May 2019 Book Choice

Sourdough by Robin Sloan was our May book choice.
Here is an excerpt from the NPR book review 2017:

Okay... Robin Sloan's new novel, Sourdough, is exactly like his first book, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, except that it's not about books (exactly), but is absolutely about San Francisco, geeks, nerds, coders, secret societies, bizarrely low-impact conspiracies that solely concern single-noun obsessives (food, in this case, rather than books), and also robots. And books, too, actually, now that I think about it.

It is a beautiful, small, sweet, quiet book. It knows as much about the strange extremes of food as Mr. Penumbra did about the dark latitudes of the book community. It concerns one Lois Clary, a young proprioception engineer for a gleaming robotics company in San Francisco called General Dexterity. She ended up there kind of by accident: She was good with computers, good with machines, had a perfectly reasonable job in Michigan, close to her family, when she was suddenly recruited out of the blue by the robot people. And she took the job because, in Lois's words (via Sloan), "Here's a thing I believe about people my age: We are the children of Hogwarts, and more than anything, we just want to be sorted."

We had our dinner meeting at Magpie Cafe 

We shared Sweet Treats! 

April Book Choice 2019

For April we selected the book Educated by Tara Westover. Lots to discuss in this unbelievable true story. Here is part of a New Yorker review 2018:


" I am far from the first critic to recommend Tara Westover’s astounding memoir, “Educated,” but if its comet tail of glowing reviews has not yet convinced you, let me see what I can do. Westover was born sometime in September, 1986—no birth certificate was issued—on a remote mountain in Idaho, the seventh child of Mormon survivalist parents who subscribed to a paranoid patchwork of beliefs well outside the mandates of their religion. The government was always about to invade; the End of Days was always at hand. Westover’s mother worked as a midwife and an herbal healer. Her father, who claimed prophetic powers, owned a scrap yard, where his children labored without the benefit of protective equipment. (Westover recounts accidents so hideous, and so frequent, that it’s a wonder she lived to tell her tale at all.) Mainstream medicine was mistrusted, as were schools, which meant that Westover’s determination to leave home and get a formal education—the choice that drives her book, and changed her life—amounted to a rebellion against her parents’ world."

We met at Obo's for our book group discussion, drinks and dinner. 

March 2019 Book Choice

Our book Choice for March 2019 was An American Marriage by Tayari Jones.Here is small portion of the NYTimes review:

Tayari Jones’s wise and compassionate new novel, “An American Marriage,” tells us a story we think we know. Roy, a young black man, is tried and wrongly convicted of rape while his wife, Celestial, waits for his return. But Jones’s story isn’t the one we are expecting, a courtroom drama or an examination of the prison-industrial complex; instead, it is a clear vision of the quiet devastation of a family. The novel focuses on the failed hopes of romantic love, disapproving in-laws, flawed families of origin, and the question of life with or without children that all married couples must negotiate. It is beautifully written, with many allusions to black music and culture — including the everyday poetry of the African-American community that begs to be heard.

February book choice and dinner

 Our February choice was Zadie Smith's novel White Teeth 

Here is a bit of what the NY Times had to say in their 2000 web post review 

A young novelist chronicles two families who bring a patchwork of cultures to the London of the 21st century.



Zadie Smith's debut novel is, like the London it portrays, a restless hybrid of voices, tones and textures. Hopscotching through several continents and 150 years of history, ''White Teeth'' encompasses a teeming family saga, a sly inquiry into race and identity and a tender-hearted satire on religious antagonism and cultural bemusement. One might be inclined to assume that Smith, who began writing the book when still a Cambridge undergraduate, has bitten off more than she can chew; one might even feel a little huffy that one so young (she is 24) has aimed so high. Is it open season on Henry James's baggy monster? Yet aside from a rather wobbly final quarter, Smith holds it all together with a raucous energy and confidence that couldn't be a fluke.





Alayna hosted the Beehive at her lovely cottage, great food and a lively discussion.

the New Year January Book Choice 2019

We started 2019 reading year with The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

Below is a part of the NPR 2013 book review:

He's a socially inept scientist who's tone deaf to irony. She's an edgy young woman whose fallback mode is sarcasm. Put them together, and hilarity ensues in Australian IT consultant Graeme Simsion's first novel, The Rosie Project. It's an utterly winning screwball comedy about a brilliant, emotionally challenged geneticist who's determined to find a suitable wife with the help of a carefully designed questionnaire, and the patently unsuitable woman who keeps distracting him from his search. If you're looking for sparkling entertainment along the lines of Where'd You Go Bernadette and When Harry Met Sally, The Rosie Project is this season's fix. 

The book wouldn't work, of course, if we couldn't see the sweetness and charm beneath Don Tillman's geekiness. But Simsion's hyper-efficient, fastidious 39-year-old narrator endears us from the moment he starts explaining his Wife Problem, which of course is directly related to his People Problem. Like Christopher Boone, the 15-year-old narrator of Mark Haddon's 2003 novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, he's appealing not just despite his eccentricities but because of them.

Don isn't stupid, and he knows he has problems with intimacy. But he finds it hard to understand why people have trouble with his time-saving Standardized Meal System (which reduces "cognitive load" by rotating seven hilariously elaborate dishes on a strict weekly schedule), or why his impermeable, clearly superior Gore-Tex jacket won't do at a posh restaurant where jackets are required. Over their first dinner together, he tells Rosie that she seems "quite intelligent for a barmaid." "The compliments just keep on coming," Rosie responds tartly — at which point Don reflects that "It seemed I was doing well, and I allowed myself a moment of satisfaction, which I shared with Rosie."

Sharp dialogue, terrific pacing, physical hijinks, slapstick, a couple to root for, and more twists than a pack of Twizzlers — it's no surprise that The Rosie Project is bound for the big screen. But read it first.

Molly hosted our first gather of 2019 at her lovely home. 

November December 2018 Book Choice and Cookie Exchange

We wrapped up the Beehive year with the fiction based on fact book:
Before we were yours by Lisa Wingate
Here is part of the Huffington Post 2017 book review:

The book is written from two viewpoints, The first takes place in the present and centers on Avery Stafford. She is the daughter of a politician and has been raised to be obedient to the family’s needs and wishes. Her father is embroiled in a re-election campaign and so she has headed home to South Carolina to work with him. She is also there to be groomed as his successor. 


While there she meets a woman named May Crandall, an elderly lady who somehow has a link to Avery’s grandmother Judy. Her curiosity is piqued so she asks her grandmother about the relationship. Judy however is suffering from Alzheimer’s and can’t respond clearly to the questions. Therefore Avery decides to look into her grandmother’s past and when she does secrets become unlocked. They lead to a murky situation concerning orphans and their adoptive parents. 


The other viewpoint belongs to a twelve year old girl named Rill. The time is 1939 and the place is Memphis, Tennessee. Rill lives in a boat on the river and helps take care of her four younger siblings. Her parents do the best they can for their children but life is hard. When Rill’s mother and father are at the hospital awaiting the birth of a new baby, Rill and her sisters and brother are gathered up by the “authorities” and taken to an orphanage of sorts. 

It is a rarity for an author to create a book with two central stories told side by side and not have one overshadow the other. Lisa Wingate has the talent to present this brutal tale tenderly. She is able to get readers into the heads of both Avery and Rill and make their goals crystal clear. Lisa Wingate has the talent to present this brutal tale tenderly. She is able to get readers into the heads of both Avery and Rill and make their goals crystal clear. 

Betsy hosted the dinner and sweet treat exchange at her lovely vila. 

October 2018 Book Group Selection

October's Book Choice was the Haunting: Radium Girls by Kate Moore

Here is a brief bit of the NPR Book Review April 2017:

The book, infuriating for necessary reasons, traces the women at two dial-making factories — the USRC in New Jersey, and Radiant Dial in Illinois. And Radium Girls spares us nothing of their suffering; though at times the foreshadowing reads more like a true-crime story, Moore is intent on making the reader viscerally understand the pain in which these young women were living, and through which they had to fight in order to get their problems recognized.

The history of business is a history of violence. The worst descriptions of disease (and I'll be surprised if you don't run your tongue across your teeth at least once) can't match the fatal callousness of the companies that knew the dangers of radium long before they ever admitted them. There's a reason Moore repeatedly notes the girls' phosphorescence as ghostly; the companies knew they were doomed. (Radiant Dial tested its girls and never gave them their results, even as internal correspondence was sorting them by radiation levels to see who'd be first to die.)

Radium Girls is frighteningly easily to set in a wider context. The story of real women at the mercy of businesses who see them only as a potential risk to the bottom line is haunting precisely because of how little has changed; the glowing ghosts of the radium girls haunt us still.

Kitty hosted our get together at her sweet cottage, powerful discussion and glowing treats! 

September 2018 Book Choice

Early Fall we read: Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Here is part of the Guardian Book Review May 2017:

From pop-star crushes to meals for one, the life of an outsider is vividly captured in this joyful debut, discovered through a writing competition and sold for huge sums worldwide...

And what a joy it is. The central character of Eleanor feels instantly and insistently real, as if she had been patiently waiting in the wings for her cue all along. Most workplaces have an Eleanor: the slightly odd, plastic bag- clutching person who scuttles away from all communal enterprises; who rarely says a word that isn’t about the matter in hand; whose home life can only be speculated about, not always kindly. Eleanor’s entire existence is clear, orderly – and completely empty. She works all week, goes home on a Friday night, heats up a Tesco pizza, drinks two bottles of vodka and speaks to nobody until Monday morning comes round again.

There are many reasons for Eleanor’s isolation. These are gradually unpicked as the novel unfolds; as well as the mystery of whether there is actually something wrong with her, or whether it is just that without social interaction, our ability to understand what is appropriate behaviour in the world simply withers away.

It feels like a cross between RJ Palacio’s Wonder and Brian Moore’s Judith Hearne, but funnier. Characters aren’t goodies, baddies or plot devices, they just feel like people. The overwhelming emotion is kindness. If you don’t cry the first time Eleanor goes to a hair salon and thanks the blowsy Laura for “making her shiny”, you haven’t a heart. This is a narrative full of quiet warmth and deep and unspoken sadness. It makes you want to throw a party and invite everyone you know and give them a hug, even that person at work everyone thinks is a bit weird.

Dinner is Served at Kim's lovely home:
    

                                                   

Summer 2018 Born a Crime

Summer Read: Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

Here is a brief part of the NYTimes review 2016:

By turns alarming, sad and funny, his book provides a harrowing look, through the prism of Mr. Noah’s family, at life in South Africa under apartheid and the country’s lurching entry into a post-apartheid era in the 1990s. Some stories will be familiar to fans who have followed the author’s stand-up act. But his accounts here are less the polished anecdotes of a comedian underscoring the absurdities of life under apartheid, than raw, deeply personal reminiscences about being “half-white, half-black” in a country where his birth “violated any number of laws, statutes and regulations.”
“Born a Crime” is not just an unnerving account of growing up in South Africa under apartheid, but a love letter to the author’s remarkable mother, who grew up in a hut with 14 cousins, and determined that her son would not grow up paying what she called “the black tax” — black families having to “spend all of their time trying to fix the problems of the past,” using their skills and education to bring their relatives “back up to zero,” because “the generations who came before you have been pillaged.”

June 2018 Book Club Choice

The Rules of Magic was the June book choice, here is brief review from the NY Times

   Hoffman’s latest offering, “The Rules of Magic,” is likely to attract particular attention because it’s a prequel to her 1995 novel, “Practical Magic,” perhaps the best-known work of her career and the basis for the 1998 film starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as the sisters Sally and Gillian Owens, born into a Massachusetts family whose founding matriarch escaped Salem’s gallows by magicking herself out of her noose. 
  Hoffman has now returned to fill out their portraits, providing a back story that thoroughly upends what we thought we knew about them. The Owens sisters had a baby brother! The only male Owens in centuries was the third child of Susanna, an Owens who skedaddled out of Massachusetts as soon as she could, desperate to remove herself from the stigma clinging to her family name.

   It’s tough to top a dead body in a car, the event that drove the plot in “Practical Magic,” and Hoffman doesn’t try. Instead she goes for historical sweep, setting the Owens siblings’ saga against the backdrop of real events like the Vietnam War, San Francisco’s Summer of Love and the Stonewall riots. But this is a novel that begins with the words, “Once upon a time,” and its strength is a Hoffman hallmark: the commingling of fairy-tale promise with real-life struggle. The Owens children can’t escape who they are. Like the rest of us, they have to figure out the best way to put their powers to use.


Lovely dinner where we did discuss both Rules of Magic and Little Fires:

May 2018 Book Selection

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng was the May Beehive book choice. Here is a brief selection of what NY Times book reviewer Eleanor Henderson thought of this novel (2017)


"Readers of Celeste Ng’s second novel, “Little Fires Everywhere,” will recognize a few elements from her acclaimed debut, “Everything I Never Told You.” There are the simmering racial tensions and incendiary family dynamics beneath the surface of a quiet Ohio town. There are the appeal and impossibility of assimilation, the all-consuming force of motherhood and the secret lives of teenagers and their parents, each unknowable to the other.

And there’s a familiar frame, too: At each novel’s opening, we know at least part of the tragedy that will befall the characters — the mystery lies in figuring out how they got there. In “Little Fires Everywhere,” we begin not with a death but a house fire, and new questions: Who set it, and why?

The house belongs to Elena and Bill Richardson, a wealthy white couple who epitomize success in picture-perfect, late-’90s Shaker Heights, and their four teenage children, including girl-next-door Lexie and the troubled prankster Izzy, who is suspected of arson. 

It’s Mia and Pearl’s arrival in town 11 months earlier that ignites the story. Mia is an alluring Hester Prynne, a misfit nomad whose scarlet A might stand for Artist. She and Pearl have traveled the country in their VW Rabbit with little more than Mia’s camera, living in dozens of towns before settling in Shaker Heights, where Mia promises her daughter they will stay.

The magic of this novel lies in its power to implicate all of its characters — and likely many of its readers — in that innocent delusion. Who set the little fires everywhere? We keep reading to find out, even as we suspect that it could be us with ash on our hands." 

the Beehive Book Group Dinner was hosted by: