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Holiday Cookie Party Dec 2022
July 2022 Book Choice
Here is a brief overview by the Washington Independent 2020:
"How do you follow up a sensational international bestseller like A Man Called Ove? Fredrik Backman does it spectacularly with the entertaining conundrum Anxious People. As equally idiosyncratic and iconoclastic as his debut, it is an outrageously hilarious, flawless novel about “how a bank robber failed to rob a bank but instead managed to spark a hostage drama.”
It is the most bizarre heist story since Sidney Lumet’s “Dog Day Afternoon,” with narrative nods to Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto and O. Henry’s “The Ransom of Red Chief.”
The dominoes start falling quickly when a bungled robbery turns into a mordantly serious situation. In many ways, it can be read as a locked-apartment mystery bonded with a unique variation on the police procedural.
Backman is sly. Nothing is as random nor as obvious as it appears. While he focuses on the current series of curious events in the apartment, he buttresses the character-driven plot with numerous backstories that link a bridge, suicides, and a peculiar drawing of a frog, a monkey, and an elk.
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A good portion of the novel consists of exuberant recorded transcripts of witness interviews with the visitors to the apartment. That includes Zara, a condescending bank manager in therapy for depression; Julia and Ro, a pregnant lesbian couple struggling with the possibilities of parenthood; Estelle, a flummoxed looky-loo neighbor; Anna-Lena and Roger, a long-married couple of property flippers who know IKEA furniture when they see it; Lennart, a rabbit (don’t ask — just accept him in his underwear and socks and go with it) who had his own motives for being there; and the real estate broker, who frequently refers to her cleverly named firm, House Tricks.
Backman juggles all of this with exquisite ease and his usual mellifluous style and grace. In the midst of the humor, he manages to inject poignant observations about life and death; love and marriage; parenting and divorce; and social and economic stress."
Sally hosted the dinner at her lovely poolside abode a perfect summer evening with great people!
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June 2022 Book Choice
Our June book choice was the debut novel by author Abi Dare, "The Girl with the Louding Voice"
Here is a selection of the NY Times 2020 book review:
Fourteen-year-old Adunni lives in a Nigerian village with her lay about, alcoholic father and two brothers. The novel opens on the morning her father informs her she is to become the local taxi driver’s third wife in order to support the family. Adunni’s is a poverty-stricken world where girls kneel to their fathers and address them as “Sah” without looking them in the eye, where a paternal summons portends nothing but heartache. The subjugation and sexual objectification of girls and women are recurrent, ably handled themes throughout the novel. Throughout her harrowing coming-of-age journey, told with verve and compassion, Adunni never loses the “louding voice” that makes Daré’s story, and her protagonist, so unforgettable."
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Alayna hosted the dinner at her charming home we ate inside then sat outside for the Zoom component
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