Happy New Year to all of our faithful Reading Group Newsletter readers! I raise a cup of cocoa to you all and wish you a great new year of books! Books! Books! Has anyone made any reading resolutions for the year? I almost hesitate to do it because I'm just no good at keeping them. But I'll give it a try! Here goes!
This year I hope to add a dash of non-fiction to my book diet. Although I dearly love fiction and I always will, it won't hurt to expand my reading boundaries. There's a new book due March 2 called The Barbizon: The Hotel That Set Women Free by Paulina Bren. I have the galley on my bookshelf and it looks very promising. There's also an article in this month's BookPages about a book called Featherhood: A Memoir of Two Fathers and a Magpie by Charlie Gilmour. Looks like a winner!
I promise to make Bookseller Chloe happy and read more middle reader and teen books in 2021. I'm afraid I've been shirking my responsibility and can't call myself a Full Service Bookseller unless I add some Gordon Korman, Alan Gratz, Monica Hesse, Adam Silvera and Kenneth Oppel to my reading list.
I plan on weeding out books that I'm never going to read. That way, there won't be as many piles of books to trip over in my living room and boxes of books to gather dust in my long dark hallway. Since I don't normally dust, this will be a great improvement.
2021 is going to be the year that I watch fewer movies and read more books. A little small voice in the back of my head is saying, "Ken, you know that will never happen!" Yes, I know, But the resolution looks good on the list.
I'd enjoy hearing about your reading resolutions for 2021. You can email me at kenbksco@gmail.com
I've chosen four titles that I hope will garner good discussions for your group. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
Happy New Year and Happy Reading!
Ken
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by Fiona Davis
Fiona Davis likes to set her novels in and around the notable landmarks of New York City. Perhaps you've read one or two of them: The Dollhouse (The Barbizon Hotel for Women, The Address (The Dakota), The Masterpiece (Grand Central Station) and The Lions of Fifth Avenue (The New York Public Library). She sets The Chelsea Girls during the 1950's in The Chelsea Hotel, a creative oasis for the many artists, writers, musicians, actors, filmmakers and poets who call it home. Actress Maxine Read and playwright Hazel Ripley live in the hotel while they rehearse Hazel's new play based on her war experiences. But its Broadway run is cut short when politicos from the House Un-American Activities Committee create havoc among the cast. The Library Journal says, "This novel in three acts brings to vivid life the McCarthy era and its impact on the entertainment industry in a heartbreaking tale of two brave women." Suggested reading group questions are at the end of the book.
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by Minrose Gwin
Gwin's novel follows the relationship between two sisters as they navigate life after the tragic death of their mother. Gwin uses seven narrators to tell this gripping tale set in small town Mississippi and spanning sixty years of American history. Author Debra Monroe says "if Eudora Welty channeled Charles Dickens she'd have written this novel about orphans and strays and the accidental ways they lose and find each other. It's a happy, sad, sweet page-turner, a great book." Poet Margaret Randall says “The Accidentals is a major work by someone whose earlier novels already marked her as one of this generation's great novelists. Like migratory birds who have flown off-course and are therefore termed 'accidentals,' its characters' lives unfold, each claiming his or her space as well as intersecting with each other. Their lives are finely-crafted and hold unexpected surprises. And it is not only character and plot that make this book so readable; the writing is pure poetry. Gwin has done it again!" The book features a reading group guide
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by Annie Lyons
Eudora Honeysett is an eighty-five year old woman who is tired of living. She has various aches and pains, walks with a cane, and lives alone with an indifferent cat named Montgomery. She's had enough of the crazy world and the moronic people who live in it. Eudora decides she wants to die on her own terms, so she contacts a Swedish clinic that offers assisted suicide and sets a death date. But then her life is turned topsy-turvy when a
little ten-year-old burst of energy named Rose Trewidney moves next door with her dad and pregnant mom. Life will never be the same for Eudora or Rose. Author Ruth Hogan calls the novel "an exquisitely poignant tale of life, friendship, and facing death. Eudora's courage, dignity, and wry sense of fun are beautifully drawn as she takes the reader on the heartbreaking yet ultimately uplifting journey of her life and death. Everyone should read this book."
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by Minnie Darke
Australian author Minnie Darke tells this compelling tale about how the power of music can bring people together. After a famed classical pianist writes a beautiful piece of music for her boyfriend, she leaves on a concert tour. Although she never returns, her love song is passed from musician to musician and touches many of the characters in the novel. Minnie Darke explores a range of different types of love including the love between a father and his teenage daughter, first love, love between brothers, and love on the cusp of a lifetime commitment. Publisher's Weekly says of the novel, "Darke's accomplished plotting, colorful settings, and keen insights into love and loss make for an outstanding romantic panorama. Readers will be wowed," The only thing I didn't like about the book was the cover. As they say, "You can't judge a book by its cover." Reading group questions are at the end of the book.
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BOOKS & COMPANY BOOK GROUPS
Open to the Public
BOOK GROUPS ARE RESCHEDULED
AS VIRTUAL MEETINGS VIA ZOOM
CHECK WWW.BOOKSCO.COM FOR UPDATES
AND REGISTRATION LINKS!
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Friday, January 29th**
1:00 p.m.
by Kristin Harmel
ZOOM MEETING
**Note date change!
Wednesday, February 24th
1:00 p.m.
by Marjan Kamali
ZOOM Meeting
Registration coming soon.
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Sunday, January 31st
3:00 p.m.
by Maureen Callahan
ZOOM MEETING
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Wednesday, January 20th
6:30 p.m.
by Marissa Meyer
ZOOM MEETING
Wednesday, February 17th
6:30 p.m.
by Mary H.K. Choi
Zoom Meeting
Registration coming soon.
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Tuesday, January 26th
6:00 p.m.
by Lisa Jewell
ZOOM Meeting
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in conversation with
Jim Higgins
Tuesday, January 12th
7:00 p.m.
Via ZOOM
TONIGHT!!
Join us for a thrilling conversation with Nick Petrie and Jim Higgins, Books and Arts Editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. They will be discussing Petrie's newest Peter Ash novel, The Breaker!
Preorder your copy of The Breaker today and receive 20% off!
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ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH
in conversation with
Daniel Goldin & Lisa Baudoin
Wednesday, January 27
2:00 p.m.
Via ZOOM
Readings from Oconomowaukee! Join us for our January installment, featuring author Alexander McCall Smith! He will be in discussion with Boswell's Daniel Goldin and Books & Company's Lisa Baudoin via Zoom. They will be chatting about his newest novel Pianos and Flowers: Brief Encounters of the Romantic Kind
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REBECCA SACKS
in Conversation with
Daniel Goldin & Lisa Baudoin
Tuesday, February 16th
7:00 p.m.
Via ZOOM
Join us for this lively conversation with debut novelist Rebecca Sacks in conversation with Boswell's Daniel Goldin and Books & Company's Lisa Baudoin for the February installment of Readings from Oconomowaukee!
Her novel City of a Thousand Gates is on sale February 2nd. Preorder it today! A magnificent and haunting novel of present-day Israel and Palestine, following diverse characters as they try to protect what they love.
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LAUREN FOX
in Conversation with
Lisa Baudoin & Ken Favell
Friday, February 26th
2:00 p.m.
Via Zoom
Join us for a special event with author Lauren Fox and Books & Company's Lisa Baudoin and Ken Favell! Bookseller Ken has been a fan of this novel from the beginning and his review is in the February 2021 Indie Next List! An achingly beautiful work of historical fiction that moves between Germany on the eve of World War II and present-day Wisconsin, unspooling a thread of love, longing, and the powerful bonds of family.
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We support over 50 private book groups with their monthly selection available on the Book Group shelf in store. If your book group is registered with us, we offer 15% off of the book group title each month. To register your book group, just let us know what your book group name is and what you're reading, as well as a contact name for the group. As long as we have an updated list of your books, we will have them on the book group shelf in the store and listed on our website. Books & Company hosts two Book Group celebrations a year, as well as book talks for your book group. To set up a book talk for your book group with a bookseller, please email info@booksco.com
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Books & Company
1039 Summit Ave Oconomowoc, WI
262-567-0106
HOURS
Mon-Fri 9:00-6:00
Sat-Sun 9:00-5:00
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