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!