.

Then after he's done Bozo the Clown will come out and make jokes to the audience, he'll go down our line and shake each one of our hands. (page 311)

Bozo the Clown recently came up in the comments section of Elisabeth's post. I just did a rabbit on Bozo and learned a lot. Strap in.

The character was created by Alan W. Livingston, and portrayed by Pinto Colvig for a children's storytelling record album and illustrated read-along book set in 1946. The character first appeared on US television in 1949 portrayed by Colvig. After the creative rights to Bozo were purchased by Larry Harmon in 1957, the character became a common franchise across the United States, with local television stations producing their own Bozo shows featuring the character. Local TV stations could put on their own local productions of the show complete with their own Bozo. Harmon bought out his business partners in 1965 and produced Bozo's Big Top for syndication to local television markets not producing their own Bozo shows in 1966, while Chicago's Bozo's Circus, which premiered in 1960, went national via cable and satellite in 1978.

YOU GUYS. THERE WAS MORE THAN ONE BOZO. 

Obviously the one in Chicago was the best and most famous (say the Midwesterner). 

Things I looked up:

Blue Sunshine (page 49) - Blue Sunshine is a 1977 American horror film written and directed by Jeff Lieberman, and starring Zalman King, Deborah Winters, and Mark Goddard. The plot focuses on a series of random murders in Los Angeles, in which the only common link between the perpetrators is a mysterious batch of LSD that they had all taken years prior. There's something about bald people? This film has a cult following and I sort of feel like I want to watch it? But that's crazy because I've watched a total of two movies in the last five years.

ear trumpets (page 58) - I had NO IDEA this was a thing. a tubular or funnel-shaped device which collects sound waves and leads them into the ear. They are used as hearing aids, resulting in a strengthening of the sound energy impact to the eardrum and thus improved hearing for a deaf or hard-of-hearing individual. Ear trumpets were made of sheet metal, silver, wood, snail shells or animal horns. They have largely been replaced in wealthier areas of the world by modern hearing aid technology that is much smaller and less obtrusive, albeit more expensive.

A sound trumpet does not "amplify" sound. It takes the sound power received over a large area and concentrates it into a smaller area. The received sound is louder, but no power has been created in the process. DID YOU ALL KNOW THIS AND NOT TELL ME?

from Cattle Kate to Sheriff Bridger (page 68) - Cattle Kate is a western wear store in Boise, Idaho. It's named after Ella Watson, a woman who was lynched after being accused of cattle rustling, but was probably killed for standing up for herself in a male-dominated world. Sheriff Bridger may or may not be made up.

Wolfgang Paalen fumage (page 182) - Paalen's technique, which Paalen described as “dictation by candle,” in which he would hold a candle flame up to a treated canvas while the paint was still wet, marking the surface with soot; painting with smoke

Paalen, 1937

Anton Chekhov's The Seagull (page 316) - a play by Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov, written in 1895 and first produced in 1896. The Seagull is generally considered to be the first of his four major plays. It dramatizes the romantic and artistic conflicts among four characters

Hat mentions (why hats?):

Resident Friend Liesel was here before the fire, a snub-nosed woman who wore braided wicker hats. (page 57)

green pointy hats (page 68)

white paper hats (page 73)

sea captain's hat (page 145)

fat guy wise men with hats like giant red pin cushions on their heads (page 303)

winter hat (page 305)

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Have you ever had an author come to your book club? Do you think this seems like a book you would enjoy? 

2025 Book Club Picks

Book Club Picks of Past Years
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024

In 2025, my IRL book club met seven times.

In chronological order:

The Chelsea Girls by Fiona Davis - This was universally liked by my book club peeps. Unfortunately,  because of that, the discussion was pretty minimal. I'm not sure I'd recommend it for a book club if you want to actually talk about the book.  

Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood - Split verdict at book club. Two of us were not enamored with it and three people were obsessed. It's not a book for everyone, but it is for some.

The Women of Chateau Lafayette by Stephanie Dray - Too long; too many POVs that weren't distinct enough. We did learn about the French Revolution, so that was something, I guess.

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley - I missed book club, so I don't know how it went over, but I loved it. 

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman - Mostly liked by book club folks. One person has gone on to read all the books in the series. Not the best discussion. 

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro - No one loved it, but we had a great discussion about it. I think I'd recommend it for a book club. 

The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt by Chelsea Iversen - I don't know friends. This was dark. There were divergent views on it, so there was some discussion. Beware of the violence in this one going in, though. 

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I have been thinking about that cool custom book ornament a lot and next year I might buy an ornament for all my book club peeps with our books of the year. That's a nice way to celebrate book club. You can even get a tag that has Book Club with the year on it. 

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Have you read any of these? If you're part of a book club, what book sparked a good discussion? 

The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt by Chelsea Iversen

The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt by Chelsea Iversen was the December pick for my IRL book club.

Let's just start with some cover analysis, shall we?

Doesn't this look like a delightful cozy fantasy about a woman and her magical garden? Isn't that what the title and color scheme makes you think? 

You would be wrong. This book is filled with violence against women and was incredibly disturbing. 

Book club results: One person did not get further than ten pages in, one person thought it was an empowering look at how we can save ourselves, one person (me) was super bothered by the depictions of violence in the book and could not get over the time the husband locked the wife in the basement, one person attempted valiantly to figure out how the magic in the garden worked. So 25% success rate?

(I think the garden is like a dog. I don't control Hannah really. If she wanted to bite someone, she could. If she wanted to smother someone to death, she could. But Hannah doesn't usually do those things - USUALLY - because she wants me and Dr. BB to be happy and that would not make us happy. So sometimes she's erratic and naughty, but generally she reads our moods and does things to make us happy. That's the garden magic. It's really a dog. But that's my reading on it.)

Harriet lives alone in Sunnyside, her London home, after her father disappeared months ago. Her mother is dead, her only friend has moved away, and all that keeps Harriet company is her garden. Well, about that garden. It's wild and crazy and Harriet has to tend to it or it will completely overtake her house. But then there's this inspector coming around and suggesting Harriet had something to do with her father's disappearance. And this charming young man comes around to court her. SPOILER: HE IS NOT CHARMING. 

Anyway. Read at your own peril. 3/5 stars

Things I looked up:

Ellen Terry (page 84) - an English actress of the late 19th and early 20th centuries; she was born into a family of actors and began performing as a child, acting in Shakespeare plays in London, and toured throughout the British provinces in her teens

Henry Pickering (page 167) - English portrait painter in the 1700s

Hat mentions (why hats?):
round hat (page 11, 276)
tipped his hat (page 18, 82, 282)
tipping his hat (page 33)
below his hat (page 47)
tied on her hat (page 59)
top hat (page 69, 141)
did not wear a hat (page 121)
brim of his hat (page 123)
took his hat off his head (page 149)
tugged firmly at his hat (page 152)
under his hat (page 166)
took off his hat (page 72)
funny hat (page 169)
picked up his hat (page 181)
coat and hat (page 191)
wore no hat (page 201)
beneath his hat (page 229)
fetch our hats (page 281)

*******************

Are you sensitive about violence against women? Would this cover make you think it would be a big role in this book?

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

We read Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro as our most recent pick for my IRL book club. 

Klara is an Artificial Friend (AF) who is chosen to be the companion of a sick teenager named Josie. We follow Klara from her time waiting to be chosen in a store all the way until Josie goes to college. Along the way, there are questions of what it means to be human and what will parents do to protect their own children. Are there limits to what you will do to protect one person at the risk of other people? 

As a book club, we did not LOVE this book. As a book club, we had a great discussion about it. It's not entirely clear to any of us what message Ishiguro is trying to make here and maybe that's a good thing. It's not didactic and it leaves it up to the reader to do the interpretation. I sort of appreciate that about the book, even if I did shut the book thinking that maybe I wasn't a smart enough reader for it. 

You'll note that I don't have any lines of note. It's because the writing is spare and not in a beautiful way. It's as if the author is purposefully creating distance between the reader and the story. Sometimes I think that works because of course we'd want to be distance from an artificial being, but it also sort of made me question how important the author took his own work. 

Anyway, super thought-provoking, but I'm not sure how often I'll be recommending this one. 3/5 stars

Hat mention (why hats?): 

under umbrellas and dripping hats (page 20)

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley was my book club's pick. I missed book club, unfortunately, because I really wanted to talk about it because I enjoyed it so very much. 

Our unnamed main character is a biracial woman, the daughter of a Cambodian refugee and a white man. She's having an unremarkable career in job translating in the Ministry of Defense when she's hired as a "bridge" to a time-traveling naval officer, Commander Graham Gore, who was pulled from a mission in the Arctic in 1847. What follows is a romance? A time travel escapade? A critique of modern life as seen through the lens of our ancestors? A workplace drama? Hmmm....it's a genre mishmash!

The first half of the book was hilarious. I laughed so much at our snarky main character and Gore's observations about modern life. I laughed at how the author decided that she would have people time travel and then just hole up in flats in London doing nothing. And then the action started towards the end of the book and it took a serious tone that was unexpected, but not unwelcomed. 

I don't know if I've sold you on this book, but I loved it a lot. 5/5 stars

Lines of note:

I slid quietly to the floor and leaned my head against the wall. I wasn't going to see a Ministry therapist. I knew I should, and I knew I wouldn't. (page 119)

I feel like this was a sign from the universe that I should talk to someone, but I know I'm not going to.

"He is a pizzle-headed doorknob," said Margaret. (page 122)

Pizzle-headed!! Lovely. Let's bring back old-time insults.

It was a moment among moments, but everyone was held in it, captured in a small and easy joy. I return again and again to this memory. It's proof, you see. Not everything I did was wrong. (page 186)

I have had this thought a lot in recent weeks. My life is what it is because of a series of choice, but surely I haven't done everything wrong.

I thought I might have the energy to perform every action required to make a cup of tea, but I was surprised to remember how many there were: kettle boiling, mug fetching, milk sniffing, tea bag choosing, teaspoon handling. (page 195)

Sometimes I wonder how I even make it to work, let alone actually do work. 

But the stars aren't eternal. Most were already dead, and I was looking at ghosts. At some point in our planet's future, the skyscape will change. There might not be people left by then...These stars were a temporary, beautiful gift of our era - the era that we all shared, a human era. I'd die one day, just like everyone else, so I had better try to live. (page 329)

I thought this was beautiful. The universe is fleeting.

Things I looked up (in which you learn that I know nothing about Cambodian life or culture):

Éclat (page 8) - Ostentatious display : publicity; dazzling; brilliance

Polonaise (page 13) -  a slow dance of Polish origin in triple time, consisting chiefly of an intricate march or procession

Voight - Kampff (page 54) - was a fictional test used by the LAPD's Blade Runners to assist in determining whether or not an individual was a replicant - a fictional interpretation of the Turing test

gelid (page 103, and then again and again) - icy; extremely cold

rhotacism (page 124) -  a speech disorder characterized by difficulty articulating the "r" sound, also known as r-deletion, r-substitution, or lallation

borbor (page 149) - Cambodian rice soup or porridge

doolally (page 168) - temporarily deranged or feebleminded

stupa (page 177) - a dome-shaped structure erected as a Buddhist shrine

Gary Glitter (page 177) - Paul Francis Gadd (born 8 May 1944), better known by his stage name Gary Glitter, is an English former singer who achieved fame and success during the 1970s and 1980s. His career ended after he was convicted of downloading child pornography in 1999. He was also convicted of child sexual abuse in 2006 and a series of sexual offences (including attempted rape) in 2015.

Angkor Wat (page 177) - a Hindu-Buddhist temple complex in Cambodia

Tuol Sleng (page 177) - The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, or simply Tuol Sleng, is a museum chronicling the Cambodian genocide. Located in Phnom Penh, the site is a former secondary school which was used as Security Prison 21 by the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 until its fall in 1979.

Saloth Sor (page 177) - YOU GUYS. This is Pol Pot's real name. Why didn't I know this? Honestly. What sort of education do I have?

The Marne (page 200)  - A river in France; the site of a 1914 battle of World War I

Kindertransport (page 207) - an organized rescue effort of children from Nazi-controlled territory that took place in 1938–1939 during the nine months prior to the outbreak of World War II. The United Kingdom took in nearly 10,000 children. The children were placed in British foster homes, hostels, schools, and farms. Often they were the only members of their families who survived the Holocaust. [The line in the book is "We frame the Kindertransport as an act of heroism, a coherent example of Britain's intrinsic charity and anti-fascism. It's not all untrue - those orphans were grateful, often, thrived, sometimes." It's critical, though, of the refusal to take these children's parents.]

Deleuze (page 215) - Gilles Louis René Deleuze was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art.

Rupert Brooke (page 328) - an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War, especially "The Soldier"

Siegfried Sassoon (page 328) - was an English war poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War.

Hat mentions (why hats?):

"You could make a lovely hat." (page 57)

"Did the fashionable still wear hats?" (page 64)

***************

How do you feel about time travel books? 

The Women of Chateau Lafayette by Stephanie Dray

The Women of Chateau Lafayette by Stephanie Dray was our book club pick for April. In this book, we follow three timelines of women who lived at Chateau Lafayette - during the French Revolution and both World Wars. 

Look, this was long (565 pages!) and I did not care for it. The three voices were basically indistinguishable from one another. Because of the alternating storylines, as soon as you got into the groove, you'd switch time periods. I did learn a lot about the French Revolution, which was interesting, I guess.

Book club take was similar. The other people there listened on audio, which actually helped because each POV had a different narrator. One person actually started listening to one timeline at a time and then switched to the other timeline so there were fewer jumps from one storyline to another which I thought was a super genius idea. 

2.5/5 stars - I would have DNFed this if it had not been for book club

Lines of note:

"There are millions dying - if we stopped to grieve, we should never stop." (page 352)

"After Bastille Day, you wanted to tell me what life is. Well, let me tell you. It's hard. We lose people we love. Our dreams fall to shit. Then we die. It happens to everyone. But at least we can go down fighting." (page 503)

Things I looked up:

Maginot Line (page 14) - named after the French Minister of War André Maginot, is a line of concrete fortifications, obstacles and weapon installations built by France in the 1930s to deter invasion by Nazi Germany and force them to move around the fortifications

Beast of Gévaudan (page 36) - the historic name associated with a man-eating animal or animals that terrorized the former province of Gévaudan (consisting of the modern-day department of Lozère and part of Haute-Loire), in the Margeride Mountains of south-central France between 1764 and 1767

corvée (page 97) - a form of unpaid forced labor that is intermittent in nature, lasting for limited periods of time, typically only a certain number of days' work each year

tympanum (page 209) - is the semi-circular or triangular decorative wall surface over an entrance, door or window, which is bounded by a lintel and an arch

Riom Trial (page 263 and elsewhere) - an attempt by the Vichy France regime, headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, to prove that the leaders of the French Third Republic (1870–1940) had been responsible for France's defeat by Germany in 1940

Gurkha (page 325) - soldiers native to the Indian subcontinent, chiefly residing within Nepal and some parts of North India

sepoy (page 325) -  term denoting professional Indian infantryman

Hat mentions (why hats?): 45 hats in this book! I'll just share with you the repeats. 

new hat (page 45, 80, 82, 165, 231, 355, 542)

my hat (page 83, 250, 374, 396, 397, x2 on page 398)

big hats (x2 on page 115)

Straw Hat Trimmers' Union (x2 on page 449)

Cocaine Blues (Phryne Fisher #1) by Kerry Greenwood

Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood was suggested for our book club as a lighter read and boy do we all need lighter reads right now. 

Right after World War I, Phryne, a young heiress, is invited to Australia to figure out what's going on with a young woman whose parents are concerned about her. Along the way, she solves several mysteries, including who is behind the cocaine ring that is causing so much damage in Melbourne. 

Look, it was not my jam. It was stiff and yet there was a lot of promiscuous sex and rampant drug use. It was also under 200 pages, so I was able to finish it without too many issues, but I will not be delving back into this series. 

Split verdict at book club. Two of us were not enamored with it and three people were obsessed. It's not a book for everyone, but it is for some. 2.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

He was wearing a new cigarette. (page 13)

What does this even mean? The verb wearing seems wrong to me. 

She was forty-five if a day...(page 9) 

AND 

For all her age and bulk, Dr. MacMillan was as fit as a bull. (page 41)

I was so insulted on Dr. MacMillan's behalf. Forty-five! Might as well start digging her grave. 

Things I looked up:

halate (page 12) - a salt of chloric, bromic, or iodic acid

threaded a fillet through the shining strands (page 15) - a ribbon or narrow strip of material used especially as a headband

Erté (page 50) - Romain de Tirtoff, known by the pseudonym Erté, was a Russian-born French artist and designer. He worked in several fields, including fashion, jewelry, graphic arts, costume, set design for film, theatre, and opera, and interior décor.

Wilfred Owen (page 53) - an English poet and soldier. He was one of the leading poets of the First World War.

blistered door (page 139) - “Blistering” is the formation of “bubbles” in the exterior decorative paint film, resulting from localized loss of adhesion and subsequent lifting of the existing paint film from the underlying surface

viridian green (page 146) - a blue-green pigment

Gallipoli (page 147) - peninsula in Turkey, site of a WWI battle that was a defining moment in the history of both Australia and New Zealand and also lead to the formation of modern-day Turkey 

cochineal (page 155) - a scale insect from which the natural dye carmine is derived

Hat mentions (why hats?): 

She cut a distractingly fashionable figure in pale straw-coloured cotton and a straw hat...(page 13)

She ascertained that the Block Arcade was still open, it being Saturday, and returned to her room to change into trousers and a silk pullover, stout shoes, and a soft felt hat. (page 15)

She was innocent of gloves, hat or coat and had scuffed house-slippers on her feet. (page 20-21)

...perfectly dressed as to coat and shirt and hat...(page 23)

...dark hat and suit...(page 26)

"We couldn't see his hair because he had his hat on..." (page 28)

She sighted the flat cane hats of the Chinese working among the winter-cabbage and broccoli. (page 116)

Bert took off his hat, wiped his forehead, and replaced it. (page 116)

a dreadful cloche hat (page 126)

"...Bash that appalling hat in and out." (page 126)

"..I've scuffed the shoes and the hat will never be the same again," she added. (page 131)

...dressed in a respectable dark velvet gown and hat...(page 135)

Dot did as she was bid and arrayed Phryne in the damaged dress, the carefully holed stockings, the scuffed shoes and the battered hat. (page 143)

The Chelsea Girls by Fiona Davis

The Chelsea Girls by Fiona Davis was our book club book for January. I listened to the audiobook, but also had a physical copy from the library, so you get page numbers for references instead of timestamps. Look how lucky you are!

Hazel and Maxine meet while doing USO tours for the troops in Italy at the tail end of World War II. After the war, they meet at the Chelsea Hotel while they do work on Broadway. But it's a dangerous time to be a creative in the United States, what with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) starting a witch hunt for communists. What's going to happen to these two?

I thought this book was killer uninteresting until it wasn't. I thought something was going to happen and then it didn't, but something else did and I can't really tell you anything other than that because it's a spoiler. Anyway, when that something else did happen, I became INVESTED. So. Take from that what you will. I'm willing to admit that the characters were pretty superficially developed, but the plot was where it was at.

This was universally liked by my book club peeps. Unfortunately,  because of that, the discussion was pretty minimal. I'm not sure I'd recommend it for a book club if you want to actually talk about the book.  

3.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

"They're not kidding about this stuff. Look at what happened to the Hollywood Ten." Three years earlier, in a challenge to free speech, a group of Hollywood screenwriters had refused to reveal whether or not they were communists. The case had made its way through the courts, but lost a chance to appeal when two Supreme Court justices died within a couple of months of each other, tilting the Court to the right. Several of the Hollywood Ten had recently begun serving prison sentences for contempt. (page 110-111)

The 10 were Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner, Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbo.

Hazel looked out at the people on the street, going about their day, worried about a dentist appointment or what to buy for dinner that evening. How wonderful it would be to go back to that state of mundane, everyday bliss. Once this was over, if it was ever over, she'd appreciate the more modest joys of life. But wasn't that what everyone said, when their lives took a terrible turn? (page 196-197)

I thought this was a good way of talking about this. We've all felt this way, haven't we? We hear bad news and stare at other people, thinking about how normal their lives are? 

I'd meet with Arthur tomorrow first thing and tell him that...and to go jump in a lake. (page 246)

We'd always specifically tell people to go jump in Lake Michigan. Do you use a specific lake?

Hat mentions:

...Lavinia came into view, carrying a straw hat with an enormous brim...(page 88)

When he saw them, he took off his hat and fanned his face, an attempt at nonchalance. (page 117)

Hazel hung her hat and coat on the rack and I followed suit. (page 133)

...grabbing our coats and hats from the rack in a fluid motion...(page 138)

...picked out a pretty pink-and-green floral dress and a straw hat with a wide brim for the day's outfit. (page 172)

Hazel fanned her face with her hat. (page 175)

Was the businessman holding on to his hat listening in on their conversation? (page 208)

He looked like a native Californian, dressed in a Panama hat, crisp cotton pants, and a plaid shirt. (page 272)

I pulled on a hat with a wide brim and caught a cab downtown. (page 337)

I shook my head and pulled my hat lower. (page 339)

******************

Do you tell people to go jump in a specific lake?

2024 Book Club Books

 

My in-person book club has met eight times this year. Here's what we read this year and what I thought about them as a book club book.

Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel #1) by Connie Willis - What a good book. What a good book club conversation starter. Also, it's like Willis is a time traveler herself with the way she wrote about a fictional pandemic. There is time travel, so if that's off limits for someone in your group, perhaps you should consider a different book. Even my book club folks who aren't into science fiction/fantasy liked this one, though.

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes - This felt like homework to me, but I feel that way about all mythological retellings. I say skip it.

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich - I don't think Erdrich is the right author for me. I found this interminable. It didn't really spark much discussion, either. 

Hang the Moon by Jeannette Wells - My review at the time was "The most "meh" of books I've probably ever read. Book club pick that we deeply regretted because it sparked very little conversation. I have very few memories of this book outside of being deeply disappointed in the main character all the time. 

Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club by J. Ryan Stradal - I missed this book club. I liked the setting, but there were too many character POVs and time jumps for me to settle in with anyone. 

We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate - The book itself is whatever, but the true story was fascinating. Sparked a really interesting discussion, including that two of of book club members themselves were adopted from homes like this in North Carolina. 

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich - Why did we go back to reading Erdrich again? We never learn, I guess. I love Erdrich's Twin Cities settings, I have to admit, but I don't really have it in me to read about the COVID pandemic - maybe I never will. I missed book club, though, because I was sick, but I heard the discussion about it was okay. 

Euphoria by Lily King - I didn't care for this book, but it did elicit a great discussion. I think it's a good book club choice. 

*****************

Do you go to an in-person book club? If so, what's a good book you read for it recently? 

Euphoria by Lily King

Euphoria by Lily King was our book club book for our last 2024 meeting. I was not there when this book was chosen because I was sick for our last book club meeting, but I assure you that I would have tried to pick a different book because my feelings about Writers and Lovers, another Lily King joint, made me want to scream in frustration. But I was not there, so Euphoria was chosen and I got the library book right away, but then I sort of forgot that book club was last Sunday, so grabbed the audiobook with one of my two November Hoopla loans, and listened to it while I was walking the dog and cooking over the course of a few days. 

And here's the what what. I do not care for Lily King. LOL. 

This book was set in New Guinea and follows three anthropologists, a married couple and a single man, who are studying indigenous peoples. Eh. I didn't care about these people. Here we are, in a fascinating, interesting setting, and King focuses on the love triangle among the white people? FFS. 

2.5/5 stars (Note: I think this is not the author for me.)

Lines of note:

She'd ask next about the rest of the family, so I thought I should head her off. "Everyone else is dead so she seems to have a great deal of energy for me."
"Who is everybody else?"
"My father and brothers."
"How?"
There was an American anthropologist for you. No delicate changing of the subject, no You have my deepest condolences or even How ghastly for you, but just a no-nonsense, straight-on How the heck did that happen? (page 47-48)

Americans could surprise you with the things they knew. (page 70)

You wouldn't know that King is an American with lines like this. 

But I don't trust a crowd - hundreds of people together without cognition and only the basest impulses: food, drink, sex. Fen claims that if you just let go of your brain you find another brain, the group brain, the collective brain, and that it is an exhilarating form of human connection that we have lost in our embrace of the individual except when we go to war. Which is my point exactly. (page 161)

My husband HATES crowds. If there are more than twenty people in a room, I think he's convinced that Nazi salutes are about to break out. You should see his extreme discomfort at games when "The Star-Spangled Banner" is played. 

I loved the sound of our two typewriters; it felt like we were in a band, making a strange sort of music. It felt like I was a part of something, and that the work was important. She always made me feel that the work was important. (page 208)

I like it when my husband and I are both clickety clacketing on our keyboards, too. 

I thought we had time. Despite everything, I believed somehow there was time. Love's first mistake. Perhaps love's only mistake. Time for you and time for me, though I never did warm to Eliot. (page 212)

This is the poem referenced here, if you're interested. 

Things I looked up:

quai (page 88) - a structure used by boats and ships for taking on or landing cargo and passengers, usually found along riverbanks

pinnace (page 88) - a small boat, with sails or oars, forming part of the equipment of a warship or other large vessel

Vailala Madness (page 88) - a social movement in the Territory of Papua, beginning in the later part of 1919 and declining after 1922; tt was the first well-documented cargo cult (diverse spiritual and political movements that arose among indigenous Melanesians following Western colonization of the region in the late 19th century. Most cargo cult groups were led by charismatic prophet figures foretelling an imminent cataclysm and/or a coming utopia for followers—a worldview known as millenarianism) - This is a rabbit hole I could have spent hours on, but I'm stopping here for now. 

calaboose (page 108) - jail, frequently a synonym for local jail

blackbirding (page 108) - the act or practice of kidnapping people, especially Pacific Islanders, and selling them into slavery abroad, usually in Australia

Hat mentions (why hats?): 

"Nellie?" my mother said. "Are you all right?" and apparently I said, "I've spit on your dresses and I've spit on your hats and now I'm waiting for more spit." (page 69)

"That is a best less seemly than spitting on hats, isn't it?" (page 69)

My heart starts racing - and then I remember that it has all already played out and I see her standing at the quai in Marseille in her blue hat and I see me coming off the ship with Fen. (page 88)

H in her blue hat on the quai, her lips quivering: I've left Stanley, her first words to me, and then Fen not giving us the time he'd promised me, coming up right behind me, leaving no doubt, no room for an explanation. (page 94)

She jumped up, flashed out of one mosquito room and into the other, and returned with hat, pipe, and camera. (page 163)

That was how I made the long walk past these display cases, past an enormous blowup of the photograph Fen had taken of Nell and me with my big suitcase and his pipe and hat and sago fronts across our shoulders. (page 256)

Then we put Nell in the hat with the cases and the pipe and took a few more. (page 164)

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich was our book club pick for this month.

Thomas Wazhashk works as the night watchman at a jewel-bearing plant where a lot of people who live on the Turtle Mountain Reservation work. There's a lot of stuff happening at the reservation - Patrice's sister has gone missing in the Twin Cities, Congress is threatening to terminate the federal government's relationship with the tribe, and there are boxing matches to be won.

Outside of a brief foray into the Twin Cities (I love when Hennepin Avenue gets a shoutout), there was a whole lotta nothing happening in this book. My book club peeps were slightly more divided. One agreed with me, one liked it a lot, and one didn't finish it, which says something, too. This book is 464 pages and it felt interminable to me. There was occasional brilliant writing and some of the observational writing was super smart, but overall I wasn't excited to read this one.  3/5 stars

**********************

What I do want to talk about more is that I hosted this book club and Dr. BB and I were really worried because Hannah has been quite territorial about people coming into our house. After the Great Biting Incident of 2024, I have been nervous about Hannah being around people outside of her immediate circle. One of the people coming to book club was our veterinarian, though, so we decided to do what she told us to do and hope for the best.

Here's what we did. I warned everyone ahead of time that they would probably get barked at when they walked in the house, but to come in armed with treats. I had chicken and sweet potatoes on our porch for them to grab on their way in. Dr. Lauren, the vet, got there first, and Hannah recognized her, so we did a meet and greet on the porch and Hannah let Lauren in the house with minimal fuss. Then the second person arrived and she just kept shoving chicken at Hannah until Hannah thought she was the Lady of the Chicken. Then we moved into the dining room and Hannah relaxed. When the last person arrived, Hannah barked briefly, but started nudging her hand for treats because now Hannah expects people who come in the door to have treats!

This is a great milestone. If we know people are coming, we can just have treats ready for them to give to Hannah. Yay! It didn't hurt that this was a small gathering of all women, but small steps are the best steps for our girl. 

**********************

Lines of note:

She gathered the dough from the bucket and laid it out in her frying pan, using one smooth motion. Sometimes the things her mother did from lifelong repetition looked like magic tricks. (page 12)

Have you ever watched someone really skilled in the kitchen? They make it look like ballet. 

He often devised sentences that began with his favorite capitals. Rs and Qs were his art. (page 16)

Don't we all do this?

Thomas was of the after-the-buffalo-who-are-we-now generation. He was born on the reservation, grew up on the reservation, assumed he would die there also. Thomas owned a watch. He had no memory of time according only to the sun and moon. He spoke the old language first, and also spoke English with a soft grain and almost imperceptible accent. This accent would only belong to those of his generation. This indefinably soft but firm way of speaking would be lost. His generation would have to define themselves. Who was an Indian? What? Who, who, who? And how? How should being an Indian relate to this country that had conquered and was trying in every way possible to absorb them? Sometimes the country still aggressively hated Indians, true. But more often now, a powerfully glorious sensation poured forth. Wars. Citizenship. Flags. This termination bill. Arthur V. Watkins believed it was for the best. To uplift them. Even open the gates of heaven. How could Indians hold themselves apart, when the vanquishers sometimes held their arms out, to crush them to their hearts, with something like love? (page 98)

I just love everything about this passage. The passage of time, the questioning of identity, the importance of systematic violence and racism, but the endless hope. 

Time is nothing but everything, not the seconds, minutes, hours, days, years. Yet this substanceless substance, this bending and shaping, this warping, this is the way we understand our world. (page 193)

Time is nothing and finite all at the same time. 

...time was all at at once, back and forth, upside down. As animals subject to the laws of the earth, we think time is experience. But time is more of a substance, like air, only of course not air. It is in fact a holy element. (page 267)

I truly enjoyed the theme of time throughout the passages of this book.

Things I looked up:

boules (page 10) - I'm struggling to actually find a definition. The dictionary says "a synthetically formed mass (such as a sapphire) with the atomic structure of a single crystal" and that's about as far as I could figure out what it would have to do with jewelry making.

Split Boules of Flame Fusion Corundum. Photo by Morion Company.

Arthur V. Watkins (page 92 and lots of other places) - Republican U.S. Senator from Utah who served a couple of terms in the late 1940s through the 1950s. Racist Mormon who tried to destroy Indian culture through assimilation, but he later helped to unseat Joseph McCarthy after the Red Scare.

Palmer Method (page 14) - Penmanship instruction developed and promoted by Austin Palmer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was the most popular handwriting system in the United States. I think it's what I learned!

By A. N. Palmer - The Palmer Method of Business Writing https://archive.org/stream/palmermethodofbu00palmrich#page/n3/mode/2up, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38006706

prairie couteau (page 267) - a plateau approximately 200 miles in length and 100 miles in width (320 by 160 km), rising from the prairie flatlands in eastern South Dakota, southwestern Minnesota, and northwestern Iowa in the United States. The southeast portion of the Coteau comprises one of the distinct regions of Minnesota, known as Buffalo Ridge. The tip of the feature starts in extreme south North Dakota.

The flatiron-shaped plateau was named by early French explorers from New France (Quebec), coteau meaning "hill" in French; the general term coteau has since been used in English to describe any upland dividing ridge.

Hat mentions (why hats?): Sixteen hat mentions! Here are a couple of highlights.

When he took off his padded tractor hat, a crab apple fell from the earflap. (page 3) - Honestly, it's not a fun game when hat appears in the third sentence.

...smiled at him from under the brim of a midnight-blue cloche hat, daring him to love her. (page 27) - It's actually pretty rare for authors to give colors of hats and this blue hat reminded me a bit of Katie always wearing green hats in ATGIB.

2023 Book Club Books

My face-to-face book club met eight times this year and these are the books we read.  I'll list them here in my order of enjoyment. 

1) Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver - I thought this was so well done. Yes, I have some quibbles, but overall the voice was there. Really great book club discussion.  4/5 stars

2) Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk - I will be this character in twenty years. Unfortunately, I missed the discussion about this book because I was out of town, so I can't tell you how the rest of my peeps felt about it. 4/5 stars

3) The One by John Marrs - Interesting concept about whether or not you'd want to know who your true love was. Some of the characters were more interesting than others. Very mixed book club opinions, but interesting discussion. I'll be honest, most of the discussion was the scientists in our group discussing how bad the science was, though, so your group's mileage may vary on that.  4/5 stars

4) Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi - Everyone was pretty meh on this book, but it did lead down some very interesting discussion avenues. We didn't actually discuss the opioid crisis very much, but we had a rousing discussion on the ethical implications of testing pharmaceuticals on animals. I think we read this and Demon Copperhead in subsequent meetings and it was a great pairing for discussion - urban versus rural differences, active user versus family, etc.  3.5/5 stars

5) Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt - Light, fluffy read. Perfectly fine. I might recommend you read this on your own, but our discussion about it was very flat, so I don't think it's great book club fodder.

6) Code Name Helene by Ariel Lawhon - WWII book we all thought was fine. I liked the dog character. Unfortunately, there was little tension in the book because of the structure. It was well-written and well-researched, but I can't really remember too much about it all these months later. We spent a lot of time at our meeting comparing it to other WWII books we'd read, so maybe not the best for sparking discussion? 3.5/5 stars

7) We Are All the Same in the Dark by Julia Heaberlin - Mystery/thriller. It read like a quick mystery/thriller and there wasn't much to say about it in book club. 3.5/5 stars

8) Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini - What a snooze. Universally agreed upon as a very boring book. 2/5 stars

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I don't want to let anyone down by forgetting to mention that I also held my first ever Cool Bloggers Book Club this year. We read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and I have so much appreciation for everyone who read along with me. I may have some plans for 2024 to continue the Cool Bloggers Book Club and I hope you'll join along again!