The Sandcastle Book Club has published its reading list for 2024-25. It appears below. If your book club has a new list, please send it to me, and I will put it on the blog. Sandcastle Book Club book list for 2024-2025 September 9, 2024 The Frozen River, Ariel Lawhon—The fictionalized story of real life midwife and general practitioner Martha Ballard, who lived in colonial
From Becki McSwain–And in follow-up to Reading Around’s post on Jimmy Fallon’s bookclub, Annie Bot is a great read for those who wonder how we’ll be integrating robots with humans. It’s multi-layered and ethically thought-provoking. Word of caution: it’s very sexual. So if you find that offensive and you don’t want to skip over those parts, you might want to pass on this book. On
Book Clubs are not a recent phenomenon. They go back as far as the 17th Century. But this post is not about the history of book clubs in general. Instead, I am featuring Celebrity Book Clubs! The undisputed ‘queen’ of celebrity book clubs is Oprah Winfrey. Now we have Reading with Jenna and Reese’s Book Club. In fact, a recent article in the NYT about
(Taken from a Mental Floss quiz, May 13, 2024) Sometimes authors begin writing a book without knowing exactly what the title will be once they finish. They may give the book a ‘working title.’ Other times, the author’s editor will suggest that the title be changed in order to better describe the subject or sell the book. This quiz is a shortened version of one
People often use the word ‘awe’ is ways that don’t do it justice. For example, we may say to someone, “That was just awesome!” when what we witnessed was that person doing something exemplary but not necessarily really ‘awesome’. Young people seem to use the term quite a bit. Another expression we may say is, “I am just in awe of the way you make
FICTION WINNER Night Watch, by Jayne Anne Phillips–A story about a mother and a daughter surviving war and its aftermath. HISTORY WINNER No Right to an Honest Living by Jacqueline Jones–An examination of the American West and its transition during the mid 19th Century. BIOGRAPHY WINNER King: A Life, by Jonathan Eig–A biography of a well known man based on newly released materials. MEMOIR OR
The first book a friend recommended is Absolution by Alice McDermott. I enjoyed the book but kept wondering what the “absolution” was, who the absolution was for. The book is set in Viet Nam in 1963. The main characters are American women whose husbands work in the country. My friend liked it because, “the writing style is lovely, the story takes place in my young
Julia and James are both family names that show up frequently on our family tree. Don’t worry. I don’t plan to bore you with the details. These names are also the titles of two separate books that have recently been published. We can start with the one that has been getting the most attention. James, by Percival Everett, is a reimagining of Huckelberry Finn but
This photo was taken at the Morgan Library in New York City. Amazing amount of books, right? I didn’t get a picture of J. P. Morgan’s office, but I did go into the room and imagined Belle da Costa Greene standing in front of his desk. It must have been daunting for her at first. If you haven’t already, read The Personal Librarian, written by
I am aware that the books I often feature are Women’s Literary Fiction or Historical Fiction. I am not apologizing at all. I realize, however, that I could broaden the scope of the blog. This entry, therefore, will cite four new non-fictions that you probably only want to read if you want to know more about: The Bible, Baseball, Ballet or the Civil War. Actually,
