Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont- beautifully written and touching

 Thanks to everyone who came to Julie Joyce's last week for what was a lovely meeting and discussion. Special thanks to Julie (and Mike), what a nice welcome! 

The book, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor (not the one with the diamonds) was well received, although there were some quibbles with the storyline. Was the handsome young and poor man who befriended her honest and caring or hoping to get some money? Or both as he did try to repay her. And the uninterested and uninteresting grandson and daughter - why were they so uncaring and absent? And doesn't that really reflect on life and relationships in general? 

I found a wonderful short synopsis of the book on the New York Review of Books page: 

"On a rainy Sunday afternoon in January, the recently widowed Mrs. Palfrey moves to the Claremont Hotel in South Kensington. “If it’s not nice, I needn’t stay,” she promises herself, as she settles into this haven for the genteel and the decayed. “Three elderly widows and one old man . . . who seemed to dislike female company and seldom got any other kind” serve for her fellow residents, and there is the staff, too, and they are one and all lonely. What is Mrs. Palfrey to do with herself now that she has all the time in the world? Go for a walk. Go to a museum. Go to the end of the block. Well, she does have her grandson who works at the British Museum, and he is sure to visit any day.

Mrs. Palfrey prides herself on having always known “the right thing to do,” but in this new situation she discovers that resource is much reduced. Before she knows it, in fact, she tries something else.

Elizabeth Taylor’s final and most popular novel is as unsparing as it is, ultimately, heartbreaking."

Enough said. It was beautifully written, sometimes painful, often insightful and altogether a bit close to home.

And on we go to the next book, which we changed for November. It is now The Briar Club by Kate Quinn. We felt it was time for a change in tone and this one came highly recommended. We will meet at my house on November 24 at 6:30 pm. 

At that time we can decide on a process, or a range of them to select books for 2026, there were lots of great ideas on how, including a google doc to keep track of ideas! Here is Ashley's email that posed a few options:

1) Since it sounds like people generally like the idea of reading some of the Christmas book exchange books but not necessarily all of them, what would people think about maybe sending out brief descriptions of all of the books afterwards and everyone can vote Y or N on each book, and we read all of the ones that have at least X% yes votes? (not sure what X should be). I can set up an online poll to track results if that would be helpful. 

When we were talking about periodically picking a particular genre to read one month, were we thinking that we'd choose a book in that genre, or that it would be like the childhood favorite night where we just come prepared to discuss one of our favorite books in the genre? I think either could be fun. 

3) We were also talking about a better way to keep track of everyone's book recommendations, so I started a Google sheet that everyone should be able to edit, and added an initial entry as an example. (I created a book club folder also, so you should be able to add other documents if we think of other things we want to put in there.) Do you think this will work? Here's the link to the folder: 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hFQYOwfSlSZZP88ZXSbEYiN-tfHJw_ef?usp=drive_link

See you all then! 

The Elephant Keeper - sad and well written

 We had a lovely time at Carol's to discuss The Elephant Keeper by Christopher Nicholson, an historic novel, set in England in the 1700's. It was a good turnout and we had as usual a great time talking about this interesting novel, part fiction, part meditation on exactly who is an enlightened being in this era, a discussion we might indeed still have. 

That being said, it was not universally loved, and most found it a bit too sad. Still, a good choice and an interesting time and place. It did spur another discussion about how we select our books and if there is a way to mix it up more in the future. 

Several years ago we moved to reading the books from the Christmas list, which has worked fairly well but there are always titles we can't bring ourselves to read. For example, my choice was by Neil Gaiman, and none of us want to talk him on in his current circumstances. 

One idea was to have a "genre" night. We can pick a genre like mystery or romance (please no!) and we can either decide on a book or have everyone choose their own in that genre to discuss. That worked so well with our children's book night, maybe it would be fun. We could pull the genre out of a hat to make it interesting. 

We could also pull titles out of a hat, to mix it all up. Any other ideas? I'd love to hear them! 

Our October meeting is on the 27th, we will meet at Julie Joyce's (thank you!) and the book is Mrs. Palfrey at The Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor. (Not the actress.) This is a wonderful author that I found through an intriguing podcast called "Backlisted". It is a crusty bunch of English book people but I regularly get great ideas when I listen. 

Our November meeting is on the 24th and the book is The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau. Location TBD but I am happy to host if convenient for us all. 

See you all soon! 

The Phantom Tollbooth is just wonderful

Welcome back to Karen Wimbish, who is one of our original book club members, from back in 2007! Hard to believe it has been this long, and now we have four of our original five members in the fold. So great! 

Many thanks are due this week, starting with Lacey who suggested this lovely book that many of us had not read as children. Now I want to give it to everyone I know with children, it is so heartwarming and uplifting and so imaginative in its use of language. In fact, I am recommending it or giving it to everyone I know with children.

We had a delightful discussion too! We all had our favorite characters which we discussed at length (I think Milo won but the watchdog was close) and our favorite "activity" in the book. I happened to love the doldrums, but there was lots to like. 

The highlight of this book, of course was its application of language. I am still laughing about the conveyance "that goes without saying" and the the funny squires who added multiple synonyms for every word used. 

Of course, all our lives are better with Rhyme and Reason and mine certainly is too, now that Milo has returned them to our worlds. 

Thanks also to Ashley for hosting, lovely! There is never a shortage of great cakes at Ashley's. It is also great to meet a new dog who has some manners, unlike my new dog who does not. 

Our next book is The Elephant Keeper by Christopher Nicolson. I think we are at Carole's, but maybe she can confirm. September 22 at 6:30, in any case. 

See you all then!

Our Childhood Favorites! What a fun night!

 Thanks to everyone who came to discuss their favorite books from childhood, what a fun night we had and there were so many interesting titles to discuss including why they were so meaningful. Some of us also had interesting reflections on our feelings about the books now - mostly good!

Many thanks to Wendy, who hosted and as usual had a wonderful set up for us all, we are a lucky group! 

Interestingly, some themes came up across these very diverse titles. Little girls were given intelligence, power and agency over their lives, little boys could do things otherwise frowned upon (like be friends with little girls) and adults were either expendable or non-existent. Dreams of our youth, I guess. 

Here is the list of our choices and who picked it, chime in if you want to make some comments on why and what you think now. 

Sally Graham - Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren. Oh to be a 9 year old girl, living alone with a chest of gold pieces. The epitome of girl power. Also one of my favorites. 

Kathy  - A Separate Peace by John Knowles. Young people learning who they are, an eternal theme.

Mary  - All the Nancy Drew mysteries, who didn't love them? The girl is the smart hero again and again. Caroline Keene seems to be the primary author but there were 56 of them, so maybe she had help. 

Karin Walker - The World Book Encyclopedia, which I also loved. Who needs a plot when you have A to Z?

Celia - The Wonderful Trip to the Mushroom Planet by Eleanor Cameron. I just loved this book, maybe because it was one of the first I got from my book subscription in the 2nd grade. 

Lacey - A Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. Enough of us hadn't read this that it is our August book. Thanks Lacey! 

Maggie - Winnie the Pooh. Enough said. Maggie brought the copy her father gave her! 

Julie Joyce - The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The story was wonderful, overwhelming the rather flat ending. Luckily no one remembers the ending, just how lovely the story was. 

Jean - Heidi by Joanna Spyrie. I will never forget the scene with her grandfather toasting bread and cheese over the fireplace. What a fabulous book. I wanted to move to Switzerland for years. 

Wendy - The Secret Garden but Julie had dibs. It was Julie talking about The Secret Garden that brought us this fun idea, and revisit of the perceptions of our youth. So fun. 

Fiona - Charlotte's Web by E.B White. Could there be a more iconic children's book than this one? A best friendship between a spider and a pig, both destined for a different kind of end, and so lovingly portrayed. Somehow E.B. White's pig was far more appealing that the ones I have met. 

Ashley - Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame. A toad, a mole, a badger and a rat. Somehow they are cute, despite being rodents. And isn't that, along with Charlotte's Web, a message in and of itself, that we find love and belonging where we give it. 

And so on we go! Our next meeting is August 25 at 6:30 at Ashley's. You should have gotten a calendar invitation so if you didn't, let me know and I will add you to the list. As mentioned, the book is The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. 

See you all there! What a great group we have!

Dictionary of Lost Words - interesting!

 Thank you to Sally Ashburn for hosting at her absolutely lovely home, it was just great! And we had a short but interesting talk about The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams. It starts with the early years of creating the Oxford English Dictionary, an effort of gargantuan proportions at the time, run by a collection of professorial men, focused on the words used in written language - by men. 

Among them all, Esme, the daughter of one of the men selecting and defining words, grows up literally at the feet of the activity and is smitten with words, so much so that she takes them for her own collection. That finally catches up with her when the word "bondmaid" is found to be missing from the OED, pointed out by a reader, and all suspicion goes to Esme. 

As it turns out, she does have the missing word in her private box of words. That word, and her relationship with the housemaid Lizzie, lead her to find her own words, this ignored by men, used by women, that define their lives. 

Interesting, fun to read, historical, good! It had an interesting perspective, a new take on who gets to read the history, or in this case, the language. Not our best option, not our worst, it was very readable. 

And so on to our next book which is The Widow Clicquot by Tilar Mazzeo. This is an amazing, inspirational story about an indomitable woman who accomplished the all but impossible for her time, being a successful entrepreneur. 

We are scheduled for March 10, at 6:30 pm. My notes say we will be at Wendy's but I will confirm. 

The April book is Lessons by Ian McEwan for those who want to read ahead. See you all in March!

James was a really good book

It turns out that all the book reviewers and book prize judges were right, Percival Everett's James was really really good.  We had a great discussion about it, and it seemed to capture most if not all of us. One interesting thing (to me at least) was that the people who listened to the book liked it just as much as the people who read it. The dialogue would seem hard to follow to me but I was assured that the recording was amazing. 

The use of language as a tool of survival was brilliant. The overt use of "slave dialect" (my term) to avoid provoking those in power and the way James gradually abandoned its use added a lot to the understanding of his own character growth as the book went on. 

Many of us did not remember much of the original story line of Huck Finn. Lacey said this book tracked pretty closely, and in this content the plot line seemed pretty ridiculous, or at least improbable. That wasn't the point here of course, it was all about someone finding and using their own agency after being denied that agency for a long time. 

The violence that James wrought on his former captors was much less troublesome that perhaps it should have been, but after so much injustice with no recourse, perhaps it was only to be expected. Frankly, it was hard to root against him.

So all in all, this was really a great choice and well worthy of having had three people bring it to the Christmas swap! Thanks to Margo for hosting us, we certainly ate well and had a lovely time. 

On we go, our next book is Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams. We are lucky enough to go to Sally Ashburn's lovely house with a beautiful view of a lake! In order to fully enjoy, Sally has agreed for us to come Sunday, February 9 at 1 pm instead of the 10th in the evening. It seemed to work for the group at Margo's, weigh in if this doesn't (or does) work for you. 

See you all then!