Book Club!

This month we read Wild, the new memoir written by fellow advice columnist, Cheryl Strayed (she’s “Dear Sugar” from The Rumpus, for those who don’t know), and I loved it. In fact, I finished it in one week, which is about three weeks faster than all the other books we’ve read this year. As much as I enjoyed the book, though, the speed at which I read it had more to do with being laid up for a couple of days early in the month with a bad back. I can’t remember the last time I had hours on end to read.

Wild was chosen as the first book in Oprah’s new book club and I’m going to cheat a little here and borrow some of her discussion questions:
[Click to continue]

{ 10 comments }

by Wendy on August 30, 2012 · in Book Club!

Read the full article...

September’s book club selection, Jonathan Tropper’s brand new novel, One Last Think Before I Go, is available today. We read another of Tropper’s novels, This is Where I Leave You, earlier this year and it was universally loved it. Here’s the description for his new book, published today:

You don’t have to look very hard at Drew Silver to see that mistakes have been made. His fleeting fame as the drummer for a one-hit wonder rock band is nearly a decade behind him. He lives in the Versailles, an apartment building filled almost exclusively with divorced men like him, and makes a living playing in wedding bands. His ex-wife, Denise, is about to marry a guy Silver can’t quite bring himself to hate. And his Princeton-bound teenage daughter Casey has just confided in him that she’s pregnant—because Silver is the one she cares least about letting down.

So when he learns that his heart requires emergency, lifesaving surgery, Silver makes the radical decision to refuse the operation, choosing instead to use what little time he has left to repair his relationship with Casey, become a better man, and live in the moment, even if that moment isn’t destined to last very long. As his exasperated family looks on, Silver grapples with the ultimate question of whether or not his own life is worth saving.

With the wedding looming and both Silver and Casey in crisis, this broken family struggles to come together, only to risk damaging each other even more. One Last Thing Before I Go is Jonathan Tropper at his funny, insightful, heartbreaking best.

Pick up your copy here (ebook) and here (hardback).

Next week we’ll discuss the August book club selection, Wild.

{ 8 comments }

by Wendy on August 21, 2012 · in Book Club!

Read the full article...

Thank you to whoever recommended this novel for our book club. It was exactly the kind of read I’d been craving — well-written, suspenseful, engaging characters, and a historical context for good measure. For those who haven’t read it and plan to, you should probably stop reading this post now…
[Click to continue]

{ 17 comments }

by Wendy on July 31, 2012 · in Book Club!

Read the full article...

I am so enjoying “Shanghai Girls,” this month’s DW book club selection, and I am excited to discuss it next week. Since “Wild,” the new memoir by fellow advice columnist, Cheryl Strayed (she’s “Dear Sugar” from The Rumpus, for those who don’t know), was a close second in our vote for July’s pick, I thought it would be a good selection for August. And since so many of you enjoyed reading Jonathan Tropper’s “This is Where I Leave You,” our book club selection in May, let’s read his newest novel, “One Last Thing Before I Go,” which will be published in a few weeks, for September.

Again, we’ll read “Wild” for August, which you can buy here (ebook) and here (hardback).

And, “One Last Thing Before I Go” for September, which you can pre-order here (ebook) and here (hardback).

{ 39 comments }

by Wendy on July 24, 2012 · in Book Club!

Read the full article...